Thanksgiving: Winter is Coming

Having an American as your flatmate, regardless of what country you're in means (as I soon found out) that Thanksgiving is going to be celebrated. Happily this simply means lots and lots of good food and friends for a dinner party. 

November 24th found me making not one but two cakes (pavlova and chocolate cake anybody?) whilst my flatmate went crazy and cooked everything in sight. I have literally never seen so much food cooked by one person in my life.

The party was a great success and we all had a lovely time, eating too much food, meeting new classmates and playing games. (Note at the table the right-hand side made up of all Colombian friends!) As it was traditional to say what you were thankful for before starting the meal, we all had a great time getting everyone to say their sentiment first in French or English and then in their native language (which meant we had a variety of Spanish, Dutch and Polish among others).

Before long my flatmate had left to go back to America and it was just me in the flat for a month. Although this might sound lonely after living with such full-on people, I very much enjoyed my peace and quiet, and slowly re-arranged the house as I wanted it. November and December passed fairly quietly for me, I went to class, my French slowly improved and I occasionally went for drinks with friends but mostly stayed toasty in my flat as the days got colder and colder (Winter is coming!) and then finally one morning I woke up and it was snowing!!!!! 

The students in my class came and went (with the exception of Emily and Jennifer) and although it was sad to say goodbye, it was always fun meeting new people from all over the world. One of the girls in my class who was English was only there for a short time as she was renovating a chalet in the mountains and simply wanted a refresher course, however we got on well and did a few things together which was great fun. As she had a car we had greater freedom than I was used to, and on her last day of class we went out for lunch in a little village in the mountains nearby. It was rather fancy and normally would be out of my price range, luckily however the lunch dish of the day was only ten euros (and a delicious risotto it was!) so we had a lovely time fine dining in this beautiful old building.