Christmas in Chicago

For those of you who are on "regular time," Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! (For those of you who, like me, have to work today, Happy Monday!) For those of you still with me on "blog time," we last left off on Merry Christmas! :)

After returning from London, we hosted a post-Christmas celebration with my family in Chicago. Our tree was still up and looking just as Christmas-y as the day we decorated it, because it is a fake. (As an aside, I know a lot of people are totally anti-fake, and I love the look and smell of a real tree. BUT we were set to be out of town for two whole weeks over the holiday season, and the risks of serious mess and/or fire were risks we were not willing to take. PLUS the fake tree was got is beautiful with real-looking branches at the ends. AND it was pre-lit, which means my forearms and I are pretty much in love with it.)


See the real-looking curvature of the needles? I <3 our fake tree!


Everyone did a lovely job wrapping this year.


And most of all, we just enjoyed being together. Or at least I did.


It's possible Patrick enjoyed the cool new sunglasses that Chris got for him more than being together, though I'm sure he enjoyed the togetherness as well.


My mom definitely enjoyed the togetherness. And posing with her present (she's so good at it!). Though she's a little jealous of how totally awesome I am at wrapping gifts. Of course, she taught me everything I know...


Next time: we make some progress toward 2009 in Florida...
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Christmas in London (Part 5)

We returned to London (possibly the only modern city in the world with working phone booths) in time to celebrate Christmas and do a little shopping.

If our phone booths were this cute, we probably would have kept them as well.

We tried to do a little shopping on the 24th, but apparently London shop-keepers didn't seem to care about selling stuff, notwithstanding the current economic conditions. Like this shop, whose keeper kicked us out when we tried to walk in, even though it was 1:50pm and the shop was set to close at 2:00.


We were able to stop by the wonderful book-binding store that Maggie had scoped out for me and pick up some beautiful bookcloth that I cannot wait to use. So it wasn't all a loss.

After shopping, we headed to Maggie's home for Christmas Eve dinner and some gift opening. The whole gang was there. Alex (who, incidentally, loves it when I post his picture on the blog):


(Ha ha. He actually hates it!)

Graham (who took a little nap and looked fabulous while doing so):


And Maggie:


The presents were beautifully wrapped.


And we had a wonderful dinner.


Followed by a very pretty trifle.


And me? I was there too, though I didn't get a picture of myself, until I took this distorted and fairly unattractive one while waiting for the tube back to where we were staying.


Before heading to bed, Alex and I went to the church across the street from where we were staying for midnight mass. It was beautiful.


And the tree was one of the only traditionally decorated (i.e. not covered in tinsel and other decor that should have been outlawed after the 1970s) trees we saw in London.


One of these days, I'll be caught up to current pictures, but as long as I'm not: Merry Christmas! ;)

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Christmas in London (Part 4) - More Christmas in Paris

We had a lot to accomplish on our second day in Paris before we had to be on our 9pm train back to London, so we got up early to tackle the town. Really early. Like we-woke-up-in-the-19th-century early. See?


OK, not really, but I love that Paris affords the opportunity to take a picture of a city in 2008 that looks like it could have been taken generations ago. The boats on the Seine just scream for sepia tone. Don't you think?

Here's what it actually looked like as the clouds started to dissipate in the morning.


And after the clouds left, beautiful blue sky remained and the monuments were in view. Alex and I got a special kick out of the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, given that we've seen its twin at the Luxor Temple as well as the "gift" King Louis Philippe gave to Muhammed Ali in exchange for it - an iron clock, now at the Muhammed Ali mosque in Cairo, that does not work now and never did.


Did I mention how blue the sky was?


Our first destination was Les Invalides - home of Napoleon's tomb and the Musée de l'Armée (the military museum), which we thought Alex would get a kick out of. I simply think the main chapel is a beautiful building.


Under the gorgeous main dome lies Napoleon as well as a lot of Napoleon's stuff, like handwritten notes, letters, books, silverware, etc.


Sharing the space with Napoleon were some other war heroes like Ferdinand Foch (the Allied Supreme Commander in World War I). While I took a picture of the tomb straight-on, I like the first picture I caught from behind a curtain alongside it. It's like I caught a glimpse of these soldiers, carrying their fallen hero.


After learning all about World War II from Alex, our expert tour guide for the morning (too bad there isn't a math museum - that's about the only place I could be useful), we had lunch at the cute, but maybe overly-decorated, bistro Le Pré aux Clercs.


More importantly, our lunch spot put us right across the street from a Ladurée, purveyor of some of the best macarons in Paris. They were like air and while I was full from lunch, I still found room for these little delights!

The pastries and the macarons

After some post-lunch shopping, still stuffed with bistro fare and macarons, we made our way to the Musée d'Orsay, where Graham resumed his role as museum guide.


The Musée d'Orsay is housed in a former railway station, and its unique (for a museum, not for a railway station) layout makes for a beautiful backdrop for the art inside.


At the top of the museum is a lovely impressionist gallery with windows that look out onto the city and views of the statues that sit along the roof line, which truly enchanted me.


Despite our full stomachs as we entered the museum, we were hungry when we left. Alex bought us crêpes, so I let him have a couple bites of mine. He was very happy about that, because my crêpe was awesome.


From there we made our way back toward Saint-Germain-des-Prés and made a quick stop inside the church before heading to my favorite restaurant in Paris for dinner.

Inside Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Oh, I was so excited about dinner. When I last went to Paris, in 2002, my friend Ellen had sent me to this restaurant, and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to go back. It's tasty. It's reasonable. It has a great story. It generally has a line of Parisians outside the door (always a good sign, see my thoughts on lined-up locals here). Oh, and you only have one option for dinner (steak frites), so the only decisions you have to make are how you want your meat cooked and which red wine you want to drink with your dinner.

I was so excited.

Since our train was at 9pm, there was some debate about whether we should eat at Le Relais de Venise on our first or second night in Paris. Fortunately, I found a review of the restaurant here that told me that the restaurant would open at 6pm, so we planned to head to the restaurant for an early dinner, pick up our bags at the hotel (where they had been left for the day), and make our way to the Gare du Nord to catch our train.

Only the restaurant doesn't open at 6pm. (The New York Times lied to me, people!) It opens at 7pm. And just when I was about to throw myself into the middle of the Champs-Élysées, Alex, Maggie and Graham offered to save the day. Alex and Graham ran to the Métro (it was rush-hour and the streets were totally jammed) to grab our bags at the hotel, while Maggie kept me calm and helped hold our place as first in line for the 7pm opening.

It was a little nerve-wracking. As 7pm approached, the line stretched around the corner and down the street. The restaurant would likely only seat full parties, and Alex and Graham had a lot of Paris to cover to make it to the hotel and back in time. Maggie and I devised plans to deal with the situation if the doors opened before they returned. Should we explain the situation? Hmm, our French probably isn't that great. We'll eat without Alex and Graham? Yeah, that wouldn't be cool. And then eureka! We knew what we had to do. We would cry. A lot.

All I can say is thank goodness there were about 5 locks on the door to the restaurant. As the hostess started to open the door, our guys were not in sight. But as she turned the last lock, Alex and Graham appeared in the distance, luggage in hand. And all was right with the world.


Now all that was left was to pray that dinner was worth all that trouble. I would have felt awful if people were unhappy! But it was good and aside from a few knife fights ;) , we had a lovely time.


AND we made our train back to London. Click here to read more!

Christmas in London (Part 3) - Christmas in Paris

We decided to mix things up on this trip to London by heading to Paris for a couple days. I hadn't been to Paris since I went in 2002 with my friend Kate, so I was excited to see it again.

Alex, Graham and Maggie were in attendance...


...and me too!


Our (sort of) first stop was the Louvre, which was picturesque, even if it was a gray day.


At the Louvre, we saw an exhibit on Andrea Mantegna, which I would not have come close to appreciating without Graham's help. (Graham is like those recordings you can buy at museums that explain the art to you. Except he's human. And funny. And you can ask him questions. And he tells you when things are beautiful, so you can nod in approval and say "yes, that is really beautiful" like you know what you're talking about. And the Parisians gawk and wonder how this American chick is, like, so totally cultured. Meanwhile, you move onto the next thing hanging on the wall and admire - probably aloud, because you're loving this - the luminance rendered by the artist's brushwork, because Graham just told you to.) Walking around museums with Graham is great in my book.

After the Louvre (well, actually after and before the Louvre, but that's a story not worth telling), we had lunch at the top of the Centre Pompidou, which was both delicious and beautiful.

The Centre Pompidou

The restaurant
(if you look carefully, you can see the Christmas trees coated in
a tragically thick coat of red spray paint outside the windows)

The restaurant has fantastic views of Paris, and while this picture does not do it justice, even on the cloudy day we visited, we were able to see all the sights from our table.

The Eiffel Tower was visible from where I was sitting, but you
can only make it out in this photo if you click on it to enlarge it!

After our daytime adventures, we rested up and then made our way out on the town. Before dinner, we walked across town to visit some friends of Graham, and I snapped a few photos along the way.

I'll write about our second day in Paris next time. For now, here are some pictures I took of the city at night.

La Tour Eiffel

The ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde

Avenue des Champs-Elysées from Place de la Concorde
L'Arc de Triomphe is just visible at the end

La Place Vendôme

L'Hôtel de Ville

Le Métro

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