One week closer to Christmas...

and I'm getting excited, after spending a lovely weekend with the wonderful people with whom I will be spending Christmas. 

My friend Miriam from Australia (we became friends while we were both living and working at Eau Vive in France in 2005) was in Paris for the weekend during her trip to Europe.  By coincidence, Jason (another guy who worked and lived at Eau Vive with us in 2005) and his wife Rebekah (both from the States) are also in Paris this year doing the same thing as me.  Our other mutual friend Laure (French) lives in Paris now too.  So, a reunion 6 years on was in order.  All was set for a reunion Saturday night.

I headed off to Paris Saturday morning.  I had some shopping to do and spent the afternoon with Rebekah, we were wandering towards the Centre Georges Pompidou, which I still haven't seen yet, but got distracted by the pretty christmas lights.  While heading towards the location of these pretty lights we spotted a little wine shop that was offering free wine tasting.  So we popped in for a bit. We had a fantastic time.  Nearly two hours later we had sampled a dozen or so wines.  I have never tasted wines so good!! We tried 3 cognacs (aged 10, 15, 25 years old), the sweetest Pinot Gris, Rieslings and Gwertz's from Alsace, and some sweet red wines.  We also tried a 1969 and a 1959 wine.  Just beautiful and you could taste so distinctly all the different flavours.

Saturday evening, after a change of plans, we ended up at Laure's place where Ian (our Irish friend who was also at Eau Vive with us in 2005) turned up as a surprise guest to our little reunion.  It was great.

Eau Vive crew reunited
Jason, Me, Miriam, Laure, Ian

Sunday was spent making the most of the fact that it was the first Sunday of the month, and all the monuments are free, by going to see St Chapelle et La Concergerie.  St Chapelle is an impressive chapel with amazing stained glass windows and La Concergerie is most famous for the fact it was one of the main prisons during the Reign of Terror during the Revolution, and many people such as Danton, Robespierre and Marie-Antoinette spent their last days here before being sent to the guillotine.

Then we sought refuge from museum fatigue and the pouring rain in a Salon du The, where we enjoyed mouth-watering tea and treats.

I was having such a great time hanging with friends in Paris that I hadn't got many of the things I needed to done, so I spent Monday morning doing some shopping, seeing the Christmas Markets on the Champs Elysees, then wandered through the streets past some things I wanted to see such as the Elysees Palace (where Sarkozy et co live) and the shop window displays of the big department stores Printemps and Galerie La Fayette. 

I was going to head back in the afternoon and then Miriam mentioned she wanted to see a movie, one I wanted to see too, but that was no longer playing in L'Aigle.  So, it was off to the movies to see Intouchables - highly recommended!  One good thing about L'Aigle (and there is more than one good thing about L'Aigle) is that the movies are half the price of the movies in Paris!

More time chilling out in Paris and then it was 7pm and I really needed to get back to L'Aigle so I got the last train back (thought at one point I was going to miss it - more running for the train).  I'll be spending Christmas with these people (minus Ian) and I'm very much looking forward to it.  Less than two weeks until the Christmas holidays.  My flatmate and I are hosting a Christmas party at our flat this weekend and the following weekend I'm off to stay with Laure in the South of France for Christmas and Nathalie in Toulouse for New Year's.

Joyeuses Fetes everybody!