JOYEUX NOEL!!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!!! I love you all so so so much, and I can't wait to see everyone in six months!

Tonight we're celebrating with my host dad's family, and tomorrow we'll be with my host mom's family, so it'll be a little crazy, and then I'm moving on either Saturday or Sunday and I'm not anywhere near close to being done packing, so that will be an adventure within itself :)

I *did* promise pictures from Paris, so I'll just put some of those down there. We were lucky enough (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, we walked a LOT) to get a lot of snow while we were there, so we were always very bundled up. I'm hoping to get back there before my exchange is over, there's so much more to see that I didn't get to, and I want to explore the Louvre properly and throughly, and I also want to go to Disneyland Paris. Who doesn't love some Disneyland?

To see all of these pictures in high-res, go to my Flickr page, the link should be on the side of this page.

My host sisters, Valériane and Valentine in front of the Eiffel Tower.

A blurry Eiffel Tower at night. I've been obsessed with blurring pictures of lights lately. Please forgive me :)

Me and Valentine in front of Notre Dame and their lovely Christmas tree :) We went on a Sunday and got to see the last part of their Mass, it was so cool.

Yes, I am obsessed with taking pictures of my feet wherever I go, too. But this one's actually cool, the star I'm standing on marks the geographical center of Paris.

View of the Champs Elysées from the top of the L'Arc du Triomph. I don't do too well with heights.

The entrance to The Louvre. Did you know there's also a STARBUCKS and an APPLE STORE in the Louvre?! That place is seriously heaven.

Stained glass windows in Notre Dame. I love the stars on the ceiling.

This was in some department store that I can't remember the name of.

Please go check out the rest on my Flickr! It's under the set "Paris", of course :)

Also, I apologize for not sending out the package like I said I would. I'll send it when I'm with my next host family. IT WILL GET TO YOU EVENTUALLY, I promise.

Love ALWAYS and Merry Christmas, everyone!!

- Alyce

I'll be going to Paris tomorrow with my host family.

Hey, mom, do you remember a thirteen year old Alyce who sat crying in your old blue van because I didn't think I would ever go to Paris again? Hahahah. Oh, memories.

I'm sending a package out to my family when I get back on Monday, and hopefully on Tuesday I'll go see Avatar, and then Wednesday is my French test with Rotary. Wish me luck!!

I'll update this when I get back with a ton of pictures!

xx,

Alyce

Whoops . . .

I do believe I have mentioned that I am a terrible blogger. Sorry . . .

So, this week was great, but it would've been more amazing if I didn't wake up yesterday with a terrible cold. It's mostly gone right now (thankfully), but I still feel kind of out of breath in my chest and stuff. Hopefully that will be gone in two hours or so because I'm going to the Liège Standard game! Standard is the soccer team of Liège, and I'm really excited about it, and in an ideal world we will not be sitting in the cold and it will not rain, but it's Belgium, and of course it will.

This week was really great though. Tuesday was St. Nicholas at my school, and all of the seniors dressed up in costume and we threw candy at the underclassmen and then we all went into the gym for a big assembly thing, and that wasn't as much fun. On Wednesday we went to Germany with Rotary, and we found a Starbucks :) We were there for a Christmas market, but Starbucks was the priority, for sure.

Well, I don't really know what else to say right now except that I am tired and have a terribly stuffed up nose and just want to curl into my sock drawer and sleep for days. Or, maybe that nice, triangle pillow from home. I miss that pillow. It would make life so much easier right now. I tried improvising one by placing a bunch of jackets and cardigans on top of each other and sleeping on that, and it seemed to work, but it's not the same.

Love always,

Alyce