Russian Ballerinas and Christmas Cookies

I can't ever get enough of tights, pirhouettes, and tutus. I've been wanting to go see a ballet at the Opera Garnier but turns out the tickets there sell out like hotcakes! Who knew? You can go to a ballet in SF day of with no problem. But my Irish friend, Sinead, and I scalped some tickets and landed seats on Monday night. 20 euros a pop. Not bad considering I was in a box right above the orchestra.

That's a gargoyle-like statue to my right, blocking 1/4 of the stage. But man oh man, the ballet was gorgeous. The themes and costumes were super unique. It's a Russian ballet - titled Raymonda - and it had Russian, Moorish I think, and Spanish influences. Super cool to see the different stage sets and costumes for each culture.

I also couldn't get anough of the audience's surroundings. Just so beautiful!


And thought it was pretty rad that we each had our own box seats with our own door and red velvet chairs to sit in. The entryway to our boxes even had a mirror for primping :-)


Then Saturday night I had a little fête de Noël at my place with wassail, Christmas cookies and chants de Noël - karaoke style. These are the other language assistants at my high school. Betty - on the left - is the German assistant. And Maria - in the middle - is from Chile and is the Spanish assistant. They both live at the high school and are fun to have post-lunch tea with before classes begin again.

Only 1 1/2 more weeks til I head home for Christmas. I'm excited to see you all, family and friends!

In closing, I'd like to pilfer some pictures that my friend, Jay, took while visiting Paris. I wasn't exactly with him while these pictures were taken, but feel it's ok to borrow seeing as how I live here and he was just visiting. And he doesn't read my blog :-)

Gargoyle atop Notre Dame Cathedral

Golden Gates of Versailles

Oh and note that I've changed up some vacation plans a bit - changes marked in green. Things are still flexi, but the April vacation is firm. Things on the agenda: Castle on a remote island, cro-magnon caves, canoe ride down the river, Normandy beaches, and a hot air balloon ride.