Mario? and SOLDES

L'Epiphanie
January 6th marks l'epiphanie, a day in which everyone eats galette des rois (king's cake) in celebration of the day when the 3 magi came to visit baby Jesus and offer him gifts. My mom, not really sure how she got involved with the holiday since it's mainly just French, made us a King's Cake every January 6th all growing up. It ranks as one of my top 3 favorite cakes of all time. So I was pretty excited when i saw every patisserie in France overflowing with them come January 1st.

Alice, Julia, and I got together Tuesday night to celebrate. The thing about king's cakes is you have to get them for the exact number of people that will be partaking. I wasn't really sure how many of us would got together and got one for 6-8 people. Inside the galette des rois a little fève (ceramic figurine) is hidden. Whoever gets the piece with the fève is king for the day. Because of my people count miscalculation, we each HAD to eat 3 pieces before the fève surfaced - a little Mario Bro. :-) All hail Alice as queen!

Bal Des Rois
Our stake also had a little celebration - a multi-generational dance or "ball" of the kings. I'm just going to say now, that it was perhaps the most ridiculously fun dance I've ever been to. Definitely a first. The DJ played music that ranged from the 1950's to 2006. Don't think there were too many top 40's in there ;) and from the genre of spiritual to romantic to hip-hop to country... There happened to be a big projector screen on the stage that was displaying music videos as we danced. When this one came on, I was dying. Click on it. You HAVE to see it.

Wow, right!?! Evidently this came out 2 years ago. x 10 maybe? Now picture a 12 year old boy rocking out to this, encircled with the whole stake cheering him on. His moves were identical to Jey Jey's. Some practicing in front of the mirror in his bedroom prior to the dance had definitely gone on.

Then imagine Will Smith singing the next song with a woman in her 40's dropping to her knees getting jiggy with it, again surrounded by the whole stake. She literally had her legs bent with her whole body leaning back on the floor. I'm guessing 45 years old. She was followed by 2 oldie songs in which the parent couples showed us their swing moves and big smiles as they relived the days. Don't know that I've ever seen such a melange of dancing moves within two hour's time. It was hilarious and really fun, that is until the DJ played Marie Osmond's version of How Great Thou Art for the next slow song. For real!

And then I guess the DJ ran out of music videos to display up on the screen, so for about 30 minutes he showed a tourism video encouraging everyone to go to Dubai. An interesting backdrop to salsa, hip hop, and oldies music. The night ended with a square dancing song. And I'm sure everyone of all ages, nationalities, and music tastes felt a little bit satisfied with the ball ;-)

a little prince getting jiggy with it

SOLDES make for a perfect Saturday
Saturday was independent, self-indulgent bliss. Day's events: shopping the soldes in Paris and meeting up with friends to see Twilight at 8:00pm.

I had checked out the locations in paris for Zara, H&M, Sephora, and United Colors of Bennetton that I thought would be less hectic - seeing as how it was a Saturday and first week of the Soldes. The soldes are these huges sales where things are 50% off and are regulated by the government so they only happen starting January 7th, til the end of January.


And my favorite, which proves the absolute versatility of the tube dress.


So I just meandered down the streets in the vicinity of place de l'opera, popping into all of the stores as the window displays caught my interest. Grabbed a barbecue poulet sandwich panini when I passed a little cafe and my stomach told me to go in. Wandered past a little cordonnerie which was amazingly open past 6pm and stopped in to get some shoe polish for my leather boots which are suffering with all of this winter snow. Experienced a chocolate craving as I saw Leonidas, so I got a couple truffles and such. Had a few extra minutes before meeting my friends, so I entered Printemps which I'd never been in before and, voila, found a cool watch.

A new watch has been on my get list for 3 years now, so this was no small find. The mug is from Lina who stayed with me for the past month and kept giving me all these gifts. This one's from Disneyland Europe. Notice Mickey's speaking in French.

And then after seeing this poster about 10 times on my way to meet Betty, Sebastien, and Matias for the movie
- it's plastered all over the metro - I satisfied the urge. My second time seeing the movie. The boys were pretty polite too. No groans or rolled eyes when Betty and I both raved about it afterwards. I can't say they shared the excitement though. Evidently there is no good French translation for "cheesy".

A day of just shopping and movies. Life can be pretty good sometimes!

PS - Is it just me or are there TONS of good movies coming out of late? My list is huge, and they're all coming out within the next month here. I'm writing them down so I can remember to go see them.

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Australia
- Push
- LOL (french)
- Something about kings but I forgot the title, it's french
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Defiance (Les Insurges)
- Revolutionary Road (Noces Rebelles)