Carvnival

The Carnival is a celebration in France that is most famous in Nice. It differs in each town, but there are some things that stay the same. For example, there is always a big parade with floats, confetti, streamers, and the like. This year, the theme for the Carnival in Aix was Tim Burton movies. He directed stuff like Edward Scissor-Hands and the new Alice in Wonderland, so as you can imagine, the costumes were amazing. Each float was decorated beautifully, and there were people playing music and dancing in the parade as well. It moved pretty slowly, but it was fun to watch. Some floats had made up a routine. Everybody had big bags of confetti that they threw at everyone. Even the bystanders had put on costumes. The Cours Mirabeau, which is the center street, was littered with streamers and venders selling cotton candy. Even the statue of Roi René was decorated in blue.
     The Carnival used to always be held before Lent, kind of like Mardi Gras. However, as France is a 'nonreligious' country, it can be held at any time. Ours was actually during Lent. I believe that the Carnival is held in most cities in France, at varying times of the year. It was fun to get covered in confetti and watch the happy people dance by in their hilarious costumes.

Chinese New Year

I remember that Chinese New Year was always a bit of a deal at my old school, but nothing special. Little did I know what I was in store for here. I didn't even realize that it was Chinese New Year until it came up in class and my French teacher told us how it was the start of the year of the rabbit. We had that class right before lunch, where they had done a lot. The whole cafeteria had been decorated with fans and decorations, the meal was something we thought might have been fried rice, and the servers had even dressed up a bit. So that was cool. My parents decided that we were going to go out to dinner to celebrate it, but they didn't want to catch all the crowds. So we decided to celebrate it the next night instead. We found a nice little restaurant with Chinese food, and we went there. There was some mention of a reservation later that night, so we were going to have to eat quickly. When we finally got out, there was a bit of a commotion in the street: some people were dressing up and putting decorations on the outside of the window. We stayed there for a while to see what was going to happen. Finally, we were rewarded. They had two Chinese dragon costumes, and a little man costume as well. There was some cymbals banging in the background, and they did a little dance. I must say, the dragons were a bit scary when they got near you. It was very cool.

King's Day

King's Day, a.k.a. L'Epiphany, took place on January 6th. This is another one of those celebrations that I never really paid much attention to until we arrived here. It was just a few days after we had arrived here, so we were still a bit disoriented. However, we decided to get the cake and celebrate the traditional way. According to the tradition, you buy a special cake called the Kings' Cake which has a small toy hidden in it that's supposed to bring good luck. In French, they call it La Galette Des Rois. Then, while someone cuts it, the youngest child gets under the table and says who each piece is for. It might seem a bit weird, but it's supposedly because it's such a great honor to get the toy that they want to make sure that nobody cheats. The youngest in our family is Audrey, and my mom was cutting the cake. She didn't realize that the cake was supposed to be cut into equal pieces, so she started out small, and then the pieces slowly got bigger and bigger. Mom had just cut a very small piece, and we were joking above-table that Darcy would get that piece when Audrey shouted out "That piece is for Darcy." The pieces were getting rather large to accommodate the size of the cake because we had to eat it all to find the toy. The last and biggest piece ended up being for Audrey. The cake was okay, nothing great. Audrey, having the best chance of all of us, actually did end up getting the toy. Funny how statistics sometimes work out. The toy was a small porcelain baby. Audrey got to put on the crown, too. All in all, I would say that King's Day was pretty fun.

New Year's Eve in Paris

We arrived in Paris on New Year's Eve, bedraggled and tired from the plane ride. It was pitch black and freezing cold with a thick layer of fog covering everything. We caught a taxi and drove to our hotel. After wandering around the city for a while, (which my weirdo sister Darcy will cover in her own time), we ate at a restaurant called Le Palais Royal, which was the only place not chock full of reservations. Our reservation was for 7:00 pm, which is about normal French eating time, but we were the only people there besides the staff. The menu was not anything like I was used to coming from the United States. Out went the hamburgers and in went the Foie Gras and Escargot. There were three courses, and each course was a choice of weird mystery meat with some sauce and sprigs of rosemary. It did NOT help that the menu was in French. The weirdo ate escargots, and she SAID it tasted like pencil erasers with garlic and butter sauce, but I don't really want to believe that the French would eat something as gross as that.