This is a screen shot of an email I received today. First off, when did Black Friday become a week?
But more importantly, how is it that a country that does not actually celebrate Thanksgiving can justify recognizing Black Friday? Many more emails like this have followed throughout the day, and not all have been limited to US companies like Amazon. Many of the European retail chains I saw on the way to work advertised "Vendredi Noir" or "Black Friday" sales in the shop window. How does this make any sort of sense!?! I bet the purist French hearts beating across the country today are seething at the incursion of the increasingly-outrageous American tradition of Black Friday. Even if it does get them 20% off.
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On a day like today, it's completely strange to be getting dressed to go to work, and not throwing on sweat pants and heading to the kitchen, or watching the parade over a few cups of coffee.
This is our first Thanksgiving here in Paris. Last year, we ate a turkey lunch at Gadsby's Tavern in Old Town before Michael drove me to the airport with all my things to fly to Paris. So today also marks a year having left DC. If I could say the year in between has been nothing but rainbows and unicorns (as my friend Jim would say), it just wouldn't be true. There have been days that we have truly struggled to adjust to life here. Today for me is one of those days. I miss the shared ritual of Thanksgiving that binds us with the millions of other Americans who are firing up the oven, roasting turkeys, baking pies, and generally eating enough food to sustain us all throughout the winter. We will have our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday and make a big party of it, so it's not like we're missing the holiday. It's just that we have an ocean between us and those crazy people we call family on a day when the United States as collective whole sits down for a feast of epic and shameful proportions before retiring back to the living room to watch football and take a nap or two. But I will say that I am extremely grateful and deeply thankful for all of my friends and family - you mean the world to me, even though we sometimes feel a world apart. And a huge thanks to that lovely, handsome man I call my husband for signing up for this crazy life we call ours. No better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than stuffing your face with delicious dim sum in Chinatown with some good friends :) I only got pictures of the other half of the table; but we enjoyed the food just as much on our end.
A few months ago, Michael told me to block off a few days over Veterans day weekend for a "mystery mini-moon" to destination unknown, as an early celebration of our first wedding anniversary. After a few days of pitiful guesswork, Michael spilled enough clues to lead me to guess that we were headed to the magical city of Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague is one of those cities that I've heard awesome things about for many many years. Apparently, I mentioned this a time or two to Michael, who is himself up for any opportunity to explore a new city. So... off we headed to the Czech Republic this past weekend for a quick but fantastic Central European adventure. With three full days to explore the city, we were extremely lucky with good weather, and spent a solid amount of time outside wandering through the streets and soaking it all in. Apparently, historic old town Prague is a UNESCO world heritage site, which is indeed well deserved. One of the interesting things we noticed right away was how much more the Czechs have embraced and accept speaking English than the French seem to have. At one point, we even heard one of the street vendors tell a customer to "speak English or make sense." Secretly, we hoped he was speaking to a Frenchman. A few highlights from our trip include:
All photos from our trip are here! Thanks to my handsome guy for making this one happen. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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