Strasbourg, or Heaven for Christmas Lovers

If you love Christmas, you must visit Strasbourg during the month of December at some point in your life. It truly is a mecca for Christmas lovers. Earlier this month, Karim and I had the good fortune of visiting Strasbourg, not just for the Christmas markets, but also to reconnect with our friend from Dartmouth, Emily DeYoung Becker. We also met Emily's charming husband, Marc, for the first time.

We arrived Friday night and spent the evening catching up with Emily and Marc at their apartment. Emily introduced us to a delicious wintery cocktail - cremant - Alsatian sparkling wine - with a dash of gingerbread liquor. It's absolutely delightful!

The next morning we headed off to picturesque downtown Strasbourg to check out a couple of the Christmas markets. We spent the day wandering from stall to stall at the markets and Emily and I each picked out a couple perfect ornaments. It was absolutely FREEZING outside, so hot wine was a must as we walked along. For lunch we tried an Alsatian specialty called tartes flambes, which are somewhat pizza-like. Very tasty indeed. Here are a couple shots from the day:

Our gracious hosts - Marc Becker & Emily DeYoung Becker

A whole bunch of ice sculptures

Emily & Karim - almost cold enough to be ice sculptures too

Lovely pastel buildings

Emily & me, sporting my conductor's hat one last time

Another gorgeous cathedral

Marc, Emily and I strike a pose

I couldn't deal with Karim making fun of my "conductor's" hat any longer, so I broke down and bought a beret. Shockingly, Karim likes it on me. What do you think?

Strasbourg is so beautiful that I couldn't stop taking photos!

When early evening rolled around, we were all pretty much frozen to the bone, so we decided to tuck in for a wine tasting before dinner. We sampled an array of white wines from Alsace and I discovered that I do like sweet wines --- as long as they're done well. During our tasting, the winery's cat decided that he'd like to cozy up on Emily's lap. Too bad she likes cats just about as much as Karim does (which is not very much at all). Her face below says it all.

Emily likes cats just about as much as Karim does

After our wine tasting but before dinner we strolled around one of the adorable small villages near Strasbourg. Unfortunately I can't remember if it was Barre or another town, but it was incredibly lovely:

A Christmas market lit up at night

After enjoying a delicious dinner together, we headed to bed on the early side, since we wanted to fit in visits to several other small towns on Sunday.

A picturesque Alsatian town, sadly I can't remember which one!

Little Liz in front of the most-photographed spot in the town

One highlight of Sunday was picking up the most delectable jam by Christine Ferber. It's to die for. We spent the rest of the day wandering through the little towns and lunching, before it was time for Karim and me to make our way back to the Ile de France. We were sad to leave Emily, Marc and Alsace in general, but we look forward to hosting Emily and Marc in the spring!

Africa Week

One of the many awesome things about INSEAD is that there's a week dedicated to a specific country or region just about every other week. Earlier in December, Africa Week made its way to the INSEAD campus. Here are some scenes from Wednesday night's dinner:

We were treated to some amazing dancing, but our three-year-old neighbor, Aletor (pictured above) stole the show from the professionals for a while. He's a multi-talented little boy and professional dancer should definitely be added to his list of future options.

Our buddy Jason gets his groove on

But the best part of Africa Week was still to come. The ever ingenious Karim located an establishment in Melun (a mere 30 minutes from Fontainebleau) that rents out camels and related accoutrements. So, Karim brought Negus the camel on campus for North Africa day (Thursday). Friends and family, meet Negus:

Needless to say, Negus was a big hit with the students. That's my boy, Karim!

10 Things I Love About Christmas

Those of you who know me well know that I'm a bit of a Christmas nut. Here are a couple of my favorite things...

1. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
• This is when it all starts. Watching the parade signals the beginning of the holiday season for me. After the parade, listening to Christmas carols is fair game in my book. Which brings me to number 2
2. Christmas Carols
• I love almost all Christmas carols, but two are my very favorites. The first is O Holy Night because Pooh's voice sounded so beautiful when she used to sing it. I was honored when she offered to teach me how to sing in during my voice lessons with her and the song reminds me of her every time I hear it. My second favorite Christmas carol is way on the other end of the spectrum. It's All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. Yes, it's about as cheesy and commercial as they get, but I have a special place in my heart for it because when he's feeling especially nice, Karim will perform it for me. Some of you have been lucky enough to see him in action :)
3. Orange Gingerbread Tea
• This is a new addition to the list. I had the good fortune of visiting my friend Emily DeYoung Becker and her husband Marc in Strasbourg this past weekend. It was an amazing weekend - so great that it will get its own post - but one of my favorite discoveries of the weekend was orange gingerbread tea, know as orange saveur pain d'epices over here. I've started drinking a lot of tea since our apartment is rather drafty and yum, is this new flavor delicious. In fact, I just finished up a cup. An alcoholic beverage that hits the same notes is cremant (Alsatian sparkling wine) with a splash of gingerbread liquor. Yum. Erin - you'd love that one
4. Stuffing stockings and putting out presents with Mom
• My dad and brother go to bed on the early side, so this became a tradition for mom and me several years back. Sometimes we're deliriously tired by the end of it, but it's worth it. I'll miss it this year :(
5. Snow
•  My thinking is, if it's going to be cold and cloudy, it might as well snow, right? Luckily, it's been snowing on and off here in Fonty since Thanksgiving. Here's a shot taken at the Fontainebleau chateau grounds:

6. Making Christmas cookies with Pooh 
• Every year when I was a little girl, I would go over to spend a few nights with my grandmother, Pooh, before Christmas. She'd pull out her recipe book and we'd spend a weekend making half a dozen different types of Christmas cookies. This is one of my favorite childhood memories. Sometimes Pooh would even let me sleep in her bed, despite the fact that I would thrash around in my sleep and leave her with bruised legs. That's love
7. Christmas parties
• I love themed parties, and by now you know how much I love Christmas. So Christmas parties really are the best, in my opinion. Growing up, we would always get dressed up to go to my aunt and uncle's Christmas Eve parties, where the adults would get more than a little tipsy on whiskey sours and my cousin Muriel and I (known as the giggle twins for more than a few years) would do our best to avoid the cheek pinching and would hide out in her room for as long as we could pull off. I'm sad I'll be missing this year's SmartBrief party, as they've proven to be entertaining in the past. And Phil - I hope you pull out that hunter vest again this year! Christmas party season has already started up this year in Fontainebleau. On Tuesday night, we made our way to Chateau de Fleury, which is the most ridiculous student housing facility I've ever seen. It's a GIGANTIC chateau that's been refurbished with posh apartments. Very cool. Here are a couple photos from the night:



Two of the twenty Santas in attendance

Kelsey, a fellow elf, aka lover of all things Christmas

Max, Justin and Karim feeling Christmasy. Or not, ahem Justin

Sadly, this is as open as my eyes got in all the photos that night!

Later in the evening, we were treated to a Santa dance off

8. Reconnecting with family and friends

• I've screwed up the formatting of my list, but bear with me for the last three. One of the reasons I love Christmas parties so much is that they give you a perfect excuse to reconnect with family and friends you may have been neglecting for the past month since you've been cramming in as much work and Christmas shopping as possible. I will very much miss spending Christmas with my mom, dad and brother this year, but I'm looking forward to spending my first actual Christmas with Ann, Nehdi and Selim

9. Shopping for Christmas presents

• Yes, I actually enjoy Christmas shopping. Two favorite stops are the Lush store, filled with highly scented, natural body products festively wrapped for the holidays and the Lindt store for white chocolate truffle balls for Karim. Oh, and a few milk chocolate ones for myself

10. Strasbourg, France

• As I mentioned, I just visited Strasbourg for the first time. It's a Christmas lover's paradise. I'll save the details for a future post, but if you love Christmas, I highly recommend that you visit Strasbourg and the surrounding small towns of Alsace in December

Well, that's all from me tonight. Big Christmas hugs from France!

Movember: The Month of the Moustache

Many of the gentlemen of INSEAD - Karim included - donated their faces for the month of November to raise money for prostate cancer. It was Movember - the month of the moustache.

Now, despite the luscious locks on the top of Karim's head (you can thank my mom for that wording ;), Karim is something of a hairless boy wonder. He's never before attempted to grow facial hair, and that's for good reason. It just doesn't really fill out. But, Karim's a team player, so he stuck with it all month. And here are the results:

By the end of the month, he did indeed have a respectable 'stash! 

Luckily for me, he wasn't any more of a fan of the look than I was, so his baby soft upper lip is back again. Phew.