Spending time in Paris

I've spent the last couple of days mostly with may family doing various things in preparation for Christmas. I really love France (and Paris in particular) but there are definitely some things that I like that aren't done the same way either in Australia or China. One is the politeness. Every shop you go into people say "Bonjour monsieur" and they always sound so cheery. Then when you leave it's "Merci monsieur, au revoir, bon journee". I like it, it's great!
The other thing is shopping for food. It really could be a full time job here. You stop at the baker, the butcher, the patissier, the fruit market, the fromagerie (cheese shop), the wine shop and sometimes the supermarket as well. This afternoon my sister and I spent about 3 hours out and only managed to get enough food for the day! We did find these fantastic meringues though.

We'd been looking for a Christmas tree for a few days that was big enough. Most people in Paris have quite small apartments and so quite small trees. The embassy has very big apartments though, so we needed an appropriately sized tree and there weren't very many around. My sister and my mother came home yesterday though with the instructions "put your shoes on, we've bought a tree and you need to carry it". So I head out with my sister to find the man with the tree. It's about 25 minutes walk or so. We get there and the tree is about 2.5m tall with a huge half log on the bottom to keep it stable. I could barely lift it! I managed to get it on my shoulder and carry it about 150m before we gave up and my sister left to get my brother in law. I got a lot of very strange looks along with a few "quelle grand sapin" form people. She finally came back and here's the tree on the streets of Paris.

The shop we bought it from is just out of sight in the background! My dad rocked up and we carried it back to the apartment where we had the unveiling ceremony, National Lampoon's Christmas style

Lucky the apartment is so damn big! So tonight it'll be decorating the tree which should be nice with the family all here (except Jane, hurry up and get here :).

I was out on the Champs-Elysees the other day (as one does!) and ordered a capuccino (because Australia is the only place that understands flat whites) and here's what I got

Yes that is whipped cream on the top. Definitely the weirdest capuccino I've ever had in my life! I was very confused when she gave it to me but she acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe she's never seen a capuccino before? Well she still hasn't!

Weekend tomorrow so the big shops will all be totally packed so I might do some local shopping here then head to the department stores (Le Printemps and Galeries LaFayette) early next week for some more in depth shopping :)