Back from break

On Tuesday I ate lunch with Laurie. We cooked the macaroni and cheese my parents sent. She really liked it and kept the box:) On Wednesday I made chocolate chip cookies for my dance class because we had a New Years celebration afterwards, and no surprise, they really liked them. I guess they are not just Americans favorite cookies anymore! :) Wednesday Michel left for Paris for a meeting for his business. We ate dinner, and then after watched Slumdog Millionair in French, well part of it. Laura and I were too tired to stay up for all of it. We ate a Galette de Roi for dessert (King Wafer). Galette translated literally is wafer. Though this was kind of like a flat honey cake. Its a tradition in France to eat one after the New Year to celebrate the Three Wise Men who went to visit Jesus after he was born, in French, they are The Three Kings. The tradition is to cut it into pieces and the youngest person in the family (which is me) crawls under the table and tell the server which piece to give to whom (though I there were only three of us, so I didnt have to crawl under the table:) ). Whoever gets the small ceramic toy in their piece is crowned king. In a large Galette de Roi, there are two ceramic pieces. Though ours was small, so we only had one, but I got it in my piece. I am king!! :) Though Michel wasnt there, and he didnt know we had already done it, so today he bought a big one! Thursday it snowed some more, and on Friday, all of our classes were stopped at 4pm because the public buses were starting to shut down, and almost everyone in the school takes the buses, some take two or three to get home, and if there are no buses, its a problem. So normally I would have ended at 3pm because during the hour of 3-4pm I dont have a class, but Laurie wanted me to go to Italian with her, Ingrid, and Anne-Sophie, so I did, and Claire came too. It was cool, I understood when the teacher spoke French, and then could follow along a little bit in Italian. When we got out of school, everyone was throwing snow balls, even if they didnt know you, they still made you their target. So, I threw them back! :) Today it hasnt stopped snowing yet and there are about 6-8 inches on the roof! This is really rare for Lyon. This morning Michel tried to start a fire and thought he opened the damper, but he didnt. For about an hour we suffocated in smoke until I decided I was going to go for a walk, and let the smoke escape through the open windows. When I got back, Michel told me that in fact, the dampers werent open! Tonight I am going to Chloés house for a goodbye party for Claire, she leaves this Thursday to go back to Australia.