French Easter

France does things a little differently for Easter. Let's start with Palm Sunday. Everyone brings their own "palms" to church. Their palms look more like thorns and they wrap the stems in tin foil to hold them. At first I thought it was just one family that was bringing this type of palms until I saw everyone else walking to church with them. Very odd.

Next up is Good Friday. Kids do not have Good Friday off and no one really celebrates it. At work there was no special non meat dish or anything. I found it quite strange. Everyone ate meat like it was a normal day and I was thinking the whole time, how can they be eating meat! After work on Friday, I met up with Ashley and her boyfriend. They were up from Spain for the weekend and I was so excited to see them. I had never met Ashley's boyfriend before because she met him while she was studying in Spain, but he was so nice and I really liked him. This was also the first time I had seen Ashley since I left so I was super excited. We met at Les Invalides and I got in for free because I am technically a long term France resident! It was pretty awesome. After that we walked to the Eiffel Tower. Apparently the thing to do Easter weekend is go to Paris. There were so many people it was ridiculous. The line to go the top of the Eiffel Tower was a good 300 people long. We decided to skip that and move on. We then went to see the Statue of Liberty replica. It was the first time that I had seen that. Afterwords we got soft serve ice cream - fantastic by the way - and Ashley got cotton candy. She was like a little kid standing there with ice cream in one hand and cotton candy in the other with the biggest smile on her face. After that we just meandered our way through the city and I eventually left them to head home.

I was supposed to meet up with them on Saturday but I didn't really feel well so I ended up staying home. For most of Saturday and Sunday, I spent the day in bed because I wasn't feeling well. It was a very quiet Easter. I didn't even eat an Easter dinner or anything. My friends were making chili for Easter dinner, a new way to do Easter, but I didn't partake. 

That brings us to today, Easter Monday. France celebrates Easter Monday by having a day off. I don't really know what they do today but I am happy to have a day off. Easter is like the forgotten holiday in France. No one decorates or has Easter eggs hunts or anything. It was very weird. There was hardly any Easter candy in the grocery store too. There is no Easter Bunny in France; they have an Easter Bell. I don't really understand how a bell is supposed to bring candy but that is what their tradition is. As you can tell, I am looking forward to an American Easter next year!

We did get to get a family picture though. It is by far the most interesting family picture we have to date.

Little Blonde Puppy even made the family photo :)

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!!