December 16th-December 26th (Family time, Disneyland and Coldplay concerts)

My course ended around the 16th of December, and that is when Jenny and Riley came to Paris. It was a great event. We sat in our apartment, drank 2 euro wine and ate eggs for every meal. Who says we don't know how to party? We went out to the castle Versailles and walked around the grounds there. I was able to get there without any issue needless to say. Riley and I also had an epic fake jousting match in the gardens. I did of course win and he was shamed.

Not too shortly after they arrived, I was graced with another presence, my sister Portia. We went shopping at Galeries La Fayette, walked along the Champs Elysees Christmas markets and then the four of us went on an outing which we will never forget: Paris Disneyland. That's right. It was so much fun. We got there and I swear, Riley and I were more hyper than most of the the five year old jawbreaker popping children running around. We took some excellent pictures. The place is like its own little world. It is so cool. The best part was that because the weather had been terrible the past few days and it was a Friday and Christmas break hadn't started yet, there were virtually no lines. This meant we were in a line for usually no more than 15 minutes. And to top it all off, that day was the first sunny clear day in a couple weeks. We went on space mountain like, three times. That evening we saw the disney castle castle all lit up and took lots of pictures. It was so pretty.

Anyway, shortly after that Jenny and Riley said good bye and went their seperate ways for Christmas. Portia and I hung out until my parents arrived around the 22nd. They brought with them my long planned Christmas present for Portia. I surprised her with-get this-two tickets to the Coldplay Viva la Vida concert in Dublin. We were flying out the next day. How good of a sister am I?

So we packed a bag and the next morning we were on a flight to Dublin. We checked into our hotel and then met up with my friend Stephen for dinner. After dinner Portia and I walked to the O2 arena, which we learned from a cab driver had only opened up that past weekend. We were so excited. After getting there, buying some memorabilia and listening to an incredibly strange DJ person open, the concert finally started. To say it was amazing would be the understatement of the century. Not only was the singing amazing, the lights fantastic and the special effects ridiculously cool, I music was out of this world. They had big screens that projected different angles from live camera men. When they played 'Yellow,' these huge yellow balloons filled with confetti came falling into the crowd from the ceiling. And during 'Lovers in Japan,' thousands of paper butterflies came down from every direction. Oh and Chris Martin is such an amazing singer, like so good. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and thus the concert drew to a close. We went back to the hotel strung out on singing and had our flight back to Paris the next morning.