December in Paris

I arrived in Paris two days ago with my mother. Later that afternoon my aunt Yuri (my mother's sister) arrived from Tokyo. We are here together to celebrate the fact that one of Yuri's woodblock prints won an art competition and is on display here in the city of museums, churches, and crepes. As it is my aunt's first visit to Europe, we have been taking in the city full-throttle, visiting a museum or two a day as well as walking the trendy shopping streets with which my mother is oh-so-familiar, as she used to come here four times a year for the fashion shows.

Yesterday, I went for my first run in Paris. I had heard that Parisian don't really run, so I was pleasantly surprised to see over a dozen other spandex-clad bravers of the cold, though only one was female. I don't know whether it was running alongside the Seine under the watchful eye of the Eiffel Tower, or if it was running in the cool winter air for the first time in a while, but I felt invigorated in a way that I haven't in a while.

Above is Notre Dame cathedral in all her Christmas glory.