Day 118 Gap--> Lyon

Monday
Gap--> Grenoble--> Lyon
again, woke up really late/discovered that the alarm does not go off on my ipod touch if it is turned off.
Finished the last stages of the shaving of my super developed beard, which I really miss.
Oh, and had waaaay too much bread from one of those huge bread balls that are deelicious and only cost 7 euros. Tartines covered in lavender honey, nutella, butter... hmm... and made some egyptian Aroza tea for my sister and I. messed up on the proportions though, should have only used one teaspoon of tea per cup, instead used two.

To be honest, and not meaning to sound so maudlin :-), goodbyes sucked. Well at least partially.
I remember I used to be all tough about stuff like this -perhaps I still am.
But more precisely, goodbyes with my Grandma were sad. Goodbyes with the rest of my family were fine, carried out in alacrity -especially with uncle Alain, he asked me to get some sand from Egypt for a friend of his who collects sands, and my sister who asked me for an advance birthday "present" ($$) so she could buy a purse she likes...
Yes, saying adieu to my grandma was actually quite sad. When I said we would see each other again soon, she replied "si dieu le veut" (if god wills it) in a pretty dejected way, to which I replied "inch'allah" -Getting the feeling someone might be gone before you see them again, is not something I can deal with as easily as simple farewells.

Overall, I'm very very happy with my five-day-long stay in Gap. I'm really happy that I came there for Christmas and very happy I left a day after was planned, even if I missed a nice "apero" with some friends from Lycée. I realized that Christmas, holds a very important symbolic importance to me. A symbol of family and being together with the ones closest to you. I find it funny that Alain's dad and my Grandma have probably spent all of their christmases with at least one of their children. I think I will be spending Christmas together with family for the next five years at least.
So, despite my French family being chaotic, I am very pleased with my Christmas spent in France. No regrets as far as Bethlehem goes...

That reminds me, one last thing for now. At midnight mass, both priests (the one giving the sermon and the one I talked to after mass) claimed that Bethlehem [in arabic, Bait Lehm (بيت لحم)] means house of bread. I still have to look up where they might be getting that, because in church, I laughed (at least I was paying attention) because in Arabic 'bait' means 'house' and 'lehem' means 'meat'... something to work out...