The Toy That Will Crack Your Nuts

Oh hi! 

For those of you who didn't know, yesterday was the day that American Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus because in the olden days, Christians were illegal so they disguised the celebration of Christmas with a light festival or something apparently. So now we buy gifts for people, but we don't give it to them, a creepy old guy, who watches children dream of sugarplums and then proceeds to break into you home, does. Merry Christmas!

Christmas was difficult for me. I skyped my family for two hours in the morning (Christmas Eve for them)

After, though, I was really homesick. I didn't handle it well. I tried and failed to make chocolate chip pancakes. I are basically the whole coffee cake I successfully made the night before. 

Thankfully for me, I have people to put things in perspective for me. 

My grandma said: "Grandpapapapapa says coffee cake in Cairo sounds good.  Merry Christmas!"

And then I thought: "Frickin duh Corie. Look where you are, a big dusty city with cool people. The only sure fire way to stop missing your family is go home. Do you want to go home? Yeah, didn't think so. Egypt has lots of people who are nice and generous because they want to be. Are there people like that in America? Exactly. There are like five. So suck it up. You're gonna be fine. (I censored. I mean sometimes you have to be harsh. And I'm sure there are more than five nice Americans... Maybe)

Anyway, I sucked it up, dressed up and took a taxi to the opera by myself like the bada** I am. I sat in the theater like the rich, fancy patron of the art I am. And it was great. I met my friend and her family and it made me think how my family aren't gonna meet my friends. And that sucks because my friends are great. I mean look how fabulous we are with the tree and strangers:

Me and Maria and Maria's family saw the Nutcracker. Ballet is kind of a thing in my family. My mom majored in dance. I danced. My sister danced. My grandpapapapapa took my mom to shows. My mom has season tickets to the SF ballet co. and she takes us. So I'm kind of an expert. 

During my first SF show, my mom showed me this thing called pretty feet. It's really hard to explain but

She has pretty feet. The girl who played Clara had pretty feet, and I was sitting there like "ooh, she has pretty feet."

For those of you who don't know the story of the nutcracker, it's about this girl, Clara, who gets a nutcracker and then it breaks and gets put back together. Then she hallucinates and the doll kills the mouse king, turns into a prince, and then takes her on a magical journey to Snow Land. It's literally the weirdest story. But it was beautiful. 

I have so much respect for dancers. The guys pick up girls like they are stuffed animals, everyone spins a lot, and the clown did the splits. You go Glenn Cocos. 

Afterwards, my counselor (liaison for those of you that are familiar with AFS lingo) picked me up from the opera. She gave me this really nice Christmas present:

It was wrapped in a very nice Christmasy wrapping paper. And it made me really happy. 

Then we went and got juice, and shawarma and fries. Food always makes you feel better. 

When I got home I was still feeling... negative. And also emotionally exhausted so I went to sleep and I slept for like 11 hours and now I'm feeling very positive. 

This is my family's Christmas card. The blonde who doesn't look related to is is our Costa Rican exchange student which adds to my giant family of 4 parents, 7.5 sisters, 2 brothers and 20+ cousins. (Cousins include cousins, host cousins, and random AFSers I've gotten to know over the years.)

So from all of us here at Corie in Egypt (me, Fatso, Pam Da Bear, and Jesse the Duck): We wish you a merry little christmas. I hope Santa came to your town and your true love gave you a partridge in a pear tree. I hope Frosty the Snowman walked you through a winter wonderland after you jingle bell rocked around the Christmas tree. I hope your mother didn't kiss Santa and your grandma didn't get run over by a reindeer. All I want for Christmas is you to have a holly jolly Christmas. Xoxo

That's my Christmas card to you. As you can tell I'm in my studying clothes because I have my first final tomorrow and je ne parle pas français. Je ne parle pas anglais either but I can pronounce Tchaikovsky. Also I couldn't do a whole hand heart because one hand needed to take the selfie, duh. 

I love you guys. :)

Happy Holidays. Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeeeee

Corie.