A second birthday celebration (the first one being, of course, my bar adventure)
If you can call it an adventure, that is. For most people, it was just a normal evening out. For me, though, the Princess of Non-Drinkers, it was quite an adventure.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, Corinne had a birthday dinner for me. Caroline came over around 7:45 and we all started on aperitifs, or before-dinner drinks. (Apparently people in America use this word also, so please forgive me if I'm explaining an already-obvious concept. But I'd never really heard the term before.) Anyway, Professor Tarnowski, the Dartmouth prof in charge of the program (my French literature prof) came a little bit later and we continued to sit and have drinks for awhile. I tried to follow the conversation but it's still a little difficult. When people are talking to me it's easier for me to understand; usually they'll slow down and enunciate a bit more, which is great. But I have a really hard time following the conversations of others because they talk so fast and, with speed, the words all run together (as they do in any language).
After Jacques (my host brother) got home, we had dinner, which was delicious, as always. I don't know if I've ever stated explicitly what a great cook Corinne is, but if I haven't, let me do so now. She's awesome. I don't think she's ever cooked a bad meal. We had a cheese souffle and salad with tomatoes, avocados, and olives (which I avoided whenever possible...I would say I dislike olives, but that's not quite true. The truth is that I detest olives probably more than any other other food on the planet, and I include most meats in that statement. But anyway.).
After dinner we had cheese, like usual - camembert, Roquefort, and one other type of blue cheese, and then my host family brought out a chocolate cake with two candles. ("One for each decade," Corinne said.) Everyone sang "Joyeux Anniversaire" and then we ate cake. And it was awesome. I had more for dessert tonight. Seriously, it was really fudgy and delicious. I could eat this cake for the rest of my life.
After cake, I got presents! It was sooo sweet of everyone. Prof. Tarnowski gave me a really pretty blue scarf, which I wore today. (I love the color and I didn't bring any scarves with me, so it was perfect!) Caroline brought me a bag of chocolates from a nice chocolatier and some yellow roses, which she helped my cut and arrange in a vase. And my host family gave me a candle and a nice card, along with a flat wire "wreath" of sorts which you hang on the wall and use to hold pictures. "All you need is a little nail," Corinne said, "and you can hang it up in your room." She said they'd noticed how many pictures I have in my room, so they gave it to me to display them, which I thought was super-sweet. And, as Corinne pointed out, it will be an easy thing to take back to the States with me.
All in all, I had a wonderful couple of days of birthday celebrations, although I really did miss seeing all my family and friends at home.
A long walk
This is pretty self-explanatory, but whatever. After school today, we decided to go to SNCF to make some travel arrangements for spring break (Italy!). I don't know why we went all the way to the SNCF near Parc de la Tête d'Or (a 40 minute walk from the university) when there's a very nice SNCF right on Place Bellecour, but whatever. It wasn't a bad walk and we stopped at a patisserie/chocolatier on the way. (I got some quiche. Quiche over here is soooo much better than quiche in the US. Pizza, on the other hand, is not nearly as good.) At any rate, I didn't feel like walking all the way back by myself, so I took the metro and got off at the stop closest to my house, after which I "explored the neighborhood" (read: somehow managed to get lost) between the metro station and my house. (The problem was that I always just head for the river, because as long as I'm on the Presqu'île I know that if I head for the Saône I can find the apartment practically in my sleep. However, the metro station is stationed pretty much in the middle of the Presqu'île, so when I got out, I was turned-around and headed for the first river I saw, which happened to be the Rhône. Oh, well.) I found a really cool-looking antique store in my travels, though. I'll have to head back there some other time. (I didn't go in today because it opened at 15h30 and when I was looking in the windows it was 15h30 on the dot and I wasn't sure if they were actually open yet.) The window displays were ridiculously awesome, though, and the store (from what I could see) was literally crammed full of silverware, costume jewelry, cameo brooches, serving dishes, etc...a good place to find little treasures. =)
A lazy afternoon
After my long walk and voyage of discovery, I returned to my room with the full intention of starting my reading for next week and then just giving in to the sleepiness that would inevitably arise from such an activity instead of just powering through. However, I remembered that I missed last week's episode of Bones and that, while hulu actually doesn't work in Europe, that Dartmouth has a program that changes one's IP address to make it look like you're in America; thus, I spent the afternoon catchin' up on mah stories. The 100th episode of Bones is tonight, but I won't get to see it until tomorrow evening, what with the time it takes to get posted online after airing on TV and the time difference and my classes. Oh, well. Thank God for Dartmouth and its nifty little technical loopholes.
And now I am going to bed because I am exhausted. Too much excitement in this past week. (I still don't think I've recovered from last weekend's adventures in the south. This weekend, I'm sticking around, though, although I may not be much less busy than I was last weekend. Weekend plans include: going to this French bio-food expo that Kelly discovered, having a potluck picnic on the river with some of my classmates then checking out one of the clubs located on a boat on the river, and possibly making the long trek to le Parc de la Tête d'Or to walk around, relax, and possibly visit the free zoo there. (I don't like to pay for zoos since I'm not sure if I really support them, but since it's free I don't feel too bad about it.)
And now I'm off to bed...too late once again, I fear. Hopefully I can catch up on some sleep this weekend.
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