Another update, about another week in my life in France!
Monday
Rafael was leaving my place today, so we had a last lunch together at Paul close to my house. I’ve never been there and always disliked Paul judging on their to-go sandwiches. I was pleasantly surprised! The waitress was very kind and the menu looked interesting. I preferred a salad over the mushroom tortelli and requested a vegetarian version of a Caesar’s salad. They brought me a huge salad with eggs instead of chicken. It was delicious! Also the mushroom tortelli was yummy, glad that Rafael took those, so I could taste ;-). The salad was that big, that I had to gave a part to Rafael. I took a formula so I got a dessert. Brioche perdue. Oh my, I was in heaven! So delicious.
After our lunch, I had to go to work and Rafael took a bus back to the city. Evening shift until 23 o’clock. I received a package from home today, so after work I took the time to study all the sweet, little presents my mom sent me! Thank you so much, I’m really happy with it.
Tuesday
I started the day with some cleaning in my room. Then I tried a recipe I got from Holly. Peanut butter & jelly porridge. Weird combination, yes – but so good! I loved it and I will definitely eat it more often. I wrapped my last fruits into a smoothie-to-go and went to work again. It wasn’t that busy, so I worked a bit on my blog. When I came home after eleven I was glad to relax a little. Also, at first I had the goal to finish Gossip Girl in the weekend, but because of my visitor I couldn’t. So I decided to make up for it today, I had a GG marathon until late.
Wednesday
I woke up late and saw the very last episodes of GG. I really wanted to see the whole series, because I started watching a long time ago – back when it was still on television – and then I stopped. I don’t really know why, but for years it felt as a task I should finish one day. So now I finally did! Great, now I can finally move on with my life. Or watch new series ;-). Back to work, after another porridge lunch.
Thursday
Time for laundry, a few groceries and household tasks. Cooked, lunch, work, dishes, sleep. Pretty much like everyday lol.
Friday
I was in for a relaxation session, a walk, something nice, but I got a phonecall from my colleague. He was cycling to a garage to pick up his car, who got fixed, but his tire ran flat. The garage is pretty far, so I picked him up and brought him to the garage. Nice to socialize a bit with the people we work with. The trip left me without time to prepare lunch and dinner, so we went to the bakery across the street from the garage and had what was left of lunch: a small pizza. It was good, even though I would have preferred a sandwich. Then I raced back to work and started early, in the hope I could take a longer dinner break to get some nice meal in the supermarket. That was hard! It was so incredibly busy at work, we almost didn’t even have time for toilet visits! The Dutch people were travelling back from their ski holidays, but also the Frenchies finished their holidays. So for the people with cars who couldn’t get fixed in time, we had to arrange rental cars, trains or planes. But all of those were fully booked! In my pause I raced to the supermarket, got myself a falafel ready made meal and heated it, to enjoy the meal behind my desk, since my pause was already over.. It stayed busy until the end of my shift, but: then I had weekend! I was very tired, so I just read a bit and then went to sleep.
Saturday
What a lovely day! The sun was shining and the temperature was pleasant. I went to Lyon, where I met Rafael. The city was getting into spring/summer vibe. There were artists everywhere and some were playing great music. We enjoyed two guys, one of them had an instrument I’ve never seen before and their music was so cheerful! Perfect on this sunny day.
We walked a bit around the city and handed out croissants, pain au chocolat and brioches to the homeless. I never want to give them money, because you never know what they might do with it, but I surely don’t want them to be hungry while I’m enjoying food whenever I want to. So, sometimes I give them a little something they can enjoy too :-).
I love hanging out at the quays of the river when it’s sunny, we got a few beers and went to sit on the stairs next to the Rhône. There is a skatepark there, so we enjoyed our conversation, a laugh and the view of guys doing their trics.
In the late afternoon I planned on meeting my colleague at his place, so I brought Rafael and Charles, the guy who is hosting Rafael at this moment. Also a colleague by the way, it’s such a small world! Quentin had a delicious bottle of sparkling wine waiting for us and he also let us taste his very good rum. One had a hint of banana, coconut and vanilla. Rafael was very hungry, so once again we ordered a pizza. I had a pizza with three cheeses. Very, very delicious. But not so good, I could even feel it in my tummy that I was making the wrong choises food-wise! Rafael was very impressed by the stuff Quentin had in his house, in the end we ended up playing on his Playstation 4. Nice day, I could say. To make up a little for the pizza, I walked to the parking garage where I had my car. Only 20 minutes away, so not such a big deal.. but still! Then I snuggled on the couch watching NCIS Los Angeles on tv – in English, fortunately. Oh and I called my parents.
Sunday
Had to wake up early this morning, because my friend Manon was arriving from Paris. She will stay a couple of days at Lyon. The weather wasn’t great, so we kind of had to spend our day inside. But that didn’t mean it was boring! We even made some kind of a world trip. Brunch in an American diner, rugby and cider in an Irish pub and sushi at a Japanese restaurant, pretty cool.
So, we went to Best I Ever Had for our brunch. Manon had the brunch – pancakes, sausages, bacon scrambled eggs, slices of bread and I went for the Veggie salad – salad, aubergine, sundried tomatoes, avocado and slices of bread with cream cheese. I loved it. You know what I even loved more? The chocolate and peanut butter milkshake I had with it, oh my!
We braved the rain to walk quickly to my favourite pub in Vieux Lyon, where we took a nice cider. Then an Irish coffee, yeah. Then suddenly they put the rugby match on tv. I’ve never watched it, but my best friend Diepak is totally into the Six Nations. Or better said, it’s like he is living in a cave during those matches. You won’t get a hold of him, only when it is about something life-threatening! I figured I would be a bad friend if I would run out of the pub as soon as the game started, so I stayed. We moved to another table and apparently the pub filled up with Irish people, ready to watch the match. It was interesting, I would say. Ireland won, so they were screaming and happy. Also, an Irish guy seated next to us started talking to us and before we knew, we made a few new Irish friends! They were funny and told us a little about Irish history, so we actually did learn some stuff in the pub. Even a story about our own country!
When our stomaches started to growl, it was time for us to say goodbye. While walking to the restaurant we planned to go to, we passed a sushi restaurant. Not a very good choice, since I eat vegetarian, but I still craved the taste of sushi and they had this cool assembly line carrying the dishes. We decided to make a slight change of plan. It was also a big test of my patience, to wait for the nice vegetarian dishes to pass our seats. In the end I just asked the chef to make me a California roll with avocado and cream cheese. It wasn’t on the menu, but he was sweet enough to prepare one for me! Only he didn’t know what to do with the rest, so he dropped all 12 sushi’s on a 2 euro plate – lol. I was really stuffed after this nice gesture. We went back home, made Manon’s bed and watched some tv to end the night – and the week!
