17-22 May 2016
Back to the grind after a wonderful weekend away.
This week was pretty uneventful. A few items worth mentioning:
Our stuff we shipped from the US has arrived at the port of Le Havre. However, the port has been on strike all week. Figures, welcome to France! We will hopefully get the remainder of our things in early June.
Speaking of strikes, there was also another RER strike this week. Wasn’t to bad, one train an hour was basically cancelled.
Essentially this week there was a strike a day and each for various reasons. I know the one strike was due to a proposed labor law change (side-note: I have learned since we moved here that instead of the “suggested” 2 weeks notice when you leave your job they have a “required” 3 month notice!). With these strikes, some got a little fiery, including setting cop cars on fire (pun intended). Never a dull moment when France strikes.
We also booked an impromptu trip to Italy next weekend. Why not. We are heading to Verona/Lake Garda. The flights were so cheap its ridiculous. Stay tuned for pictures next weekend!
With the trip next weekend, we had lots to get done this weekend!
I met Jer after work on Friday to do some shopping (we need bathing suits for Italy). After dragging Jer through Galleries Layafette, we headed home to drop our stuff off and head out for our weekly date night. We went over to the 6th and found a place called Restaurant Da Rosa, which was a Spanish influenced restaurant. We dined al-fresco. We had olives, homemade focaccia, pasta (for me) and risotto (for Jer), all washed down with a Rioja. It’s weird buying a non-French wine with dinner but it was a Spanish restaurant, so when in Rome.
We also had a very busy Saturday. We started with our normal routine of post office, market, grocery store (we are starting to get the hang of this routine).
We dropped the groceries off at home then headed off to run errands. We needed to get light bulbs, a toilet brush (very exciting) and hangers. We found a store called Castorama which is just one metro stop away. We then headed to Sommier to rent costumes for a festival at Versailles at the end of June. I am so excited!
We then headed to BHV to try to find some gifts to send home (for baby showers) but stuffed animals are like 25 euros. They are nuts. We are still on the hunt.
Jer’s wallet has seen better days and he found a brand he liked so we headed to a random store, but the wallet was to small to fit our residency cards (which are yet to come).
Since it was so nice out, and we hadn’t been to this part of the city before (we were in the 11th) we decided to go for a walk. We walked down by the Seine watching everyone sun-worshiping. Jer and I joked that we need to start carrying a bottle of wine with us at all times for impromptu picnics. We ended up walking past a group of people just signing, they were organized with booklets, but it was all in French so we had no idea what they were signing about. There were also a ton of people dancing, some sort of waltz but I’m totally guessing, there had to be 30 couples. My theory is that it was a class and anyone else was welcome to join.
We decided to take the train by Notre Dame but when we came up from the river walk area, there was a huge tent in front of Notre Dame. Being curious, we headed over. There was a Bread Festival. I am not making this up. A carb festival. So of course, we went over (it was free to enter) we tasted some different carb loaded goodness. At this point, we didn’t realize how hungry we were, so we picked up a fresh made salami and butter sandwich (which is very common to add butter and not a little bit of butter, chunks of butter, it was delicious). We sat in front of Notre Dame enjoying our sandwich people watching.
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| Bread for DAYS! |
We then headed home to relax for a little bit. We had decided earlier to head out to get dinner and watch PSG vs. Marseille in the French Cup Final. We tried to go to The Frog and Princess but the place was so packed we could barely walk in. So we found a corner Cafe, Cafe Le Pre, where we enjoyed a lighter dinner, drinks and the match (which PSG triumphed 4-2). This was PSG’s 3rd cup of the season which we have been lucky enough to witness (on TV only of course) all 3 since we have been here (Ligue 1 Champions, Coupe de la Ligue Champions, and Coupe de France Champions).
Sunday was a nice lazy rainy day getting ready for the week ahead and catching up TV shows.
Looking forward to this week and weekend in Italy!
– Kasey
Friday Step Count: 20,614, 13.75 km
Saturday Step Count: 21,303, 15.21 km
Le tour de walker 