January 15th Tuesday

Our class wasn’t until 2:45pm but we got up in the morning to read and get ready. I had some of my new fruit Muesli for breakfast. This cereal has dried bananas, raisins, and other fruits. I enjoy it.

I did some reading for a bit until I got a text from Amanda. She was at Sciences Po and wondered if we wanted to join her for lunch. We made our way there. My computer had said that it would be warmer so I just wore my long black sweater. It turned out to be raining and very, very windy. I wanted to give up on the umbrella and just get wet. The problem with that was that I had my laptop in my backpack with me. I put up with the wind and kept the umbrella. I was very glad if not a bit windblown when we got to the building.

I had a sandwich at the cafeteria. It had ham, lettuce, tomato, hardboiled egg, and mayo in it. The sandwiches are okay flavor-wise, but price-wise they’re amazing. It’s just over 2 Euros to get a long baguette sandwich. After eating we tried to quickly finish our reading for class. It was hard to read in the cafeteria and I did not help the situation by accidentally getting coffee out of the machine instead of hot chocolate.

We were finally able to just go to class. I tried out my computer and the internet even worked on it. Adrienne and I tried following the instructions to connect the night before and I was pleased that it worked (especially since Leo had told us that we had to go get it done for us on Mondays). Class went well and was much easier with a computer. I thought I’d grown beyond the blushing like an idiot phase of my life until the professor randomly interrupted my frantic note-taking to ask me which year the first European Parliament elections were. All I could do was stare in horror and feel my face go red. He just said, “Allez-y, c’est pas un examen.” (come on, it’s not a test.) I begged to differ. Luckily someone else piped up with ’79 and I was saved. Phew. I made it through the rest of the class just fine.

We made our way home. It wasn’t as windy and I was thankful for that. I didn’t freeze quite so bad. We bought a half baguette to go with dinner and then went to make dinner.

I made what I’d like to call pommes de terre à la Maya. Whenever I make these potatoes I think of the first time I saw Maya making them in her apartment in Tours. First you peel the potatoes and slice them. Then you rub the slices in salt and cook then in a pan with oil. The outsides are brown and crispy while the insides are soft. Yum. I wasn’t sure what to have with potatoes so we just made salads. We had tomato and cucumber on it with some oil and balsamic vinegar. Then I topped mine with slices of ham. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I had a piece of chocolate and some bread with Nutella on it.

I tried to read for a little bit. I got to talk to my dad and to Devon online. Then, as it was after midnight, I drew a picture of a birthday cake and sent it to Tom for his birthday. I finally got to bed around 12:45am but read for a little after that.