February 22nd Friday

We slept in a little bit again. Renée had an early flight so she packed up her bags a little and left. Adrienne got up to help see Renée out. I got up a bit after and got ready for the day. I had some cereal for breakfast. We stayed in the apartment until around midday and had lunch here. It’s always nice to get back to our normal routines after a visit. The apartment always feels slightly packed when three people are sleeping in it.

At around 4:00pm I went to the library to work on my papers. The library closes at 6pm. The rules of this library are very frustrating. I like being able to go to the library at any time of day or night. The libraries at both UNCs were open very late. I’d rather go to the library in the evening than the morning. It’s strange adjusting my schedule to these weird hours. It makes me realize how American I am that I expect everything to be open and convenient to me. At the other libraries you could also check out books for a period of a few months. Here I can check it out for a week. It’s very nice knowing that if someone has a book you want that it will be back soon. But at the same time I want to be able to just have the books at my house to write out of them.

After the library, Adrienne and I went to Monoprix and got some groceries. We walked home from there and it felt like a long walk. The bags were heavy and I still had my laptop in my backpack from the library. I swear that thing all of a sudden gains 5 pounds when it wants to.

When we got back I decided to make something fun for dinner: crêpes! My original idea was to try to cook them with egg and ham and cheese like the crêpe vendors do. I got to work and mixed the crêpe batter. I was worried that I’d made it too watery but then it seemed to work okay. I made the crêpes and then once the first ones were made, simultaneously tried to cook other things in them. I put them into another pan and tried to cook an egg on top. I got the egg to cook but then the crêpe was a burnt mess. I threw away my first attempt and decided to say “screw it” to the eggs. I proceeded to make crêpes for Adrienne filled with chicken deli meat and the new red pepper eggplant sauce that we’d bought at Monoprix. In my crêpes I decided to fill them with ham and cheese. I’d bought some shredded emmental to put in. I also tried the sauce in some of them. Not to toot my own horn, but the crêpes came out very delicious. We still weren’t able to get rid of the eggs but we made a very yummy and fun dinner thanks to my new crêpe pan. I saved one crêpe each for dessert. Adrienne filled hers with jam and I filled mine with nutella. I tried to heat the jar up by putting it on the stovetop near the warm pans. Nutella is just yummier when it’s been melted a little. It’s also easier to spread.

After our foodgasms had subsided, Amanda came over to watch a movie with us. Her roommate Heidi was in Germany so she wanted to get out and not be alone. Amanda brought a lot of movies with her. We settled on a French film called Tanguy. Since it’s French, we were able to watch it on our television. We all settled down on the big bed and watched it. The movie was pretty funny but still had that French element that makes you go “What the hell is going on right now?” It’s about a man named Tanguy who is a 28 year old student and still lives with his parents. They try to sabotage him to make him move out on his own, but he still stays. Then they just get him an apartment and agree to pay for it. He proceeds to have panic attacks and ends up in the hospital. They can’t get rid of him. Finally they family is just acting ridiculous. I’ve heard that the American film “Failure to Launch” was based on this film.

We had fun watching the movie and then talking about how weird some of it was. We had to watch it without subtitles so we rehashed some of the parts that went by too fast. We sat around talking for a while and brought up the subject of our latest houseguest. It was just a strange situation having a stranger come stay with us for almost five days. Amanda had to cut us off so that she could catch the last metro home.

I got to talk to my friend Tom online and I talked to my parents on Skype. Then I went to bed, as usual, in the wee hours of the late night/morning.