May 12th Monday

I set my alarm for 11am to try to reset my sleep schedule but I ended getting up around 1:30pm instead. I had some of my fruit cereal for breakfast and then did a few things on my computer.

Lunch was again some of the vegetable soup with bread and butter. With that delicious lunch settled in my belly, Adrienne and I walked to the library. I thought it was a beautiful day until I actually reached the library. It was closed! Yet another French holiday had snuck up on us. We discovered that many things were closed. This was fast becoming my biggest frustration. I did what I normally do to calm myself down and headed to the nearby Monoprix with Adrienne. Thankfully this was still open. We got some groceries there and decided to head home.

Adrienne had a package of chocolate chip cookies from the bakery in Reims that she bought on our visit. She had planned on giving it to Astrid as a little thank you but the expiration date was coming soon. She decided to give it to one of the regular homeless men on our route to Monoprix. He knelt on his duffle bag in the middle of the sidewalk holding a cardboard sign that read simply: “j’ai faim.” Adrienne asked him if he wanted the package of cookies and he nodded and held out his hand. Adrienne, being her usual excited self, told him that they were special cookies from Reims! He didn’t seem too interested.

We headed home and looked up what holiday was throwing the wrench in the works. It turned out to be lundi pentecôte (Pentecost) which falls 7 weeks after Easter Sunday. I guess this whole not being Christian thing is finally affecting my daily life. Or it could be the whole not being French thing.

For dinner we made some spiral pasta with chicken and marinara sauce. It was only after we put it onto the pasta that we noticed the mold on the inside of the lid. We didn’t want to waste the pasta and it tasted fine so we dug in. It seemed to work out fine.

After dinner I did a bit of my class reading. I got to finally talk to Tom! That was amazing to get to talk to him on Skype. It’s always great catching up with a friend and telling him about the nights spent under a bridge.

I finally made it to bed around 3:15am.