May 23rd Friday

I woke up to a call from Amanda at 9am telling me that our class with Howorth was cancelled. This was good news in a way because we could take more time to do our presentation that we were supposed to give in that class. On the other hand, I just wanted to get it over with. I got up and checked my email to make sure the class was actually cancelled and then called some classmates to make sure they knew too. Once I told them, I went back to bed. I was tired from going to bed late.

I got up again at 12. I noticed that the mosquito bites were worse. The day before, they’d been simple red spots on my skin. Today, they were angry red bumps that were beginning to itch terribly.

I had some of my fruit and granola cereal and then got ready for our afternoon class. We had a class with Schmidt today and I had to give a presentation in her class. I left a bit early to meet Anna before class. We finished up the powerpoint for the class and put it on my USB key.

We got to class and the room was very warm. My computer was not enjoying the heat and was running very slow. Eventually, it froze and I had to force it off. This was not a very good development because I had all of my notes for the presentation on my laptop. I’d been planning on reading off the screen. Thankfully, we had our powerpoint and were able to show that to the class. The way the teacher’s desk was set up was that there was a computer screen under the desk that was viewable through a glass pane in the middle of the desktop. The powerpoint refreshed my memory enough that I was able to give the presentation okay. I was nervous about giving a presentation in French but it worked out all right. Anna and I did a fairly good job. I was quite nervous but I explained that the heat had killed my computer so they had to bear with me.

After class, I walked home. I got a baguette at the corner boulangerie. At home I ate some of the légumes de soleil soup with the baguette. I put cheese and butter on it to complete the snack. I went into the bedroom and was on my computer. I was still sleepy and fell asleep.

Adrienne woke me up at 8:00pm. We were going to Amanda’s birthday dinner that night. We went to the metro and took it to the stop near the restaurant. Outside the stop we met up with Casey, Amanda, and Sara. We went to find the restaurant and had to walk up and down the street a while to find it. We eventually did find the street and we went in. The restaurant was called 10 Vins (or 10 wines). We were seated at a table that was kind of in the back. It was like having a private party in the back. The waiter was very nice and took very good care of us. They had a €24 menu that came with three courses that we ordered. For the first course, I had the foie gras with the cinnamon apple pastry. It was served on a white dish that was shaped like a duck. It made me a little sad to be reminded that this delicious treat came from such cute animals. The first course was amazing. There were even red peppercorns on the foie gras.

For the second course, I ordered the beef with camembert sauce and potatoes au gratin. The beef was already sliced when it was served and the sauce came in a little wedge-shaped dish. The sauce and the meat were amazing. It was so rich. The final course was dessert and I had the tarte au fraises “maison”. The tart was like our fruit pies with the glaze layer on top. The entire meal was delicious. We had a great time talking during the meal. We shared a bottle of Bordeaux wine. Our reservation had been for 8:30pm. We left the restaurant at midnight. We left and took the metro home.

When we got home, I talked to my parents on Skype for a little bit. I also got to talk to John online. After, Adrienne and I sat in the bedroom and talked for a long time. I didn’t go to bed until around 4am.