Friday, May 15

The meal Wednesday was way fun. Helene and Marco came over, we had apperatifs and nibbles and talked it up (I actually understood most of it!). We ate the french version of Mexican rice and, as promised, broke out the chocolate fountain. Between 5 of us we ate 3 'bricks' of dark chocolate and didn't even regret it. It was however, the messiest thing I've ever eaten. (and that's saying something as I'm a barbecue lover) The pics can prove, we managed to get the beautiful "before" picture and then a shot of "after" where the table is partially covered in chocolate and our plates are *ahem* works of art. It was very fun. I managed to break a glass (opah!), and the chocolate fountain is darn hard to clean, but very fun.

Yesterday, Elodie and I met with her friend Severine for lunch behind la Republique and it was delicious! Salmon, spinach and goat cheese lasagna... holy wow. And because it's my rule to have dessert with every meal, Elodie and I split a gourmet plate with tastes of 4 different desserts. Don't worry, ma, one of them was fruit salad! Sev and I walked around a bit, me still looking for a new purse -- the one I bought right before going really hurts to carry too much stuff in. I ended up finding a cool green one, but it kinda... smells? So it's aerating on the patio right now.

After Elodie got some afternoon work done, I changed into one of my 3 dresses, none of which I've had the chance to wear, even though it was still a bit chilly for it and we went to have cocktails at a place called "Lounge" (clever, no?) in the Centre Ville. We talked for 3 hours (shocking I know) and had a couple fun, interestingly-named drinks. Finally came home and had dinner at about 10, which is only really an hour later than normal here. Erwan fixed up some ratatouille-like veggies and chicken. Elodie and I nibbled on green olives and really great bread from a downtown bakery while we watched him prep, just in case there wouldn't be enough carbs with the meal...

This AM I managed to finish off one of the 6 cereal choices in the cupboard and I could stand to go for a pretty long walk, so I'm headed to Super U (not as big as LeClerc, the french answer to Walmart, but bigger than the average grocery store in France) for St Moret, one of the standard cheeses here that would be insanely expensive at home, and cereal... and what the heck, I bet they have a chocolate aisle I should check on...

I think we'll be doing cocktail hour again tonight and probably going out on the town for galettes -- can't wait!

Pics of chocolate fountain night and me and Elodie after our cocktails last night: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bestofjess