Day 4

I have a feeling I'm going to really like Saturdays around here. My weekend consists of Saturday & Sunday, but tomorrow I'm going to go to church with the mother & kids to hear the father preach. Next Sunday, I'm going to try to find the American Church in Paris, and then the weekend after that, I'm going to give the Church of Scotland a try, seeing as Presbyterianism got its start in Scotland :)

But enough about tomorrow...let me talk about today. I slept in this morning, again (this has got to stop!), though the sound of children running up & down the hallway was hard to ignore. After I got up, however, I had a small breakfast (tea & a roll), skyped w/ my dad & mom for a while, then was about to walk out the door when I saw that the mother had left a note saying that she had cooked some chicken for me & left it in the oven. So, for the first time since I'd arrived, I had protein! (I should mention here that the mother is a vegetarian, though she doesn't mind preparing meat). The chicken was very good, and she had some peas & carrots on the stove for me, which reminded me of childhood meals. Given that I've been a bit snuffly (stuffy nose), the warm chicken w/ carrots & peas was comforting; kind of like a deconstructed soup, minus the broth.

After my late lunch, I went out for a bit to take some pictures in the nearby park, which just happens to be Luxembourg Gardens. The park is gorgeous, and while the sun was out today, it was actually warm, which felt very nice, and almost like the brief fall weather at home. Fall here has already started, as the weather is definitely cooler right now than back in GA. Some of the trees have already started to turn colors, but the flowers at the Garden are still in bloom, see:

So vibrant!

Anyways, after I returned from my jaunt through the park, the mother, children, & I went out in search of several things, including a metro card (Navigo), a sim card for my cell phone (I've got a pay-as-you-go plan now, but not clear on services to US), and paperwork for a bank account. Everything's starting to get official! Oh, I also had my first pastry today, but I didn't have my camera to take a picture of it. It was a sheet of pastry dough folded in half, w/ pastry creme & chocolate chips inside. So yummy :)

After arriving back, I checked the scores for some of the finished football games today (UGA lost & GT won...what a great game day!), then went back downstairs for dinner with the family, which was actually quite delicious, and very entertaining! The menu tonight was a pureed veggie soup (very good!), then a salad w/ balsamic vinaigrette & toast & melted goat cheese, topped w/ herbes de provence (always a winner, in my book), and then some buttered gnocci, which were very good! Dessert was simply a pear, but it was good to have a familiar fruit.

By the way, I envision this blog as a dumping ground for my events each day. The details may be boring, but at least I can look back and remember what happened when. It's helpful for me, and I hope you enjoy the posts as well :)