Thursday is my Friday!

13 September 2012

Happy Thursday! Today is technically my Friday, since I have absolutely no classes on Friday! And even better, my one and only Thursday class ends at 10:30 in the morning...Bonjour, super-long weekends!

After a quick and painless Intense French Language class in the morning, Julie and I picked up a few quick sandwiches for lunch, and then we went downtown to go shopping for books. The bookstore we went to is called Pour L'Amour du Livre, and it is one of the most adorable bookstores I have ever seen. And talk about so many books in French! And I used to get excited if Barnes and Noble had one book in French, and here I am in an entire bookstore full of French books! I guess when I pack my suitcases for coming home, I'll have no clothes. I'll need the space for all of the books I'm going to buy!

After shopping for books we went across the river to the Bookworm Café, where we saw Mag again and talked a bit with her, in both English and French! It's only been under a year since she opened the café here in Grenoble, so with us coming so often, we're practically going to be her favorite customers! Julie and I shared Cafés au Lait with a slice of chocolate-orange cake, and spent a good hour just talking and enjoying our time over a nice coffee-and-cake. I think I have found my café to officially call "the café", and I will definitely be back again! (Especially after hearing they will be serving raspberry chocolate cake soon, I can't possibly just pass that up...)

After coffees I went home for a quick power-nap and then met up with the others at the CEA office for our weekly get-together to discuss school, the events happening in Grenoble, future excursions, how everyone is doing, etc. Even better, we had this little party around a table full of cookies, cucumber sandwiches, bread and cheese, wine, and bacon-wrapped plums, which were actually quite delicious!

Our table of goodies! We ended up adding cayenne pepper to everything, we all miss spicy food so much.

After snacking a bit, I went home to have a delicious eggplant and rice dinner with Fadila, and of course we spent about an hour speaking in French about whatever we pleased. Then I went upstairs, freshened up, and head back out to meet Julie, Jimmy, Jessica and Paige at Jardin de Ville where we shared a bottle of wine, and then went out to a local pub and enjoyed the evening. I'm really enjoying the night life here! It's just the right size for a city, where you can go out at night and go practically anywhere and have fun, but not so much people where it feels like you're being herded like cattle. I love the nights out, and I know there will be many,  many more to come!