Crocos and Tacos-Day 32- February 10th, 2018

Today was one my first days in Grenoble where I had nothing planned. Well that’s technically a lie, I had to go the gym before it closed at 1 PM. But besides that, absolutely nothing. I was so set on doing nothing, that I didn’t even set an alarm for this morning.

In French culture class the other day, we learned about being a monochronic vs. a polychronic person.

Monochronic people like to do just one thing at a time. They value a certain orderliness and sense of there being an appropriate time and place for everything.

Polychronic people like to do multiple things at the same time. Though they can be easily distracted they also tend to manage interruptions well with a willingness to change plans often and easily.

I am 100% certain I am a monochronic person and this morning definitely proves it. Even when I plan to do nothing all day, this nothingness needed to be organized.

I woke up around 9:00 AM and gave myself about thirty minutes to just lay in bed and browse my phone.

I wanted to watch an episode of the Sopranos, but I decided I would have to eat breakfast and go to the gym first. After eating breakfast, I changed into my athletic clothes, but wouldn’t let myself leave until I spent ten minutes editing and uploading my blog post from the day before.

Right before I left for the gym, I realized I should probably do some food shopping after the gym since stores will be closed tomorrow. I grabbed my reusable plastic bag I typically use since they charge extra for plastic bags here. I went to the gym and did exactly three chest workouts and followed it with an ab workout.

I walked to the supermarket after the gym and knew I had 35 euros left in my stipend from this week. I needed to buy three more meals until Monday. I decided to use ten euros on food and ten euros on wine. Buying wine to drink before the bar tonight would save me money. I ended up buying two salads, a microwavable pasta carbonara, a baguette, and two bottles of wine. Exactly 20 euros.

Yeah, I am a very monochromatic person.

I ended up impulse buying Haribo sour crocodiles while on line, sometimes you need to treat yourself.

Haribo Croco aka Crack Cocaine

 

After getting back, I decided to have my pasta carbonara for lunch. I have been learning that this one French brand, Sodebo, is pretty trustworthy with their salads and microwavable meals. That’s why I took the risk on this one today.

My pasta, I really don’t know what is so “Xtreme” about it.

This was a 10/10 microwavable meal. I loved every bite of it and didn’t feel grossed out after eating it. I also figured out a trick for microwavable meals is to pause the microwave after a minute of cooking, and very intensely mix its contents before putting it back in. I complemented this pasta with some baguette and my cheese from the other day. And possibly my whole bag of Haribo.

After eating, I took a shower and watched an episode of the Sopranos. After watching it, I spent probably an hour practicing my French and trying to learn some new stuff. I briefly facetimed Mats after this to practice my new skills with him. Mats is fluent and a French tutor, so he is very helpful.

After talking to Mats, I ended watching the whole Villanova vs Butler basketball game on my laptop. Nova had a surprising upset to St. Johns last week and Butler beat us in December, so it was an important game. It was a great match-up and I spent a solid two and a half hours watching it.

I ate my salad for dinner with some baguette while watching the game.

My setup featuring a bottle of riesling.

After the game, I chilled out for a bit and then planned to find a happy hour with Harry. Most of our BU friends were away this weekend so we planned to meet up with Sebastian and some of the other Americans we knew.

I met Harry by this bar called le Subway, but the happy hour just ended, so we walked past the many bars on the street and ended up at La Natation. This place is a favorite of mine for lunch and drinks.

We both enjoyed three euro Kanterbrau with our complementary dry sausage and peanuts.

The perfect complement for a nice German beer

After finishing up at La Natation, Harry and I bar hopped for a bit. We were trying to find a good crowd or other Americans and were pretty unsuccessful at that. We went to Bukana, Barberousse, and then eventually O’Callaghans where we found Ben and some of the other Americans. Also for reference, we at all the other bars for a short enough time that we didn’t even buy drinks. We then joined the Americans to head back to Barberousse, the place Harry and I just came from. On the way there, I had to stop for a tacos because I was starving. Tacos are the best food when drinking, I’m going to miss these in America.

“Will, stop posting pictures of half-eaten food on your blog” – Kyle Brackman

Barberousse was extremely packed, but we finally found Sebastian. Like I’ve said in earlier blogs, Barberousse is a very French bar and they only play French music after 12. Harry and I ended up talking to these French girls for a while at the bar. This was fantastic practice because I was able to successfully use some of the French I had learned earlier. This is the first time I feel like I truly conversed with French locals in French.

After Barberousse, we headed to my sixth destination of the night, Sunset Valley. Sunset Valley is like a bar/club combination. It closed 45 minutes after we got there, but we were able to get some quality dancing in and there was a solid variety of American music. After it closed, I walked forty minutes to get home since the tram weren’t running.

This was a night filled with travel, but still a pretty good one.