Where’s Andrew?-Day 74- March 24th,2018

Today was another Saturday where I woke up early to purchase some sneaker releasing online. In the exact same situation as the other day, I was not quick enough and couldn’t get them. On the bright side, I had saved money and was up early now, a rare event for most Saturday mornings. My sisters were arriving by train in Grenoble around 11:50, so I had a little bit of time to kill before that.

After I ate breakfast this morning, I spent a few minutes cleaning up my tiny room. I wanted everything to look presentable for when my sisters came, even if I only had 30 square feet of it.

Sooner or later, it was time to head to the train station. I made sure to get there a little earlier, but their train was delayed by five minutes anyway. After a short wait, I saw my sisters walk into the waiting area of the station! I ran over and we publicly embraced them. Our first destination of the day was their airbnb, which luckily was close by.

The lady who owned the airbnb gave us the keys and gave us the grand tour. The place was a super nice apartment and located right next to a tram stop. I wasn’t planning to sleep here, but there was an additional futon, so I figured I should spend the night to have more time with my sisters. They took some time to settle in and get changed, then we headed out for the day.

Our first destination was La Natation for lunch. I know it’s not a Monday, but this is one of the few places I go to eat and I thought it would make for a good lunch. They have a slightly different menu on Saturdays, so it was nice to have some new options. I ended up getting some baked pasta that was really good. Julia and Tor split the pasta carbonara and chef salad; they had to try the pasta since I blog about it so much. We also got glasses of Kanterbrau, a French beer from Strasbourg I really like.

Lunch. If you can’t tell, this place has insane portion sizes.

My Pasta

We were getting a little cold sitting in the shade, and were more then ready for a walk in the sun. We headed to the Bastille after leaving the restaurant. We initially planned to take the bubble gondolas to the top, but the line was super long and we ambitiously decided to do the short hike instead.

My cardiovascular health must be worse than I thought, because this hike felt much more difficult than the first time I did it. It took us about an hour to do the hike, but the exercise felt great. It was super sunny today, which meant the views from the top were spectacular as always. I explained the various mountain ranges to my sisters and pointed out various things in the city.

Here is a photo we got a stranger to take for us

We hung out around the top for a while and stopped at the snack bar to buy some waters. We opted to take the bubbles down this time, which transformed our once hour long journey into a two minute one.

Feeling rested once we got to the bottom, we headed to the Musee de Grenoble next. This was my second time here, but I didn’t get to see everything the last time. It was significantly more crowded here today because some spring festival was going on. There were many tables set up with various French authors and artists.

Here’s a few pictures from the museum today:

Tor pondering art as an intellectual.

 

I just thought this painting was cool.

 

I had to take another picture with my favorite painting in the museum!

We were feeling a bit tired after the museum and headed back to the airbnb. Our next event wasn’t until 7:30 for dinner. Anne-Marie invited my sisters to have a crepe dinner with my host family. Crepes are obviously a common dessert item in France, but they are eaten as a main course too. A less-sweet batter is used and you fill the crepes with various meats, cheeses and vegetables.

A while later, we headed out to my house a bit before dinner. I wanted some time to introduce my sisters and show them my room.

Candid shot of me opening the front gate to my house

Once we were inside I introduced Julia and Victoria to my host parents. Anne-Marie was excited to show the picture of my family hanging up in the kitchen, which I gave to them my first day in France. Julia and Victoria also gave Anne-Marie the chocolate egg they got as a gift for her since Easter was next weekend.

We had about thirty minutes until dinner, so I hung out with my sisters in my room. I gave them the grand tour which really only included:

1.My bedroom

2. The weird shower/bathtub

3. My microwave in the hallway.

Before we knew it, the dinner bell was ringing and we headed downstairs. This is where I introduced my sisters to Jessica. We were eating in the dining room today since Anne-Marie wanted to put on a show. The table had the nice plates on it, as well as a crepe griddle. There was also a huge variety of fill-ins for the crepes including: ham, prosciutto, chorizo, tomatoes, salmon, crab, mushrooms, cheese and more. A-M did not hold back tonight.

This is what the crepe griddle looked like.

A-M would consistently pour batter in out burners and we all had tiny spatulas to flip them. I was really bad at flipping them and I became the butt-end of the jokes at dinner because of this. In my defense, I think I had a faulty burner because the crepe would always stick to the griddle. I also burned my finger on the grill, which was a major blow to my confidence. We reached a certain point where A-M told me not to touch my crepe while cooking anymore, she would just do it for me. I solemnly accepted defeat.

While eating dinner, I explained in French my sister’s ages and what they did for a living. I didn’t really know how to describe a physician’s assistant, so I just said that Tor was a new doctor. Anne-Marie was really impressed understandably. Jessica also talked a bit with my sisters in English, and was helpful with some translation.

Anne-Marie would not stop pouring more batter onto the griddle, so we all ate an astronomical amount of crepes. It was even worse for me, since she started giving me two crepes every batch instead of one. I was near defeat and finally said I was good for now. But alas, it was time for the dessert crepes!

As full as I was, I managed to find more room for these. The batter was different and was sweeter and fluffier. Fortunately, these crepes were much easier to flip, so I regained my crepe-touching privileges. For the dessert crepes, we had a selection of chocolate and hazelnut spread, syrup, and powdered sugar. A few crepes later, the batter was finished and I was disgustingly full. We thanked A-M for dinner, and headed upstairs. I wanted to pack a small bag of clothes for tonight since I was staying at the airbnb. I grabbed my stuff and we headed out.

We stopped at the airbnb to drop off my stuff, then we headed out to go to some bars. I wanted to show some of the Grenoble night life, including the more relaxed bars where you could sit. Our first destination was O’Callaghans, known for their huge selection of beers. They have a beer garden area outside and we hung out there after getting our drinks.

Some silly pictures from the first bar

After hanging out there for a while, we headed to our next destination across the street, Shakesbeer. This is the bar with the really good house beer that tastes like pretzels. Naturally, we got three glasses of that. The beers were really good as predicted, and we soon headed back to the airbnb to call it a night.

I was exhausted and passed out immediately on the futon.