Cinco de Mayo-Day 115-May 5th, 2018

Knowing I did not have much planned today, I slept in pretty late. I got up around 10:30 and showered. Breakfast was relatively normal too. By this point it was almost noon, and I knew I would be doing a lot of lounging around today.

Since  I’ve had so much free time recently, I have been writing my blogs the next day to give me something to do.  I spent about an hour writing my blog post and I was getting hungry again by the time I finished. Feeling lazy, I just had a bowl of instant Ramen and an apple.

Once I was finished with lunch, I really did not want to lie in bed and watch Netflix anymore. I have really overdosed on that the past few days. I left the house to head to this specialty wine shop called Le Vin des Alpes. This store was run by the man who did the wine tasting for us at the BU office. I wanted to pick up a bottle of wine to bring as a gift for when I stay with my Aunt and Uncle next week in Italy. If they’re reading this now, sorry for spoiling the surprise.

Buying wine in this method was completely new to me. Previously, I just went to the supermarket and choose a random bottle that looks good. I have a decent understanding of how the different regions of wine taste, but that doesn’t add too much. After doing some investigating over text with my cousin Karen, I decided I would get a bottle of Riesling.

I told the man who owned the wine shop my price range and what I was looking for. He went to another part of the store and started to rummage through wine fridges and back areas,then pulled out three different bottles. He explained to me the key flavors of each one and his thoughts on all of them. All three choices seemed good, but I had to do some thinking. I ended up going with a nice bottle from the Alsace Grand Cru region, which is a very esteemed region for wine.

On the walk back to my house, I was on a street I had never been on before. This was odd considering I was decently nearby my house. This one area had weird trees and a statue which I photographed for blog purposes.

Random Spot in Grenoble

I also saw a giant street art wall that I had never seen before in Grenoble.

Walls like this are very common in Grenoble.

It was pretty hot out today and when I got home, my room was even warmer. I opened up the window and collapsed in bed. I don’t know if it was the Ramen, but my stomach began to hurt a bit. I knew a Tums or antacid could make me feel better, but I didn’t have any. Not wanting to do anything else, I ended up finishing the series called The Defiant Ones. It is a very interesting series focusing on Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Both did a ton of groundbreaking things in the music industry and went on to found Interscope records.

When I finished this, it was about dinner time again. I made myself my usual sausage, beans and rice, but this time with added hot sauce. My stomach was feeling better, so I didn’t mind the spice. It was nice contribution to the meal.

A bit after dinner, I had made plans to go out with Jonathan and Harry. Our initial plan was to meetup in the park beforehand and have a few beers. There are no open carry laws in France, so it’s super common to see people drinking beers in public. Jonathan picked up a six pack for the three of us.

The Tower in the park looking spooky

I met the others at the park and we relaxed there about an hour. We had these nectar flavored beers that were a bit too sweet for my liking. When we finished up, we headed to the Centre Ville of Grenoble, which is the main area of the city. Not wanting to do the usual bar experience, we opted to find a shisha place.

Shisha, called hookah in the US, is usually not my type of thing, but it’s nice to switch things up once in a while. The basic setup is that you pay for the instrument and choose a flavor. I treat it similar to cigars, where I don’t really inhale when using it. We got a nice table in the terrace outside and all ordered some beers.

The Shisha setup featuring Harry.

There’s only a certain number of the setups available, so we had to wait a for about forty five minutes to get ours. It was a really warm night, so we didn’t mind waiting with our beers.

Later when we were finished with the shisha, we called it a night. Since it was a nice night out, I opted to walk home instead of taking the tram. It was a twenty five minute walk, but pretty enjoyable.

I went to bed as soon as I got home.