An Unexpected Party

Today we slept in until noon, then by evening we were awake enough to go shopping at the grocery store nearby for the week. So when 8 o'clock rolled around (after another hour nap.) we wandered into Micheline's kitchen and expected to make some pasta we bought and some veggies to stir fry.

The next thing we know, Micheline appears and she is getting some white asparagus out of the fridge and saying a lot of things we only half understood. Next a man comes through the door with a plate of fish and then a woman with some more food, and there is a lot of French everywhere everywhere. Micheline hands us some silverware and plates and we set up on the back patio next to the garden, still completely unsure of what's going on. (Are we supposed to help? Eat with them? Cook something too?)

These people live down the hall and are Micheline's daughter, Carole, and her husband. They had just made food so joined us for the evening.

Tessa and I decided to just go with the flow, and soon enough we had a very interesting meal in front of us:

Small cantaloupes which we all agreed were overripe.

A blended aubergine with garlic. It's like a paste, but the sponginess goes away since its blended (with a blender), and the garlic helps, but I found it slightly bitter still. 

Small organic radishes. Carole's way of eating them were to slice the end like an X, stick some butter in it, and dip it in sea salt. Really, it's way better than it sounds!

White asparagus (previously cooked soft) dipped in truffle vinaigrette. We got a whole lesson on what exactly white asparagus was, because neither of us had actually seen it before. Look it up, it's about four times as thick as green asparagus, and it's white because when it grows, they keep putting dirt on it so the sun never touches it. I think.

And some lettuce. With vinaigrette.

After everything was back inside, Carole's husband got a ladder and picked a bag full of cherries from the tree because the birds kept taking them. They were tasty but not too sweet.

Now it's about 10 o'clock, sun setting, and in probably an hour or two, the kitchen will be busy with activity again like last night. Who knows.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

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A wall of chocolate!! We will have to get some. This is actually only one of three walls around the supermarket. And a whole other wall of biscuits as well.

View on the Eurostar: (out of order, this came first.)

This was in the street when we left the store with our groceries, and so I took a picture of it.

Eurostar

The morning of our London departure: We visited Kew Gardens over near Richmond (affluent area) and walked around some beautiful garden grounds. We took lots of plant pictures, and finally found some freshly made ice cream.

Then we met my German pen-friend Katharina for a short while to explore the Science Museum together. She just flew in from Spain to volunteer at her cousin's elementary school in London for a couple weeks.  It had been two years since I'd seen her last so it was very nice to say hello!

Our Eurostar train left at 4:22pm so by then it was just past three. We ran back to grab our backpacks at the crappy hotel, and then raced for one last ride on the Tube to St Pancras station, side by side King's Cross.

When we boarded our coach (after customs, passport stamping, and bag screening) we were immediately followed by....no fewer than thirty loud, French, thirteen-year-old boys. They immediately started blasting the Thrift Shop song on someone's phone, and made a game of throwing a package of sweets back and forth across the aisles. (It was a four hour ride.)

As I'm writing this: They've figured out we are English speakers, and now we are helping them with their British-English homework, since it's a school field trip.

Anyway, after we arrived in Gare du Norde I realized quite suddenly that I did not remember much French at all. Thinking back, I've been saying "Je parle un peu Français." for, oh, six years now. I'm really, really sorry for unintentionally deceiving you, Tessa.

After about 40 minutes of trying to figure out what ATM is in French (for we had no Euros) and where an info booth was, we made it on the correct Metro lines with a small handwritten map in hand!! By then we were both already exhausted. Packs=heavy no matter how well you pack.

Finally we got off on the nearest station and had to ask a fruit stand guy to tell us where Didot street is, and we got yet another handwritten map. THEN once we got to the street, some lady walks past us and says "oh, backpackers, right?" (No, we are just carrying around a few tons of crap on our back at 9 o'clock at night.) She has a complete American accent to my delight, and she's from California. ("Oh, I don't speak French but I live here. Where are you going? Great, I live in that building!")

We buzzed in and knocked on Micheline's door, dearly hoping our directions and contact was all right. Well, once we said who we were: "You're the two backpack girls! Mon Dieu, I completely forgot about you! Leave your stuff here and go get some food. Come back in an hour and your room will be made!" She lives above an Indian food restaurant, so we went there ("Oh you don't have money yet? Don't go get cash at night! Go down there and order and say my name, and I'll be down to pay for you in a  few minutes.") so we ordered Indian food in French.

We are staying with a friend of a friend, Micheline, who is an 85 year old woman who lived in the States for a decade in the past, so her English is fair. Her hearing on the other hand, is not so fair. She also has un petit chien, Maxsu.

Now, this place is costing us $32 each, a night, so our budgeting is for four days in Paris. But we would absolutely love to stay longer, we just haven't figured out how yet....something will come up, it always does.

Our room: