May 6

Sunday, May 6, 2007
I am so on the TGV right now! Is that not the greatest thing ever?! You have absolutely no idea how much I love trains! Unfortunately, I am not in the window seat and the guy next to me has pulled the blind down…I offered to switch seats but he pretended like e didn’t understand me…I don’t like people like that. I am perfectly well aware that sometimes my French accent is, well, nonexistent, but for the most part people are quite capable of understanding me! Oh well!! I know I’ll get to travel a lot (train and car) this trip so I can hopefully get my fill of window views!
So after I went running last night I came home and did a nice amount of abs and elastic band stuff…I must say that the abs are a lot easier without Bronte’s help! And then I got all ready again (ready for what I wasn’t sure…it just seems necessary here!) before I went over to a couple of supermarkets I’d seen from the park. I had fun going through the first superstore-like place. I have this obsession with the France paper. But I swear that it uses about 5 times as many trees to make than ours does. And their cheeses were amazing and so cheep – I am going to be able to buy a lot of cheese for my allotted 20$ to come back home!
Then, I walked down to a FNAC-like store (except I forget the name of this one). I love stores like that. The craft stuff is all amazing and then all the books and everything. It’s great. I had wanted to go back there today so I could buy a book that I’d found (they are sooo cheap here…don’t quite get why!) but I remembered today that stores are not open on Sundays (and before they weren’t open on Monday either, so we shall see what I find in Grenoble tomorrow).
When I got home I finally got up the nerve to knock on the apartment door of the friend’s/relatives that live in the hotel. We had a really good time…that lasted way too late in my opinion – but that is typical France! We ate raclette…basically my favourite meal here, I think, so it was a pretty good option for my first dinner here – and I was actually really hungry too, so that was a good thing. And then bed…another very wonderful thing.
Today I woke up at about nine am, which was perfect because I had to meet Mme Lenfant for breakfast at 10:00. I had wanted to go for a run, but I figured I could go after we ate because she’d told me last night that we’d be leaving for the train station at about 3:30 today. Anyway, that isn’t really how it went at all. I went downstairs and the nice hostess lady said that Mme Lenfant hadn’t come down yet. I said that wasn’t a problem and I sat at the bar in the lobby reading…for about 4o minutes. I then decided I would just go running because she was obviously not showing up at 10:00…I told the hostess lady and she said that Mme Lenfant had already eaten in any case! Well – I went for a nice little run and ended up back at the hotel just at 11:00.
Mme Lenfant was right there waiting for me and told me that we were late! I was a little confused because 12:00 didn’t correspond with any time she’d told me yesterday! She said that we had to go (where, I was not sure) but I ran upstairs, showered, and packed up in less that 15 minutes. Good thing I am a talented packer – all those moving out of residences must have helped me acquire some useful skill!!
We went to her son’s house – which ended up being one of the people that was at the airport and at the hotel yesterday! At least I was now capable of figuring out who is who…regarding relatives and friends. This couple has a young girl (age 2) named Julia who is the cutest thing ever. All smiles and the longest blond hair ever (I really have never seen such long hair on a two-year-old.) She totally remembered who I was today and said I was Allison from Canada…and she counted to 10 in English for me! Pretty cute.
We ate amazing poppy-seed baguette with cheese, pate, meat, and all that good stuff for lunch. I really liked the bread – I’ve never seen it before! And then I had ½ a mille-feuille for dessert…also my favourite (although I was actually kind of disappointed by this one.
While everyone was sitting around smoking and drinking coffee I went and brought out my water bottle – and they did not understand. At all. I had a good 3 glasses of their bought water at lunch, but I always feel bad drinking so much of that bought water when I know that here (unlike Guatemala), water from the tap is perfectly fine! Anyway, they then spent a long while trying to make me believe that water from the tap doesn’t get digested properly and how it was unhealthy, etc. A pretty amusing conversation, if you ask me. But, I guess if the people here weren’t brought up to think water from the tap was unhealthy, the stores would never be able to sell the immense quantities and varieties of bottled water that they do. And I am still alive!!
We started off for Paris around 3:30 and it took a while because of the traffic. On the weekends all of the lower roads and tunnels are closed off to vehicles to allow pedestrians and bikers easier access – which causes a good amount of traffic jams! It was a nice car-ride though because it was basically my Paris tour. We drove up (and down) Les Champs de Elysées and I saw the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dam.
I laughed when I saw my train ticket. It said it was for "Alison Keaging". I don’t know how many times I’ve told them that my first name is spelled with two "ll" – and I have never seen my last name spelled like that! Pretty funny! Anyway, they let me on the train – so I guess there wasn’t really any problem!
I had another good story, but I currently forget what it was about – so never mind that for the moment!
I woke up this morning with my legs slightly sore from running yesterday…but that was it. My wrist, back and knee didn’t hurt at all. That is so rare for me lately - I was pretty excited. I like it when my muscles hurt – I can totally deal with that!
Okay…I will be sure to fill you in on Grenoble when I get there.

Later
-Allison

P.S. So I just had a very nice (and surprisingly healthy!) dinner with my "family" here in Grenoble...which isn't really Grenoble, but rather a small town outside of Grenoble called Crolles. It is very cute...but I am tired, so more details tomorrow! Night.

P.P.S. I remembered what the other important thing/story was! It was elections here today - and it was a very close vote between the left and right...and people didn't really know which one to vote for becuase both sides had ideas that people didn't like...but the Right side one. So now the President is Nicolas Sarkozy and he won with 53% of the votes!