It's Almost Friday? Really??

The week seems to have flown, and what do we have to show for it? In the span of the week, Michael and I have acquired a new table and a new obsession, Fromage Frais. Now, for the week's snyopsis:

Monday -- I'm not really sure what happened on Monday, neither of us can remember. However, after looking through emails to find clues to Monday's happenings we did realize the we purchased our train tickets on Monday to meet up with Harry and Camille in Paris a few weeks from now :-)

On Tuesday afternoon, we had our second French class which was, again, very enjoyable. She asked us about anything funny that had happened in the past week where we were stuck without French. One student talked about going to Cora and trying to buy cheese (fromage in french), but instead he ended up with Fromage Frais. Our MME Serafin explained that Fromage Frais (literally meaning "fresh cheese") is taken from the first stage of cheese making (after the curtling agent is added but before fermentation, sorry if I'm boring you with cheese-making procedure) and is whipped to smooth it out. It is traditionally served as a dessert here with sugar, jam, or honey added, but it can also be served warm with sautéed onions and garlic as a dip. It sounded awesome to me, so after going to Cora for general supplies, we bought a package of Fromage Frais. It turned out to be pretty awesome and a new favorite for breakfast (and lunch...and dessert, yes, I ate 3 single-serve containers today). It is a little tart, very smooth, and tastes exactly like what I imagine good homemade yogurt should taste like.

On Tuesday evening, after a yummy dinner of sausage, fried potatoes, and green beans, Moses convinced us to hop the bus into Metz to visit one of his couch-surfing aquaintences, Elaina. Elaina just finished her PhD (as she called it, her Permenant Head Damage) in Material Sciences at the University of Metz and is now moving to the Netherlands, therefore she has to get rid of crap and Moses thought we might be interested. We had come prepared with backpacks, which we loaded down with dishes and pots; Michael and I weren't in need of much although we took a few little kitchen things. The main thing we were looking for was a table, a little table that would fit in our little kitchen area and give us more working space, and bingo, she had one sitting in her bathroom! After we had everything packed up we sat down for a lovely dinner that Elaina prepared, a salad of greens, tomatoes, onions, fried pork lardons (essentially bacon bits, only fresh), and a fried egg on top dressed in a mustard and dill dressing. After that excellent (second) dinner, we all made our way to the main bus stop in town to catch one of the last night busses for the night. We were concerned that the bus driver wouldn't let me on the bus with a table (I know I would have never gotten away with that in Pittsburgh), so Elaina graciously agreed to come down to the bus stop and convince the driver (in French), which she fully succeded in. The driver seemed completely content to let us on with the table and was even nice enough to tell us when our stop came up since we had never been on the night bus route before. Yesterday (Wednesday) we had a Mexican Feast complete with fajitas, Desperado beer (flavored with Tequila), and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The Fajitas turned out well, we had to make do with a couple of things though. Fajita seasoning here is extremely different than in the US, it tastes almost exactly like BBQ sauce once it's cooked, and they don't really have sour cream, so we used some Crème Fraîche (same consistency as sour cream, but nowhere near a sour) instead. Once we piled the tortillas fully of the Chicken, lots of salsa, and the crème fraîche, it really tasted quite good although not really fajita like.

Today has been pretty mellow, we had a meeting with the manager here at the dorms where we paid our rent (well, gave him a check, we're waiting for our transfer to go though into the French account). For dinner, we had some green olives and tortellini with tomato sauce and watched My Cousin Vinny because it sounded maybe slightly Italian. The sunset was really beautiful tonight although I didn't manage to take the panoramic below until after mos of the color was already gone.

You can check out some more updated pictures at the facebook album here.