it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

This morning I woke up to a thunderstorm. You know, the kind that jolts you awake from its booming constant thunder and blinding lightning. I'm deathly afraid of tornadoes, but since that's basically unlikely here, I usually find the storms relaxing. Today, however, I just groaned over the loss of sleep and tried to fall back to sleep. My alarm sounded far too soon after the initial wakeup call so I was none too happy. I had tutoring this morning and the prospect of going out in the torrential downpour to make the trek over to Beuvrages was not a pleasant one. But today was payday, and if ever there is a motivation for me, it's cold hard cash in my pocket so thoughts of calling to cancel left my mind.

In the afternoon, I met my colleague Jane for a coffee so we could catch up before planning classes next week - a meeting which I was very excited for. As you might remember, Jane and I started to really bond just before the holidays, so I was happy to rekindle that connection. We met, awkwardly did the French bise (neither of us are French so therefore never do the bise with each other but this was after a long absence), and made our way to our friendly neighborhood German cafe.

We were just sitting down over our coffee and starting to share what we did this summer - she and her family spent 3 weeks in California, Las Vegas, and the surrounding area - when I felt my phone go off. Knowing that it could only be my flatmate calling because there was a problem with her etat de lieu, I secretly cursed at the timing. I was having such a lovely time. Sure enough, the owners were demanding that I be present even though there was no mention of this when I ran into the woman two days ago. Since we still had steaming hot beverages in front of us, Hannah bought us some time, so Jane and I could continue our conversation a little bit more. We reluctantly left right after we downed the last drop, and Jane walked with me home, showing me where she used to live when she was a lectrice here and to see where I lived. I hesitated over inviting her in or asking her to wait, but in the end, decided that this could take awhile. I think I will invite her over for a dinner once my new flatmate arrives at the end of the month. It could be a nice gesture and evening, plus far less pressure if someone else is here to help with the conversation while I'm trying to cook.

Anyway, back to the lovely landlords. I wasn't really needed here in the end. We basically listened to them tell us the same old stories that we have heard each and every time we saw them about how the Americans rescued them in WWII, how they met over washing dishes, how he still does the dishes... etc while the old woman spent ages rereading and rewriting some pointless letter that she drew up. Our math skills also got called into question. Finally, we were able to usher them out the door, and I will have a month to prepare myself for their next visit (when the new girl arrives) when I'll undoubtedly here the same stories yet again.

At least Hannah and I had a treat for ourselves planned - dinner at our favorite pizzeria La Scala. It of course did not disappoint. Now, that was a nice way to end a bit of a stressful day! With a little bit of wine in our systems, we decided to do a quick roommate photo shoot. Here's our favorite photo: