Des rencontres

Tonight, after having dined for about a week on yogurt and fruit every night, I made the monumental decision to buy a pizza. Well, not really a pizza, because even in France each little cardboard round seems to scream "Artificial! Eat me now!!", but a sort of flatbread thing. The appeal of it was that the "brand name" was something along the lines of "Good Life", and below it in scrawled type over a picture of a field of wheat was written, "Our country artisans have great talent", or something to that effect. Which to me meant, hopefully, locally produced. I wish I could tell you what the damn thing was, but I threw the wrapper away, and I really don't know. It was Alsacian, and had a name like "knutzenflammenkeuchen", if my memory for recalling utterly ridiculous words in a foreign language serves me well. Which, on second thought, no it doesn't. In any case, it was pretty good. Basically, it was a long rectangular cracker bread, with cheese, bacon, and onions on top. Don't think I'll be eating that often, if I want to fit my pants.

Anyway, it was a monumental decision, because I don't have an oven in my "kitchenette" (pronunciation: kee-tchee-nette). Which meant I had to go downstairs to the communal kitchen to cook it. Being somewhat timid in initial social settings, I stalled until 9:30ish, then hunger took over and I made the terrifying descent down to the rez-de-chaussée (=ground floor). Imagine my delight when I came across my new South African friend, J, in the kitchen already cooking. Which worked to our mutual advantage, because suddenly neither one of us was the weird girl cooking by herself, we were two friends cooking together. And two attracts more. Thus, I am proud to announce, I now know some people here. People my age, who do things like go out on weekends, or go to the gym together, or eat dinner together. I've never had this in France. I've usually been alone here, or in a group with other students, or perhaps with one French friend (thank you, M). But if I'm going to spend the greater part of a year in France, I think I'm going to want to get out of my room from time to time.

And so, to begin our convivial mingling, I agreed to join in a game of Ultimate Frisbee tomorrow evening.

God help me.

Oh, P.S.: Having friends is also wonderful for another thing. It keeps one motivated. Thus, yours truly is now registered - in a copycat gesture of said new South African friend - for the Paris Half Marathon. It's in March, so I guess that gives me a bit of time to start running (!).