Our fridge was scheduled to arrive between 8 AM and 1 PM. Chris was also supposed to wake up at some point, buy a train ticket, and tell me what time he was getting in so that Vaune and I could go pick him up at la Gare Montparnasse. This was fine for a while… I lounged around, watched The Office, etc. Eventually Vaune went out to buy groceries for dinner. I kept waiting. Around 11, the fridge guy called and said he’d be there in 20 minutes. An hour later, I called him. He said they’d been held up but they were on their way. Another hour and a half later (keep in mind this is after 1 PM now) they finally got there. They were nice, but I was unsure of French tipping practices in this situation, out of cash, and unhappy with this particular wait, so I didn’t tip them. Especially because I was making corn chowder for dinner – so Vaune had dropped off, among other things : milk, heavy cream, and cream cheese, which had been waiting in my room for about an hour and had to sit in the fridge for another hour before it got cold, which made me nervous, though all was fine.
Stocked fridge
I went out to get some more groceries, and ran into Erin, which was fun. I went back and dropped off my groceries in the new fridge, and then took the RER and Métro to Montparnasse, where I navigated the station to find Chris and Vaune, and then we swam back through crowds of people to get back on the Métro. Once we got back, we sat around for a bit and then I started making dinner. We were all very excited for this – it’s been a long time since any of us has had any good food that wasn’t prepared in a restaurant. Well, except for Chris. But Vaune and I were excited. And I enjoy cooking and was looking forward to creating something. So I chopped up a carrot and a stalk of celery, minced some parsley, and sautéed them in butter while I chopped a potato and measured out the milk, cream, cream cheese, corn, and other minor ingredients. Then I put them all in the pot and stirred them around and cooked it til the potatoes were soft… and it was delicious. It could have been a little thicker – we couldn’t find sour cream so I had to put in more milk and cream. Next time I may buy crème fraiche – it’s almost the same thing.
Stirring my corny, chowdery corn chowder
Corn chowder enthusiasm
Anyway, Vaune and Chris really liked it, which made me happy. I actually think they liked it more than I did – it was so heavy! I couldn’t handle more than one bowl. They had two. I still have some in a tupperware container. I think next time I will add onions – or maybe chives. Maybe some peppers or something to make it a little more interesting.
Afterwards we went to the Eiffel Tower, to see it at night. It was pretty, all lit up and sparkly. We sat on the grass and after the same man tried to sell us champagne three times, we left and went back to the Fondation, where we watched three episodes of Strangers With Candy and then crashed. Now Vaune and I are blogging, and soon we are going back to the Eiffel Tower to actually go up it. This will be my third time up the Eiffel Tower – hopefully it will finally be the first time I actually go all the way up, as I have always wanted to.
Chris and I outside the Eiffel Tower
In all its sparkling glory
Me pretending to catch the giant rugby ball suspended in the middle of the Eiffel Tower
Another note – I have my webcam set up now. I talked to Dan, although it was choppy and not great, but I also talked to my brother and the connection was much better. I have had trouble with iChat but Skype seems to be working pretty well. So if you have a webcam, let me know!
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