Je m'excuse

Bonsoir à tous et toutes!

I felt earlier this week that the quality of my blog posts were suffering due to my desire to post everyday, and our registration for classes this week made us so busy that it was very difficult for us to continue. However, my short hiatus is over and I shall continue to recount our adventures in the petite ville of Orléans.

We can now officially navigate the city, including the buses and tram. We have eaten a couple of different times, at a few places. One of the first places we've eaten since you last met our heroes was a Chinese-Vietnamese-Laotian restaurant near to the Gares d'Orléans. The food there was pretty good. I had "beignets des crevettes," or fried prawns covered in sweet and sour sauce accompanied by a Heineken and followed by a coffee (if it seems like we drink a lot of alcohol, it is very available and inexpensive here, most times more so than "des Cocas" or other drinks besides water).

We also ate at a sushi restaurant for dinner one night (one of the few restaurants that were open for dinner; lunch is the big meal here rather than dinner/supper/whatever you like to call the meal you eat after 5:00 PM). The portion sizes were much smaller than those of the United States, which was fine for us, because we were not very hungry then. I had a roll that was a mixture of salmon, avocado, and cream cheese.

Today's lunch was from a café not far from our apartment, whose name I cannot remember right now. I had a "salade parisienne" (salad with cooked ham on top) followed by a pizza given the name "l'Obama" (pictured above). It had mustard, white cheese, bell peppers, chicken, and assorted fats and oils. Also, it was delicious. This was finished by a kind of ice cream cake composed of the best raspberry sorbet I have ever had topped by a delectable vanilla ice cream and rounded out by a meringue and a dab of icing on top all covered in raspberry syrup and all incredibly rich, fattening, and so good.

Our other major achievement of the day was taking our placement exams (results to be posted as we get them on Friday). It consisted of written and oral sections on all topics.

Finally, I want to leave you with a forecast: wet and cold. (By the way, that forecast is for the foreseeable future, as in forever and always.)