Tuesday, November 10, 2009

long dinners, tram problems, and finally home

Saturday night we drove to Villefranche to eat dinner with the English teachers in Beaujeu (where Doug works on Mondays). We were first told to arrive at 7... then the time was switched to 8... so we arrived promptly at 8. The other guests arrived at 8:30, 9, and 9:45. It was around this point that we quietly joked about the Office episode when Jim and Pam go eat with Michael and Jan and discover that the main dish has to braise for 3 hours and Jan tells Pam that in Spain, they often eat at midnight... well sure enough, we were still being served food at 12:30 AM!!! We finally excused ourselves and said we had to leave, which we felt bad about since the get-together was in our honor. We got back to the Hendrixes after 1AM. Sunday morning we went to the tram stop to go to church and after waiting a few minutes, realized that due to some construction on the tram line, the tram was not stopping at Meyzieu Gare (the stop near the Hendrixes), so we went back to the Hendrixes and got directions and drove there, but missed the exit because it was not marked as indicated in the directions, so using a book of maps I found in the Hendrixes car, we finally found our way back. We were 10 minutes late, which is extra-embarassing since there are only 35 people at church. Sunday afternoon we did some cleaning at the Hendrixes, then packed up and finally headed back to the apartment. Yesterday morning we went for a run in the park, which was so nice! It had been weeks since we had run.
Tomorrow is Armistice Day, so there is no school and we are hosting an "American Brunch" potluck for other English assistants... right now the guest count is at 22, so it will be a full apartment!

1 comment:

Lauren S said...

It's so true about Spain...nothing even opens until at least 8, and lots of people don't eat until 10 or later. I heard that the average spaniard gets 45 minutes less sleep per night than the average person. At least you aren't having to do that the whole time you're there!