Day 18: Paella

I woke up pretty late this morning because a bunch of us from the group went out last night to a new bar called James Joyce. I was, however, up before Elly and her boyfriend, Sliman. I came to breakfast just in time to meet Claudine coming in the door with arms full of fresh baked goods. She had some sweet bread with chocolate chips baked into it along with a whole bat full of croissants. They were amazing! It was actually the first time I've had croissants since I've been here. They're a bit more flakey and buttery than in the United States. I liked them. After this, we sat down and I studied some of my quiz bowl material while claudine cleaned. We then packed up and got ready to head out to the countryside to visit Claudine's sister. As soon as we got there lunch was ready. It ended up lasting three hours and we went through six courses! We started out with bread and pad-tae, a shot glass with avocado guacamole/tapioca, another with a tomato-type concoction, then we had the main dish paella. It was great! It had chicken, sausage, squid, mussels, and shrimp in it. For dessert, we had a big glass filled with chocolate, cream, pears, and an almond liqueur. After this, we headed out to the garden to pick black current back at the house. It hurt my back pretty bad after bending over for almost an hour in an attempt to pick the berries from the bush, but we ended up with a nice harvest, as Claudine said, so I was pretty please. Claudine told me I was to take some of the jam home to my parents, so that made me pretty excited. We headed back home shortly thereafter and had noodles for dinner. Quite a relaxing day, especially since it was spent in the french countryside.