Coming & going

It’s another homecoming on a Sunday evening after a long weekend with P in France. And I don’t even know why I bother to open my blog, because quite frankly: I think I’m too tired to write anything sensible right now. Anyway, I feel a slight obligation to at least give it a try :-) . So here’s a quick overview of the past three days!

After arriving on Thursday evening, we discovered one of the “INSEAD” restaurants in Fontainebleau “Pizza Pazza”(INSEAD restaurant meaning : cheap but OK food, and discount for students + partners). Actually, now that I’ve mentioned them on my blog, I feel I’ve deserved another 10% discount.
Friday I started the day quite ‘academically”, going to the library with P (see former posting) – only to become a true housewife in the afternoon (shopping, cleaning, ironing and actually even enjoying it. Please forget those last words right after reading them).
P had classes until 19.00PM, and after that I was very pleased to be part of “champagne-Friday” for once: a little tradition P and his work group developed during P1, sharing a bottle of bubbles after each week they survive. That night, the champagne served more than one purpose : it was Diwali, or the Indian New Year, and they all got their P1 exam-grades! (I will not begin to write about how immensely proud I am of P – remember my intention : give a quick overview)
We had actually planned to go to the African Party, but we ended up cocooning in our Barbizon place. Feeling tired, and afraid that we caught some kind of French flu.
The virus continued to bug us on Saturday, so we ended up staying home and just relaxing. In the evening, fellow INSEAD-Belgians came along to have dinner with us (thank god for the great “traiteur” in Barbizon) – we had a really nice time, just talking, getting to know each other better, and I felt very much “at home”.
Sunday was the birthday of RL, P’s mom, and she was actually on a city trip in Paris. We arranged to meet each other at the Musée du Luxembourg, to go to the Arcimboldo-exhibit. The exhibit itself was great, if not overcrowded…After that we had a superb lunch in the Café Marly at the Louvre, a place that was on my wish list for quite some time! Their moelleux (kind of a half melting, warm chocolate cake) was the ultimate comfort food I needed, because right after that P jumped on the metro, on his way to Fonty again, and we made our way to the Gare du Nord to catch the Thalys to Brussels.

Now I’m back home, and so far Phoebe, our hamster, is the only one who is very pleased with that! I am feeling geographically disoriented, emotionally mixed up, very tired and afraid this headache won’t pass with just one painkiller.
One thing left to do : call P, feel a bit better consequently, and then of to bed!