Thursday in Amiens

We slept late on Thursday morning, close to 10am for some of us I think. We had some catching up to do. Nic got a few breakfast items at the small store nearby (the Casino) and we managed some eggs for breakfast. He also got a package of some "Pain du chocolate". It has croissant texture but more of a square shape and is stuffed with chocolate. Gwyneth ate 3 of them for breakfast. I think the rest of us had 1 each. Later in the day when we left the package unattended Ethan got to eat 2 of them before we noticed. Gwyneth was upset until we reminded her of how many she had eaten for breakfast. Our apartment spans the 4 windows on the right hand side, the second row from the top in the photo. The building is skinny and the apartment spans the width front to back so we have windows on the the other side too. It is nice to have so much light.

We managed a short excursion this day between about 1 and 3:30PM. We tried to find some of the grocery stores that Fabian and Veronique (the owner of the apartment) had described to us. We only came across the Marche Plus - which was smallish and slightly disappointing in terms of selection. Be bought somethings for dinner however - some flat steak, salad fixings, potatoes, and of course a baguette. It took us some time to find the milk until we realized that it was not refrigerated. I am not sure how they do that but it doesn't taste too bad. Of course, I have only dared to eat it on cereal so far. We rather stupidly bought a 6 pack of large cartons of milk, because then we then had to carry it home. Oh, and we bought 2 bottles of wine, but that was hard to resist at 2 euros a piece (less than $3 each). We had a little time to walk around a bit. The kids got hungry so we made our first attempt at finding something to eat. We were rather successful with the "Croque Monsieur" that Gwyneth is eating. Ethan had picked out a pizza but it turned out to have a lot of onions on it and that didn't go over to well. So he ate some of Gwyneth's leftovers.

We got home around 3:30PM and then Fabien showed up at 4PM to show us around town a bit. It was going to be walking tour so we decided that I should stay home with the kids as everyone was tired. So Nic went out again to find the stores that were so elusive to us and to see where the math department was. He was home around 6PM and we made our first dinner in the apartment. By now we had found the handles to the frying pans (which are removable) and were hiding in a drawer that we didn't think opened. Frying eggs for breakfast in a frying pan with no handle was interesting ... but Nic would have to tell you about that since he cooked them. We enjoyed our 2 euro wine and the food was tasty too. The steak was a bit tough but at least it tasted like steak and not meatloaf! The picture is from the dining area that is not much bigger than you see and it looks out over the front of the of building. There is a rather crazy traffic circle/pattern happening out there and Nic has been fascinated by it and spends a lot of his time just staring at it.

Later on everyone just passed out on some beds rather early. Around 7PM Ethan had disappeared and we found him asleep on one of the beds. I think Nic may have been next close to or before 9PM followed by Gwyneth and a little later by me.