Cuisine "française"

This post is really for Tom because we know how much he loves our pictures of food. Since arriving in France more than two weeks ago we've been staying at an "ApartHotel" which is basically a hotel but for whatever reason caters to longer term stays. We recently found an apartment and we'll be moving in on March 7th! However, some of the interns that I've met at Xerox have 6 month internships and for the entire time they'll be living in this hotel! It sounds crazy but France is quite strict with apartments. All leases are for three years and you have to formally apply with ID, your bank details, a work contract, and usually an agency that represents you (Xerox has an agency representing us). Even with all this stuff, we couldn't get the original apartment that we wanted because they were concerned that my work contract is "only" for 1.5 years (even though anyone can get out of an apartment lease with three months notice). Anyways, the apartment that we ended up getting is really cool and we're excited to move there. But I digress...

So we've been at this hotel for 2 weeks so you'd think we'd just be going out for dinner every night enjoying delicious French cuisine, right? Well, we're like really mature and responsible these days so we've only actually done that a few times. Instead, most of the time we've been making dinners in our little kitchen here at Adagio (the ApartHotel). It's actually pretty fun going to the grocery store and seeing products that we're not used to seeing. Also, a GOOD bottle of wine is like 5 euros in the grocery store and if you just an ok bottle of wine you can get one for like less than a can of coke. So, for Tom mainly (and everyone who is allegedly subscribed to this super awesome cool photo blog), here are some images from within the Adagio of la cuisine "française"...

Pasta with spicy sausage meet, tomato sauce, and peppers. With camembert, baguette, salad, and red wine (a theme will develop)...

Omelette for dinner (it's French!) with mini salads, baguette and red wine.

Chicken stir-fry with vegetables and basmatti rice, Perrier (French!), and red wine.

Pasta with tomato and olive oil sauce (aside: we've gone through more than 1 L of olive oil since arriving), ground beef (different from previous dinner!), onions and peppers. Also baguette with chèvre (French), salad with dijon dressing (French), red wine (French, obv), and for dessert: succès (French) -- a delicious mini chocolate cake-like thing.

Green salad with hard boiled eggs (probably French) and red wine (comme toujours).

Totally French -- it's even in the name... Steak, FRENCH fries, salad, red wine.

More Italian but whatevs.. Carbonara (bacon, egg, and cream pasta) with salad, garlic breads (made with French baguette), salad, and white wine (HA! just kidding -- Red wine).

Close-up (see, that wine is definitely red).

Another omelette (notice the spelling -- it is French, did you know?) but this time we're a little fancier with some French bread and some French fries, Casino-brand spicy ketchup, salad, and some red wine.

Hamburgers! Can you tell that we are like some chefs? They have FRENCH fries on the side and on top they have Camembert from France. Then we've got some salad and a red drink that I can't remember what it's called. Oh, we also put Dijon mustard on these bad boys and it was spicy and delicious. The mustard is from a place called Dijon quite close to us here in France.

Apéritif meal. Here we've got some Pastis with devilled eggs, pickles, baguette, Camembert, and cold cuts. As another side note, I hurt my foot so can't do any training and with the food that we are eating here I have likely already gained 400 pounds or so (maybe less, but also maybe more).

And... the last one for now. Quiche! That is like the definition of French food, I believe. Notice the red wine in the background -- I forgot to pour it before taking the photo. Whoops. Sandi's quiche is noix roquefort (another kind of French cheese!) and mine is Quiche Loraine. Made by a famous French woman named Loraine (I think -- look it up on Wikipedia if you don't trust me).

Until next time...

Random Photo Post

We've now been here for over a week and are starting to get a better idea of the layout of the city, etc. On Valentine's Day we did something very French (not) and went for sushi!

It was no Genji but it was quite delicious. To start the meal we had Kir Royal which is a fancy apéritif made with Champagne and cassis.

Last night after work we went to the city centre to look at the area that some apartments that we'll be looking at are in. We went to a bar in the square right by one of the apartments and had Martini Rouges (a french cocktail that's made with Royal Chambord and gin or vodka) and a plate of Italian charcuteries with a bunch of cheese. It was quite delicious (again).

One of the "trademarks" of Grenoble is the cable car (le télépherique or les bulles) that lifts you from the left bank of the river up to La Bastille which is on the Chartreuse mountain. It was perfect weather for February today (10 degrees celsius and sunny) so we made the trip. It was really cool!

And here we are at the top:

p.s. for any of the pictures on here you can click on them to make them big!

Mountains

Grenoble is beautiful. The pictures don't do it justice but here are a few mountain views I captured with my 4-year-old phone. The first 4 are around my work in Meylan and the last one (where you can really see that it was sunny!) is from the city centre in Grenoble.

First Day at Work

Today was my first day at work. Mainly just administrative stuff but I got my office and it's got quite the view. The picture doesn't really do it justice but here's one of the mountains I can see when I look out my window!

Arrival

We arrived at the airport with our suitcases and bikes after taking a crazy detour due to a transport truck jack-knifing on the ramp to the 427 N. Checking in went fine; while Sandi's bike was going through the x-ray machine we noticed that the box had somehow developed a giant tear in the bottom. The guy was super nice and stopped the conveyer belt, got us some packing tape, and we fixed it up. Our bikes did not make it to Lyon with us but they were delivered the next morning (today) and our taping job seemed to have held up.

Looking happy just before entering the airport and checking in...

After we'd found our gate we got a quick snack and a couple of caesars -- the last time we'll be able to have the real thing for a while!

After our bikes were delivered I checked mine out and it seems to have arrived in one piece (obviously not re-assembled yet!)

We were worried that without Planet Bean we might miss good coffee. But we found a place that seems to do a pretty good job...

Sandi in front of a big mountain near my work:

We took the bus to my work (which starts Monday morning) so that I'd know how long it took and which stop to get off at, etc. It took just about 15 minutes from the city centre. Here I am by the front gate.

Our first day and a half has been good. Let's hope that my job goes well too.......