February 19, 2021

Friday

I spent the morning packing and getting everything together for the weekend. I cleaned thoroughly before I headed out on the 12 bus to Meyzieu. I felt like an expert when I arrived in Lyon Part Dieu and was able to find my train with ease. The train ride was about an hour and a half to Grenoble. I enjoyed watching the mountains pass by. I arrived about 3pm at the Grenoble station.

I walked down the streets without needing a map. I knew exactly where I was going. I felt like I was returning to my second home. Our apartment was on the Place Victor Hugo. I had been excited to sit and watch the fountain for a few minutes, but I discovered that the entire park was under heavy construction. What a disappointment.

I waited about a half an hour before the Airbnb proprietor let me in. She met me at the door and I realized that she and her husband would be staying there with us and we would not have the place to ourselves. Awkward. When I entered, she insisted I take off my shoes and put on slippers. I hate slippers in general, but having to put on a strangers shoes gave me the creeps. She gave me a tour of our rooms and told me that even though we booked three beds, she’d only give us two because she didn’t want to do extra cleaning. Thinking the tour was over, I moved to put on my shoes so I could walk around town for a bit. However, the host beckoned me into the kitchen and insisted I have a cup of grapefruit juice. She told me that her husband worked for a company that sold technology to American science labs and that they were struggling to find French students to work in America for them as vendors. She criticized American environmentalism, healthcare, and schools. It was a rough crowd. The others finally arrived and freed me from the table. We left quickly to explore and get dinner.

When we were out we passed a small book sale in front of the St. Louis church.

We discovered that La Table Ronde was serving beer from the tap and letting people walk around with it. We decided that Saturday night we would come back to enjoy one in the square. On our way back to the apartment for the night we stopped and picked up dinner from a Thai place.

We got back to the apartment with our food and our host let me know that she expected us to eat at the table. Strangely, she refused to speak in French to anyone in our party except for me. She left the table and let us eat, but seemed to be constantly in and out of the room as she did chores.

After dinner, we listened to music and Satre’s “No Exit.”