Day 18 - Le Progres

Today Roger and I tried a new restaurant, we have great luck with our lunch picks.
At Chez Moi (My house) I finally found the first relatively healthy chicken salad in town and had to celebrate the discovery with the Crumble Poire avec chocolat (Pear Pie with chocolate topped with vanilla ice cream). The waiter convinced me in his best english that this "pineapple cake" was amazing. He was right about it being delicious even though he confused his fruits and pastries.

I figure when it comes to desserts though it's okay to gamble and have yet to be disappointed which might be a future regret. The scales here are great for the weight-gain concerns though because they are in kilograms. The good news is every time I weigh and the number 55 shows up, I laugh to myself "I'm finally back to my kindergarten weight".
I've tried looking everywhere for gym and there isn't anything resembling a LA Fitness or 24 Hour. One gym is a Curves type workout where women go for a half-hour session but the hours are insane and they aren't open on the weekends. How is it that all the people here stay slim and trim on these high cheese, meat and pastry diets without duking it out in spin class or turbo kickboxing????

I've come to a couple of hypotheses, the first is Tons of walking - I walk probably 2 hours every day between school, the mall, grocery stores, getting lost, etc. This morning on my way to catch the bus, I see the C1 coming up behind me. Knowing that if I miss this bus, another one will not come for another 20 minutes. Especially today, the bus drivers are on strike and the loops are taking twice as long. First it was the air traffic controllers strike last week who caused us to lose our flight, and now I might miss my lunch date with Roger. So I start my sprint for probably two blocks through the people, across lanes of traffic carrying my purse and school books. The bus is making good headway and it pulls up to the stop about 50 yards ahead of me, luckily there are more people than usual waiting to board so it's delayed a bit. I manage to squeeze my hands in the rear double doors as they are closing and they thankfully open back up. Heart is racing now, cardio for the day done!

After I leave lunch, I go to the local "Tobacco" store to buy a pack of..... bus tickets. Don't worry, I haven't picked up all the European habits. I asked: "Dix tickets pour le bus, si vous plais. Bon Journee!"
Even though it's pretty meager, I'm elated by the fact that I'm able to have somewhat of conversation since outside of school and Roger they are pretty much non-existent. It's been just over two weeks into my stay here and this feels like quite a milestone.

I hop off the bus at Part Dieux, the local shopping mall where the only recognizeable stores are The Body Shop and well, McDos. I make my way to my new favorite store where I purchase all my craft needs for my newest hobby Decopatch. Halfway there, a crowd is gathered and shoppers alike are leaning over the railings and stairs of the mall's three floors watching a fashion show. It's my lucky day. These things never happen to me in the states.

I wish it were warm enough here to think about buying dresses and short sleeved shirts. It's currently 0.3 degrees C, which is (.3x2)+30 = 30.6 degrees F. There's no sign of f this cold letting up anytime soon.

Speaking of recognizeable stores, one of the local grocery stores I found today actually has a tex mex section. hehe, Old El Paso is so exotic.