Introducing THATRue!

Just a quick post to do a shout-out to THATLou's new Paris Treasure Hunt, cleverly called THATRue.  I was lucky enough to participate in yesterday's hunt, and it was a fabulously fun race across the Latin Quarter, starting at the Luxembourg gardens and ending at St Michel. 

There were two simultaneous hunts - one going through St Sulpice and one on the Cluny side. Now, I know the cluny side quite while since I used to live nearby and a lot of my old haunts are in that area, so I was happy to get the St Sulpice hunt, and I actually ended up learning a lot of fun facts about that part of the neighborhood.  And really, isn't that one of the great things about Paris - even when you think you know the city, there's always some new street or quartier to discover?

Here's the website in case anyone is interested - I think it'd be a really great idea if you're coming to Paris with your kids/family, or if you're looking for a team-building or group activity to do, especially on a nice day.

(As a side note, there is also a treasure hunt at the Musée d'Orsay called THATd'Or).

There was a good idea in there somewhere...

I swear I woke up in the middle of the night last night with an idea for the most amazing blog entry.  I remember thinking "Yes!  Definitely!  I have to write about that!".

Except this morning, when I woke up, it was gone.  I was only left with the shadow of that great idea, the knowing it was a good one, but it was still just out of my reach.

So instead, I will write about what I have been up to.  I defended my masters thesis two weeks ago. It feels so great to finally be done. I was most worried for the 1.5hrs of questions after our defense, but the jury was very civil with us (according to my teammates, they were distracted by my dress and peep toe shoes - hey, I'll take any extra points we can get lol).  I don't have our final grade yet because it will depend on how the others do, but I do know that the jury found our thesis & defense very well-thought out and that we will get at least a 15.  That's good enough for me.  And in keeping with the style of my masters program, we celebrated afterwards with champagne, macarons & other goodies from Pierre Hermé.

Things are rolling along with our apartment renovations.  It's ending up being a lot more work than we thought it would be, but C took the whole month off and he and his dad have been working 12 hour+ days like troopers.   It's getting to be crunch time since he has to go back to work soon, but what they've done so far has been pretty incredible considering they are/were both mainly office-goers.  Thank God for youtube videos like "How to Break down a Wall" or "How to build a false ceiling".  (No, seriously)

Meanwhile, my poor father-in-law has basically been living with us, sleeping on our couch, bless his heart. Having a spare bedroom is one thing I am really been looking forward to, for exactly that reason.  It's been interesting having him here though, and I'm pretty sure he finds our eating habits bizarre.  He tends to eat like an old-school Frenchman, ie "Eat like a prince at breakfast, a king at lunch and a pauper at dinner", whereas we tend to have our big meal at night. 

Last night, I made a vegetarian lentil soup that I usually serve with rice on the side for C since he eats like a horse.  Even though it literally was just red lentils and vegetables, for him, it was 1) not a soup, 2) those couldn't be lentils since they weren't green, and 3) it was a hearty meal since there were chunks.   He tends to eat pureed or broth soups at night, so he found it too heavy (same with last week's chili).  I have long given up on trying to convince him that it's the same darn thing, just not pureed, and that chunks don't automatically equally fat + high calories, but what can you do?  And don't even get me started on how confused he was by the idea of cauliflower rice...I thought his head was going to explode.  I often wonder what kind of stories his brings home for his wife on the weekends.  But he is a lovely man, and we are oh-so-lucky that he has been so willing to help C out with all of the work. Hopefully we'll be able to start moving in about two weeks...