Today I woke up at 10:30 in the morning. Then I took a shower. Jelena and her mother were already awake and had finished eating with each other.
While I was taking a shower, she put a piece of paper in my room, which said, “Breakfast is ready, so you can come downstairs and eat it.” The meal consisted of two slices of bread with butter, jam and coffee. It was a very good morning.
It was not enough for me, because in Japan, I eat a lot of rice, miso soup, meat, vegetables, pickles, coffee, orange juice, and so on. However, it was very elegant to eat breakfast while listening to jazz music.
After I finished eating, I washed all the dishes and decided to go to the bakery together.
It turned out that I was infected with corona, and I feel kind of heavy today. I’ve been cooped up at home since we got back from my trip yesterday, so we decided to go for a walk after breaking down some money at the bakery because I really wanted to go out.
We go to a neighborhood bakery
I decided to go out with her. We also went to send out New Year’s cards, and then went to a bakery. Now I could finally pay her back for the medicine and the stamps.
We decided to go for a walk together. Jelena took the bread and we walked around the neighborhood.
It was a very new place for me because it was so rich in nature. The vast nature was spacious. Her mother used to come here for a walk or something like that. I wore a mask and chameleon lens glasses so I could wear sunglasses. I took a distance shot with her.
As we walked, we talked about our study abroad experience, corona, children, and escargot. She wanted to go to Lithuania because it was the cheapest place to study abroad and the architecture was beautiful, but because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she decided to go to Cyprus.
I told her that when I was in Russia, I didn’t need any more credits and had enough to graduate, so I skipped a lot of classes in Russia and went to Siberia. I thought she was really too good for her classes in Cyprus, because she attended all of them except for the ones where she had a cold. I heard that education in Cyprus is simpler than in France and very easy.
She said something like that. We also talked about escargot. I told her that what I ate was shellfish in the sea, and that real escargot was “snail”. I had never heard of escargot, and I could not hide my surprise. I was like, “Escargot, really? I had no idea that the French word for snail is escargot. That’s impossible. Of course, I would like to try it, it would be a good experience.
Jelena doesn’t want to eat it because of the way it looks. So I asked her, “What if it tastes like lemon?” She said she didn’t want to either. And so we walked on.
Crossing the kindergarten
Then we crossed the kindergarten and there were many children there.
When we got back, I gave her 13 euros for the stamps and medicine, and I went upstairs to rest. Suddenly, I felt heavier and heavier, and I couldn’t stay there any longer. This was the most horrible feeling of fatigue I had ever experienced in my life. My head and body were really heavy, and I felt as if I were sinking, as if I had turned to stone. I think I used my lungs too much by walking and got very tired, and as a result the malaise hit me. I thought, “Corona is really bad.”
She get mad at me for eating tomatoes
For lunch, she made me a dish from the north of France. It seems to be a crepe. A crepe wrapped with bacon, egg and cheese. It was very tasty. The cheese was parmesan. There was also goat cheese. So there were 10 tomatoes there lol.
But tomatoes are supposed to be good for you, and I don’t like tomatoes, but I ate all of them because I wanted to eat them, since they had been thoughtfully prepared for me. I used to feel like throwing up after eating them, but not so much anymore. Perhaps I have become insensitive? Or have I grown up? For the first time, I could eat so many tomatoes.
Then I was told to let her know if I wanted a second crepe, so I went downstairs and Jelena made me one. It was very tasty. She told me to choose my favorite cheese, but I didn’t know which one I wanted, so I tasted all four. I tasted all four cheeses, but the parmesan was the best. I don’t like strong smelling cheeses.
I was wondering what to do about the bees that were coming into the room, but he managed to get out. When I told her that this was the day I ate the most tomatoes in my life, she became very angry and said, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you just stop eating it? Why don’t you just say you don’t like them?”
I told her that in Japan, it is normal to eat what you are served, and that it was no problem for me, since I did not really dislike it that much. She is still slightly grumpy, and she doesn’t like the fact that even though I don’t like tomatoes, I don’t choose not to eat them. She was still a little grumpy because in France, it is important to have one’s own opinion, and “if you don’t like it, don’t do it” is the symbol of freedom.
So I eat lunch and go back to my room. Then I write my diary there. I feel that she is really kind. Thank you so much for always looking out for me.
Reading Time. Learning a lot
After that, I decided to read a book on my bed, since I had really no time to spare. A book about Naval, an American Silicon Valley icon. I really absorbed a lot there.
He said, “Step out of the pack, keep updating your values, interact with lots of people, and always be on an equal footing.”
“Being employed is not rational in the human world, and it should never be so.”
“If you have seen it and experienced it, believe it. If not, there is no need to believe it. If you don’t actually see it, because you heard it from others, or because you saw it on TV, it reaches our eyes through colored glasses and a certain kind of layer, like a stratum of many different elements mixed together. Therefore, we should never believe it. Believe only what you see with your eyes.”
That’s what he mean. And then,
“If you want to be friends with a great person, be a great person yourself, and always improve yourself.”
I think that’s really true.
I really believe this to be true. Just as people who are similar to each other gather together, if you want to have truly great people around you, you need to become a great person. It’s a matter of course.
But for me, it was really a wonderful inspiration.
Chestnut soup for dinner tonight
It was night and now it was already 8 o’clock. She made chestnut soup and brought me a very small amount, like a sample of it. She asked me if I liked it or not. If I didn’t like it, she wouldn’t make it. I said, “Of course I like it. Why do you ask?” She said, “Because you don’t tell me what you don’t like!” lol.
And, perhaps because of the coronavirus, I mistakenly thought one of the soups we had for dinner last night was tomato soup, when it was actually pumpkin soup. I am really feeling the taste symptoms. By the way, she always says “Nice!” in a cute way when something negative happens. That’s what makes me feel sick and funny.
Her mother and her cooked dinner and today’s dinner was chestnut soup, baguette and bacon. It’s a simple meal, but it’s healthy. I really feel deeply that it is good for my health. They told me that since tomorrow was the last day of my stay, they would make a special French dish for me, either “Beef stew with red wine” or “Stew”. So I asked her to cook “Beef stewed in red wine.
France has a whopping 31 channels!
After eating my meal, I was finally able to borrow some super glue to help me hook up the ceramic ring that had broken in Georgia! After that, I took a shower and ate the cake I bought at the bakery in the morning. It was very tasty.
While I was eating the cake, they were watching a movie. Jelena was in a very good mood, and the difference between a good mood and a bad mood was too drastic lol.
The movie was a live-action version of Snow White. In France, they have a whopping 31 channels, and if you pay for it, they have 200 channels. She told me that there are about 200 channels in France, including news, documentaries, and movies, and that a movie is shown every day. I was really surprised because in Japan there are only about 7 channels.
And I was laughing so hard because my head was also tired and my answers did not mesh with Jelena’s questions. She hates Disney’s Snow White, but she likes this live-action version because the story has been changed so much lol. To my surprise, everything is in French and there are no subtitles at all. This is France, huh? I was like, “This is France!” But I really enjoyed it.
I spent most of the day alone, so I really enjoyed this kind of time. I don’t know when I will see her again, and I may not be able to. Thinking about this makes me realize how valuable and precious the present time is.
Jelena implored me to not think about the future and the past as much as possible by sending one instagram reel to me, but I can’t help but think about the future. So when it was over, Jelena said good night~! And I wanted to do the same thing and say, “Goooooooood night ~~~~!” But I guess I am still too shy to break out of my shell. I hope I can break out of my shell soon.
The real me is even louder and more annoying than her lol.
Anyway, for some reason, maybe it’s because I only have one more day left, I miss Jelena and her mother very much.
