La Vie Niçoise

Another awesome day. *continues smiling broadly*

Today I:

• Re-acquired my mad badminton skillz
  
• Learned how to properly chop shallots
• Laughed more than a hyena watching Robin Williams Live on Broadway
  

Here's how it went down.

Noon: Kenzo and I meet up to sneak into the open badminton session "jeu libre" at the gym. I say sneak in because neither of us have our carte de SUAPS (athletics card), another one of the things that requires a carte d'etudiante, woo!

It also requires a medical certificate from the doctor attesting that you're in good health. Holy bureaucracy batman, I have to pay another 20 euros just to get that checkup done!

Anyway, le type there was cool with us playing sans carte SUAPS for now, so we smacked the bird around till we were red in the face. Left me with a wave of sky-high endorphins which I would I ride for the rest of the day.

It was then off to Kenzo's for a late lunch. He lives with his brother in a studio that reminded me of Martin and Hans' place in Port Moody. Talk about geek heaven! A 24" (TWENTY FOUR INCHES!!!) LCD flatpanel, server closet, TV-enabled Dell box, and the requisite wall-mounted whiteboard. I was drooling all over the place, and we hadn't even cooked the risotto* yet.

Brian showed up a bit later. The guy is hilarious. And now that I can understand what he's saying in French, tant mieux! He was, in Kenzo's words, en plein forme, cracking jokes non-stop till we had to leave for our evening class with Prof Kounalis. Then two hours with the greek professor himself, who couldn't stop fawning over his jolis multi-coloured overhead projector slides... j'adore!!

Laughing is wonderful. I never want this to end.

*Incidentally, the risotto was made with white wine, but don't worry kids, the alcohol does evaporate. But I couldn't help smirking when he poured the wine out of a 255 mL tetra pack. Not a bottle, a tetra pack. All that was missing was a hole for the straw! Is it like that in Canada too, and I'm just ignorant of all things alcohol-related?