Bikes, Bananas, Beef and Berries.

Our entry today begins a week ago. Last Saturday a large group of various people associated with Georgia Tech got together to spend time with a friend who was heading back to the US for good. The day's event was bike riding along the canal (Moselle River) and a picnic lunch. Shaya (pictured far left) was the guest of honor.

Little did anyone know, but this bike adventure would lead David and I to rent our bikes for the rest of the month! We really enjoyed spending the time outside and found it financially a good decision to rent the bikes for longer than just the afternoon. Although, after the weekend, the weather took a turn for the worst! For the majority of this past week it has been raining non stop! We were only able to take our bikes out one other time during the week, in the evening, to ride surrounded by lots of bugs! I think it may have been a good thing though because our bottoms were pretty sore anyway.

The bad weather did inspire me to cook a little though. Pictured below are my homemade Banana Muffins! Yum! Recipes you can find online are actually pretty good, I'd be lost without them...or starving!

Today was the first day that the weather was significantly better. With rain clouds lurking overhead David, Katherine, and I decided to venture out on our bikes again. The rain never came but we did have a pretty good ride.

We tried to follow a bike-path map that we got from the place where we rented our bikes but we ended up getting really off track and just rode around where we ended up instead. We saw some very neat 'country' french homes, gardens, and towns that lie on the borders of the city of Metz.

After our ride we had worked up quite an appetite! Lucky us, we had just purchased some Swedish meatballs and "fixins" from IKEA earlier this morning! They actually serve this at any IKEA cafeteria...if you've ever eaten there you'd sure to have seen something that looks similar to this: Although, they usually serve them with french fries or boiled potatoes...we went with mashed = far superior. :o) I guess this is how they would serve it in Sweden. They use a "gravy" sauce and a berry sauce...of the Ligonberry, a Swedish berry. It is very, very, very, yummy. And also very filling.

Tomorrow we will be hosting a new Master's student who begins his year and a half stay here in Metz. He will be the first new Master's student to arrive so hopefully we can make him feel welcome and at home here in Metz. Who knows, maybe after his masters he will end up married and back in Metz for three years! :o) ...you never know.