Days 6, 7 and 8
We made it to Nancy, the town I’ll be living in for the next month. We had a slight hitch the first day – the hotel was awful. To give you an indication, the ceiling above the bed was a mirror and I didn’t want to sleep under the sheets. Not only was the hotel gross but they were jackammering the street outside until past midnight so we didn’t sleep well at all. But, at least the road construction gave us a good excuse to check out two nights early and move to much nicer hotel. I will do more research before accepting a hotel recommendation in the future.

Once we moved to a better hotel, my impression of the city improved immensely. It will be a great place to work for a month. Our second day, we wandered the old part of Nancy to get a feel for the town. It is somehow quaint and cosmopolitan at the same time. There is a lot of high end boutique shopping and a nice mall but we also found a street market and many flower shops. The best part is the Place Stanislas, a lovely square with fountains, majestic old buildings and ornate guilded ironwork. We had a nice diner at a restaurant with outdoor seating on the square.

Today, a student I am working with, Denis, helped me get situated to live here for the next month. We got my living allowance and checked into my room at the residence hall, went shopping and visited the laboratory where I’ll be working. My dorm room is very clean and much nicer than American dorm rooms. We went shopping at the French equivalent of a Meijer, which was fun. One strange thing, there was no peanut butter at the supermarket. Denis said the French don’t eat peanut butter – only nutella. We also had our first taste of French food today for lunch: fried ground beef on a toasted bagette with blue cheese, lettuce and tomato. Basically a French hamburger but it was good. Although, the best food we’ve had were crepes from a street stand near out hotel in Paris. Jeff liked his with just sugar but for me, the warm crepe with melty nutella was heaven. Tonight, we are going to eat a fancy French dinner for our last meal together for a month.
Place Stanislas at night.
The office where I'll work. UIUC environmental grad students, aren't you jealous of the windows?
The residence hall where I'll live.