Another French Lunch

On Saturday a young English teacher offered to take me to Le Mans to change my money and check out the city. She also said that we would first have lunch at her house, in a small village between Sablé and Le Mans.

It is 30 min between Sablé and Le Mans and I think there are like, a dozen small villages. The French really have a different gauge for distances. They also think that it is possible for them to live 'deep in the countryside' when it only takes 10 hours to drive across a country, there is no room for 'deep in the countryside'.

Anyways there was a 10am train and an 12:45 train and she told me to take the early one so there would be time to eat lunch.

I did, and naturally lunch didn't start until 12:30 anyways.

She decided to whip up an apple pie first, and then we had to have an apertif, of course.

I decided on diet coke instead of alcohol.

She lives in a very modern house that is very environmentally friendly. I think the French are more aware of the environment since even people in tiny villages spend time and money and effort caring about the environment.

She had geo-thermal heating which is when the house is heated by wires going underneath the house. Her counter stove was also heated by induction which has something to do with iron and magnets doing the heating. Trés cool.

She had an adorable 7 month baby as well and a husband, who spent a year in England but barely said 2 words to me since "I was there to learn French".

We had crepes sauteed in butter and filled with lox, creme, lemon juice and swiss cheese. Yuuuuuuum.

Then we had the apple pie that she whipped up, with apples from her grandfathers garden.

Then coffee, which it seems always comes at the end of the meal.

All this took several hours so we set out for Le Mans around 3 pm.

The old part of town is from the 11/12th century! Lots of the usual cobblestones and cathedrals; I'll post pics later.

There is also great shopping with all the usual chain stores, and a lot of lingerie and shoe stores.

I also bought some used English paperbacks.

We didn't end up changing money though, since my Carte Bleue started working even though there is zero money in it...tres weird, but I will explain that another time.


There were no more trains left (it was about 7:30) so she insisted I go to her house for dinner even though I was still really full.

She made pasta with butter and swiss cheese. Simple and good, I am definitely making that a staple from now one.