We celebrated our Valentine's Day early this year, getting ourselves out on a Saturday instead of doing the usual sit-at-home-and-read-while-watching-French-television routine. Joe got a haircut, & I met him after. He gets his hair cut on Grande Rue, my favorite street in town. We walked passed the Duke's palace, the medieval homes that are now antique shops, the fancy cheese store, the cobblestones spelling "1477" to commemorate the battle of Nancy and ended up in Place Stanislas.
It was sunny, and the cobblestones were warm as we crossed the square that was once again filled with families and tourists. The aquarium is behind Place Stanislas, & they let you in for free if you have the Nancy Jeune Culture cards, which we do. These cards cost five dollars & get you into just about everything in town–& get you discounts at restaurants & cinemas. Can't beat that.
We spent an afternoon staring at frightening fish, watching children fall in love with the Amazon or swirling seahorses, checking out a tank where the aquarium is growing its own corals & looking at stuffed animals. You can check out more pictures of our afternoon here. And an afternoon out always means... a new Where's Joe's Head?
Our original Valentine's plan was to head to Excelsior, the beautiful Art Nouveau restaurant in town. While we want to have that experience sometime in the near future, we were much more in the mood for an afternoon in one of our favorite bars, so we headed back across Place Stanislas, paused to watch a group of musicians play Brittany Spears songs & offer free hugs (no joke–it was just like college in the States).
We took up residence at a pub, buying several large bottles of our preferred Belgian brewery's offerings & talked about how excited we are with how life is going–I'm finally trying to organize things & get essays published; Joe got another poem published; we're knocking down our debt each month & we're still falling in love with each other.
Couldn't ask for a better first Valentine's... except maybe less salt on the pizza we ordered on our walk home. Capers, olives & sardines should have given us a clue, but ouch. Joe was awake most of the night drinking water. I took two bites & thought my taste buds would never rehydrate themselves.
I hope you all have a happy Valentine's day or enjoy skipping the holiday–whichever you prefer. Still haven't gotten the special gift for the special someone? Check out the gift ideas post from a few days ago.
The sun is out again. Joe's first words on getting out of bed? "Sun again? Two days in a row?" We're going to soak it up with the blinds wide open & spend the day how we usually do–ticking away at the keyboard & getting organized for the coming lessons. Bonus activity this weekend: cutting my hair. I wasn't exactly excited about spending 30 or 40 euros on a haircut. When I showed up for my appointment, saw that the salon was closed, waited & saw that it stayed closed, I took it as a sign. I'm meant to cut my own hair. How hard can it be? At least its long & all the mistakes will be less noticeable. Maybe we'll find out that Joe's true calling was to be a hair dresser.
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