Week 4 - Raclette with Nepali Family and Ikea Visit

Sriprem Gurung. First friend I made when I landed here in the Isere region.

Was a long day, I was hungry and was looking for a good restaurant. Found a Nepali restaurant by name Katmandu.

The ambience was very good, relaxing music from mountains and the menu was interesting. Of the 3 options (combo meal - entrée / plat /dessert), one had the name " sagaramatha" (Nepali name for Mt Everest).

Opted for Yogi tarkari and Dal Baht. Reminded me of the never ending Dal Baht during Annapurna circuit.

His place was full and he had to attend other customers.  Sriprem was very kind to not only server the yogic food, but spent as much time as possible to give me company, while I enjoyed my dinner. 

Journey started from Bangalore at 3 am. Early morning flight. Amith and Jaykeerthi was there to see us of. Manju was travelling at the same hour to Munich.

The first 2 leg of the journey was on time. Bengaluru to Frankfurt(8 am), and Frankfurt to Lyon (2 pm).

But from Lyon to Grenoble  ( 1hr by road) took longer than expected. Missed one bus and had to wait for 3:30 bus.

Last two times made it in 1 hour from Grenoble to Lyon (100 kms). I took a call to leave by 5 am bus to catch a 6:50 am flight once :-) (story some other time) .

I reached the Grenoble Gares at 5 pm. Had 4 bags and the taxi stand was 500 mtrs away. No way I could have towed till the boarding point.

I left my bags at the bus stop (yes, I left my bags in a new place just like that :-) ). A lady - a passenger bound to different location, offered to watch my bag, while I get the taxi. Indeed, there were 2 women who took care of it. When I returned back One of the lady had left as her bus arrived. The other one was inside bus (which was starting) and pointed that she was taking care of it.

I reached Residhome, Caserne De Bonne around 5:45 pm. My checkin took another hour.

As I didn’t like the room that was booked for me. I opted to check the other room types available and decided for a one with wide windows overlooking Vercours mountains.

By the time I did the formalities, dumped my bag in the room it was 7 pm.

Then ended up in Katmandu restaurant.

Few conversations we had -  his journey to France 12 years back, his Chinese girl friend, indian friends, place for research students…

Sri then asked my plans, what do I do and tried to understand what I need immediately.

Before leaving, he suggested me "petit vole de tans" shop to check out for cycle, which I mentioned is what I need immediately :-).

After this, I visited the place two more time, once with my French colleagues. The third time, Sri invited me for a Raclette Lunch (french style) to celebrate two of Nepali friends birthday the coming Sunday.

I shamelessly said yes, I'd be there :-)

On the Sunday morning, I had texted Sri that I'll be late, as I was setting up my new home (apartment in strict French sense) with the bare essentials required for the week. I was preparing to move in to my new apartment on Monday.

----------------- skip: begin- boring section :-) -------------------

Saturday, I had went to Ikea (swedish company where one can find almost everything needed to setup a home )

I had made a list of items (40 + ) for kitchen, bedroom and sundry items (kitchen list was a copy of what I found in Residhome aparthotel, where I stayed for the first 4 weeks)

Took a bus while going and reached there around 12pm. Was very particular not to spend too much time out there. As I had heard, you get lost in the vastness and the varieties, that you end up uying much more than what you really went for. It is very true.

Took some time to figure out the floor map and plan the sequence.

I directly went to Utensils section, asked a Madame for help picking the items and handed over the list.

She took me to right shelves, showed me the different options, pricing. It helped me quickly pick everything that I needed for my kitchen in matter of 30 mins.

After that I took another 30 mins to just revisit and choose few more things, not in my list.

From there, I went to linens section. Here I took more time to decide on the thickness, measurement and design.

An in charge helped me with the info. For a Queen size bed (160 by 200 cm), you take a 160X220 bed spread and a 260X240 for the sheets.

Another hour and I was done with the bed linens, pillow.

Then sundry items of cleaning/toiletries/towels. By the time I was at the counter, it was 5:30 pm. I seriously don’t know, where I lost the extra 2 hours.

And then after the billing, it took me time to load the items to rucksack and suitcase.

Between all this, I had missed my first French lesson planned for 5 pm. I had written an email, dropped a message to my tutor

----------------- end - boring section :-) -------------------

Walked to Sri's home. Wasn't sure whose birthday was being celebrated, so didn’t take any gifts (excuse :-P). Took some Les Pommes (Apples) as gesture.

I reached at Sri's home. Everyone was getting ready for the special Sunday lunch. There was a big quorum.

   

  

Sri's Girlfriend and their twin kids. The younger one (by 5 mins) was quite notorious.

  

      

Met Ramesh and his wife Laxmi, the birthday boys Vikas and Sandeep, Mac and Nicolas

Met Ramesh - Sri's partner at Katmandu restaurant who is also doing his Masters here in Grenoble

Nicolas - one who manages Petit Velo de tans organization

Vikas, was the first one to me get into a conversation. He with was working in India for couple of years. He said, he was not enjoying his job, and decided to do his masters and then PHD. He ended up in Grenoble for his Phd work.

Sandeep is also a student and working with Sri.

Sri offered me some drinks to start with. Meanwhile Nicolas was setting up the Raclette, Le Pomme de Terre (potatoes), cheese, champignons (mushroom)

It was so tempting to eat the Lays kept on the table, avoided it just because it was Lays Poulet  - that’s chicken flavor

Everyone took their seats. I was observing what is Raclette about.

    

Raclette originally comes from the Alpes/Savoy region (France / Swiss). It is a common dish for the mountain people.

One, it gives them surplus calories required for the hard life up over there. Two, is good for cold weather

Interestingly, this is a camping dish. Figuring a way out to introduce this in Wild Wanderers treks

 Sri asked me to squeeze between his two kids. He told me, using the small steel showel, you heat the cheese at the bottom of the Raclette, while chopped veggies, boiled potatoes are grilled on the top surface.

You wait till the cheese softens and scrape it over the veggies or pork. Pork is usually raw slices.

Alternatively, you can have the  veggies / meat sliced between cheese and then heat, so it blends well when melting.

    

And this is a game, and you need to be quick, so someone doesn’t steal your cheese :-) Keep an hawks eye, and when your cheese is ready and grab it.

I asked Sri for onions as my option along with boiled potatoes.

Had 2 rounds of this, and I was already full.

Sri like a typical Nepali/Indian host, forced for me another two. He said, I can skip my dinner.

He said, people don’t move after eating Raclette :-) …  very obvious.

Infact, basketball and ping pong was planned after the lunch to burn out the raclette.

Before heading for the park, there was a shot offering. Genepi La Chamors (again from mountain) - its high percentage alcohol made of different kinds of herbs.

Six of us had the shots.

I excused myself from the games, saying I still have to get back to setting up home.

Walked with them to the park, bid the new friends au revoir(good bye) and walked back to my hotel.

Half a dozen of cheese slice and another half a dozen (little exaggerated :-) ) boiled Potatoes, grilled onions made my day.

That was a lot and lot and lot of Cheese. I've few of my cousins and friends who would love to have such meal every day minus the pork ;-).

    

Game for another one, but after a gap :-)

I really liked this new cheese dish (not a big fan of cheese, ghee). The taste was savoring till next day

Au revoir!