Category: Dorm Life

Mundanities: The Dreaded Dishes

Written by Valerie

Eating is a fundamental part of human existence. Believe it or not, students attending Georgia Tech-Europe must cook for themselves. Hypothetically speaking, you could avoid cooking and buy all your meals, but that would undeniably be very expensive to do for the entire semester. Alternatively, you could be like one of my new friends on campus and try your very best to live off items strictly located in the snack aisle of the grocery store. However, I recommend going grocery shopping. 

In this week’s post, we will be covering the second topic in my “Mundanities” series: the dreaded dishes. I’ll cover everything you need to know about this basic activity, so you have all the information necessary to make your life easier. I know doing the dishes seems pretty self- explanatory and it is probably not a new task for the majority of you. However, the living situation at Georgia Tech-Europe might be a completely distinct dynamic from something you have experienced before. 

One thing that I didn’t know about the Lafayette dorms is that every generation of residents leaves their dishes in the cabinets for the next group of residents. It is almost like a fun game of seeing who got left with what kitchen utensils since everyone has a different collection of things. Regardless of what you inherited from the previous resident; it will more than likely be a small quantity. For example, I have a pair of forks, a pair of knives, and a single spoon. Since we all live alone in our dorms, there really isn’t a need for a large quantity of every piece of kitchenware. However, when it comes down to the practicality of not having a large quantity of dishes to work with, it is definitely more inconvenient. This is because every time you cook, you nearly use all the dishes you have at your disposal. This means you have to make sure everything is clean because you won’t be able to make anything else once you get hungry again. 

In one sense, this is a good thing. Constantly making sure you have all your dishes clean at all times pushes you to have a well-kept kitchen. With our busy schedule as students, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the household chores. They are the easiest and least pressing items on your to-do list, so logically, these activities often get neglected. However, maintaining a clean kitchen is a proactive way to cultivate an efficient studying and living environment. 

When Days Off Are a Bad Thing

Written by Valerie

After I came back from Barcelona, I started to feel a little tickle in my throat. That little tickle developed into a cold with a cough that I had for about a week, give or take. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise when you consider how many people we came into contact with to make the trip. We had to take two buses, two high-speed trains, two planes, and the metros in Barcelona and Paris. I also have to take into consideration that now is the time when the seasons are changing. As summer transitions into fall, the leaves start to change color, the breeze gets cooler, and the germs begin to spread. I wasn’t alone in my moment of illness — there were a handful of other students at GTE that felt the same way. I decided the best thing for me and my health was to stay in my apartment while my group of friends traveled to Berlin for the weekend.

I know what you’re all thinking. Yes of course there were a couple of moments where I felt like I was missing out. I missed out on bonding moments with friends, experiencing a new culture, and the sights Germany has to offer, but that is only if you think about what I gave up. If you think about what I gained, then it starts to look different. I thought the weekend was going to feel so painfully long since I was going to spend those days without any social interaction, but I actually enjoyed it. Some time to yourself is important every once in a while, especially in an environment like the one a Georgia Tech campus cultivates. So much time during the weekdays is devoted to attending classes, doing homework, and studying that any time you have leftover is spent cooking and cleaning. When the weekend arrives, you pack up your travel bag and hit the trains for whatever journey you are embarking on. As you can begin to see, life can get pretty fast-paced around here. It is too easy to get wrapped up in the routine that self-care, along with the status of your living space, can slip through the cracks of your tight schedule.

Sick days or days off for students are typically always something we enjoy. Personally, even if I was sick and had to stay home, under all that congestion and painful headaches would be my joy for not having to be at school and/or work. I can’t speak for everyone when I say that, but I think we can all agree on our appreciation for days off whether it is for holidays or assigned vacation days. However, under my current circumstances, breaks from traveling and the busy life of a student studying abroad in Europe are typically not by choice. Whether you stay in because of a cold, to save money, or another personal reason, remember that it can be a positive experience if you want it to be.

Mundanities: Laundry

Written by Valerie

Before having gone abroad myself, my initial thoughts surrounding the concept were always the same. I thought it was glamorous. How could it not be? A bunch of young adults living in another country together while being full-time students during the weekdays and full-time travelers on the weekends sounds almost cinematic. While this remains a reality about studying abroad, other key aspects are just as important a part of the life of a student abroad.

While you are not in your dorm room and somewhere outside your current country of residence, there is mundaneness awaiting your attention when you get back: those everyday household activities that some of us go to great lengths to avoid while others of us choose to do when we want to procrastinate our homework. Nevertheless, I’m here to talk about what tackling some of those chores looks like while attending Georgia Tech Europe in a multiple-part series about the mundane activities during life inside the dorm. Keep in mind the following information is solely based on my opinion and everyone’s experience is different.

Let’s start the series with the topic of laundry. I think I can say with utmost certainty that laundry day is the most dreadful of the chores on campus. There is no way out of it either — you must have clean clothes. Considering we could only bring as much as we could drag through the airport, we must all be outfit repeaters. Once the laundry basket fills up, it’s time to prepare for laundry day. In the residence building most of us are staying in, called Lafayette, there is a laundry room on the ground floor that everyone shares. This room has three washing machines, three dryers, and a little machine against the wall where you pay. A single load in the washer costs 3€ and a load in the dryer costs 1€. In total, this amounts to 4€ or $4.20 in US dollars according to the current currency exchange rate. However, if you are like me and can’t bring yourself to mix your colors with your whites, then you must do a second load in the washer, but it will still likely all fit in the dryer. However, the dryers are a little different than the ones in the United States. My professor called it “European dry” which is the term used to express how the dryers in Europe leave the clothes damp after the cycle is over. To tackle this, most Europeans use drying racks or clotheslines outside their home. The hot European sun handles the rest. However, we live in an apartment-style building that does not have access to outdoor clotheslines. So, the only options for you as students are to either buy a drying rack from the local store, put your clothes in the dryer as many times as needed, or decorate your room with your clothes until they dry. The drying rack in the local French version of a Walmart is 25€. This seemed a little pricey to me considering it will likely not fit all of my clothes on it anyway, so I simply do anywhere between two and three loads in the dryer depending on how many clothes I stuff in there. This seemed like the best option to me because then I could put all my clothes away immediately instead of having clothes spread around for a couple of days.

I hope this helps all the future students looking to study abroad here at Georgia Tech. Stay tuned for the next topic about household duties in the dorm.



How to Deal with Getting Sick at GTL

Written by Lillian

Friday, September 16th 2022

One of the worst things that can happen to you while Georgia Tech Lorraine is get sick. The stress of Georgia Tech classes and traveling every weekend paired with France’s colder temperatures approaching easily leads to sickness. This past weekend, I traveled to the German and Austrian Alps, and the weather was not cooperating at all. The entire weekend brought icy rain and bone chilling wind— something I was not prepared for. The single rain jacket I brought with me was definitely not enough. 

An Austrian Apfelstrudel from a Hutte: small hotels and restaurants located on the top of mountains. The only way to access it is to hike to it. It was super delicious, too bad the journey got me sick…

I got back to Metz with the sniffles, which slowly turned into a sneeze and a cough, which then turned into fever over the course of the week. The first thing I did was conduct a rapid test for COVID, and thankfully I was negative. However, since my room offers no temperature control and the only air circulation is provided by a single window being opened and closed, it was very hard to heal from a simple cold. If you got caught up in the same situation that I did, here are some recommendations to avoid becoming sick and how to get better:

Pharmacies: In France, you cannot purchase drugs at the supermarket. Instead, you have to go to devoted stores called Pharmacies to purchase these items. You can always recognize them via their green crosses. There is one in CORA, and the attendees are super nice and will have a high chance of speaking English! They have everything from ibuprofen and cough medicine to specialized cushioned shoes.

Pharmacie in CORA. Pharmacies always have the distinctive green cross, found all over Europe.

GTL Nurse: GTL has a nurse that visits the campus once a week for free consultation for all students. If you are unsure of the prescription that you would need at the pharmacies, make sure to talk to the nurse beforehand!

Masks: The only good thing to come out of COVID is that wearing face masks is more normalized. Help protect your fellow students by wearing face masks whenever you leave your room to go to the pharmacy.

Setting boundaries: One way to prevent getting sick is to set boundaries when traveling. Instead of leaving after class on Thursday and getting back to campus Monday morning before all of your classes start, give yourself time to recover before and after traveling. A lot of students will push themselves to maximize the amount of time traveling, but remember that train sleep is not the best type of sleep. The bumps and interesting temperature ranges trains can have make it very hard to sleep peacefully. By extension, overnight trains are not always the best solution especially if there are shorter ones during the day. Always give yourself at least 8 hours to sleep every day that is not on a train, and it will make you feel much better.

Linen Swap

Tuesday, November 23, 2021 | Written by Mira

Every other Tuesday, we have a “Linen Swap” and every other week I think wow, it seems like we just had a linen swap.

 Pros of Linen Swap:

  •     We get clean sheets every other week.
  •     We don’t have to wash our own sheets.

 Cons of Linen Swap:

  •     I spend about 30 minutes every other week unmaking and remaking my bed.

 On linen swap days, I have to mentally prepare myself for the task ahead. First, I strip my bed. I always wait until we have confirmation of linen swap on the specific day because the 1 (ONE) time I stripped my bed in the morning was the 1 (ONE) time linen swap was postponed. The three things included in a linen swap are the pillowcase, the flat sheet, and the duvet cover. From the people I’ve talked to about the linen swap, I might be the only person who actually stuffs the duvet into the duvet cover. A lot of people just lay everything on top of each other. I find that the duvet cover is more comfortable than the duvet itself, so that may be why my linen swap process is such an ordeal. 

 Stripping the bed isn’t the bad part, but we need to fold the sheets before bringing them to be swapped out. From personal experience, the duvet cover – my personal nemesis – is heavy! Trying to fold the duvet cover neatly is a feat in and of itself. Since I’m not quite 5 feet tall, the duvet cover is much longer than I am which makes the process quite difficult. 

 Once our sheets are folded, we can bring them to the common room of Lafayette. Due to COVID restrictions, we are limited to one person at a time in the common room. We place our neatly folded sheets in a laundry bag and collect our new sheets. It’s pretty simple and is usually the fastest part of the whole process for me. After returning to my room, I place the new sheets on a chair in my room, and take a deep breath before starting my mission: Operation Make My Bed.

 * deep breath * Commencing Operation Make My Bed

First is the flat sheet. This is our “fitted sheet.” It is supposed to go directly on the mattress, and it’s what we sleep on so we aren’t directly touching the mattress. However, my bed is a little wider since I have the wheelchair accessible room, but my sheets are the same as all the others… which means my flat sheet is always slights too narrow to wrap my mattress neatly. I can usually wrap it under the top and bottom of the mattress, but it just rests on the sides. (I have woken up to many mornings of my flat sheet being completely pulled to one side of the mattress.)

 Getting the flat sheet under the top of the mattress is also a feat, and usually involves some moving of the mattress itself.

Next is my least favorite part: fitting the duvet in the cover. As I mentioned, my bed is a little wider than what the sheets are designed for, and that extends to my duvet. My duvet is slightly wider than the duvet cover, and it’s not a perfect square. I lay my duvet on the floor next to my bed and count how many diamonds are in which direction (one side has three and the other has four). This helps me orient the duvet in the cover, but the cover is too narrow for the actually duvet and the edges are always a little squished.

 Counting with my feet how many diamonds are in which direction.

Opening the duvet cover is tricky because the two sides are usually stuck together. Also since it’s too narrow, I try to starfish my body over the duvet, pulling it to the corners as best as possible, but it’s never a perfect fit.

 The hardest part is getting the duvet inside the cover.

The duvet and cover are longer than my mattress, so I’m able to tuck it under the mattress which definitely helps my daily bed making process be as easy as possible.

 When I transfer the duvet onto the bed, it usually undoes part of the fitted sheet, which only makes the process longer.

Third is the pillowcases, my reward for the whole duvet operation. Super easy since the pillows are square and match the square pillowcases. Lastly, I add the finishing touch of my fleece blanket (not included in the room, but I definitely recommend investing in one for the colder months). All done!

 The finished product makes it all worth it.

This whole process takes me about half an hour, but I did hit a personal best of 17 minutes to make my bed. We have about two more linen swaps for me to improve my personal best, wish me luck!

Living Alone and Doing Chores

Thursday, October 7, 2021 | Written by Mira

I’ve never lived alone before this semester. The closest I have gotten to that is spending last winter break by myself in a 6-person on-campus apartment, but that was only two weeks in total. As a self-aware introvert, I was very excited by the idea of having my own space. While most GTL students live in the same apartment complexes, we each get a studio apartment, with our own kitchenette and bathroom. After spending a little more than a month here, I have finally settled into a housekeeping/chores schedule.

  1.  Laundry: The entire Lafayette residence (GTL students and other college students in the area) share one laundry room which includes exactly three washers and three dryers. I learned on campus in Atlanta that the best way to avoid laundry frustrations is to get it done at unusual times, like Monday mornings. The Monday morning laundry schedule still applies here, thankfully, but please don’t share my secret! My first class starts at 11am, so that’s the perfect amount of time to wake up, throw my clothes in the washer (for three euros and 28 minutes), make and enjoy my French-pressed coffee, go back to the laundry room to grab my clothes, and spread everything out around my room to dry. The “European dry” dryers here, are not worth the one euro and forty minutes that have your clothes go from wet to slightly less wet. After I spread my clothes around my room to dry, hanging them off the desk, nightstands, and chairs, it is still early enough in the morning to go grocery shopping.

    Proof that no one does laundry on Monday mornings (time stamp: 8:33am)
  2. Grocery Shopping: The Lafayette residence is close to two grocery stores: Auchan and Cora. On Monday evenings, GTL sponsors a shuttle back from Cora, but I have class during this time, so I usually end up going to Auchan on Monday mornings. After doing my laundry, I grab some tote bags, throw on my headphones, and turn on a podcast. The roundtrip (to Auchan, shopping, and back) usually lasts the whole podcast, and I have just enough time to unpack my purchases before heading to GTL for class.

    Monday morning walk to Auchan.

3. Cleaning Dishes: One thing I enjoy about living alone is that you don’t have to worry about others leaving dishes in the sink. One thing I dislike about living alone is that there’s no pressure to do the dishes right away. I try my best, but I must admit I keep myself accountable only half the time. I’m trying to get better about doing my dishes as soon as I get them dirty, but as I sit here writing about my dish-washing routine, last night’s dishes are piled in the sink… but I’ll get to them later, when I need to make dinner tonight.

4. The Junk Drawer: I love memorabilia. At my parents’ house, I have boxes full of movie tickets, airplane tickets, museum maps, etc. My personality studying abroad is no different. Why do I need to save my Paris metro train tickets? My Frankfurt Botanical Gardens ticket? The map of my canal cruise in Amsterdam? For the memories. The memorabilia had been piling up on my desk for a while, but with my first physics test came my first tabletop declutter… which meant finding a drawer to put everything in. At least now my things aren’t visible, but the junk drawer is an ever-growing beast.

Good luck to December me who will have to sift through this mess.

5. General Cleaning: Whenever I would leave my room at my parents’ house for extended periods of time, I always try to clean it to the best of my abilities which involves making my bed, clearing surfaces, and vacuuming the floor, as best I can. (Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this and my room at home is currently a mess… I’m sorry.) I did all this so that when I returned, I would walk in my room exhausted from whatever I was coming back from (a summer internship or a semester at Tech), and see my bed made, room clean and be able to thank past me for not making current me make my bed. I’ve tried to continue this tradition here, so before I leave for a weekend adventure, I make sure to clean the floors, do whatever lingering dishes are left in the sink, clean the bathroom, make my bed, put away any clothes that were left out from drying.

Battle of the Dorms

Have you ever wondered what the residences at Georgia Tech-Lorraine are like? Well, here’s your chance to learn more! Read Kaitlyn’s latest blog post detailing the advantages of both dorms from a student’s perspective and get a glance at your future home away from home in Metz!

Friday, April 9, 2021 | Written by Kaitlyn

Lafayette or ALOES? Depending on the semester, you may be able to select your residence while at Georgia Tech-Lorraine. To help make your decision a little more informed, and give you some insight on where you’ll be living regardless of your choice; this post is about the differences between the two, so you can figure out which one suits your lifestyle better. As a resident of one of these dorms, I’m biased and inclined to believe that one is slightly better than the other *cough* Lafayette *cough*; but both residences are great and the decision of where to live is in your hands!

Location

There’s a few places you’ll find yourself visiting very frequently while in Metz. First, obviously, is the Georgia Tech-Lorraine building, where you’ll be spending most of your days during the week. Then there’s the two grocery stores, Cora and Auchan. Lastly, Georgia Tech-Lorraine students commonly frequent the nearby university cafeteria, CROUS, to take advantage of the student discount on meals.

Both the dorms are about a 10 minute walk away from campus, but ALOES is much closer to the large grocery store, Cora and CROUS. Lafayette is closer to the PAUL near the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus and Auchan. ALOES also has a great view of the lake!

Dorm Room

ALOES can rooms differ greatly among themselves, but the standard is a bedroom with an attached private bathroom. You’re given a microwave and refrigerator, along with the standard bed, desk, chairs, closet, and shelves.

Lafayette Bedroom
Lafayette Bedroom
ALOES Bedroom
ALOES bedroom

Lafayette rooms come with a bit more space and furniture: you’ll have a (admittedly tiny!) kitchen with a sink, cabinets, fridge, hot plates, and microwave. The main difference between the two dorms’ rooms is that Lafayette comes with a private kitchen, whereas you share a communal one in ALOES with anywhere between three to ten other students.

Lafayette: Private kitchen in each room
ALOES: Communal kitchen

Laundry

Oh, the laundry situation… the bane of any Lafayette resident. Students have a lot of gripes with the washer and dryers here, mainly due to the fact that the dryers just don’t do their job of fully drying our clothes. Additionally, each wash cycle costs three Euros, and each drying cycle costs one Euro. At ALOES students are given two tokens a week, each one good for a wash cycle, and the dryers are free.

Lafayette Laundry Room
ALOES Laundry Room

Wifi

Where Lafayette has its issues with the laundry, ALOES has its fair share of headaches with the wifi. In some rooms the connection is just simply unreliable, and goes in and out. Students in Lafayette have had the wifi cut out a couple times unexpectedly in Lafayette, but only for short periods of time.

Both dorms have advantages and are overall great places to live in Metz while at Georgia-Tech Lorraine. Hopefully this information will help you make a decision on where to make your home away from home while studying abroad!

What I’ve Made in Metz So Far: My Dishes Ranked

Join Kaitlyn as she ranks her culinary creations while living in Metz with her newfound cooking skills.

Thursday, February 4, 2021 | Written by Kaitlyn

As my family and friends know well, I am not the most… skilled at cooking. When I am feeling generous, I would rate my culinary skills as solid 4/10. Though this semester in Metz has taken some adjustment, a large part of that adjustment has not been living in a foreign country,  but rather learning to feed myself without the safety net of a meal plan or my mom’s cooking. So, I thought, in the spirit of my new found culinary skills, I would rank a select few of the dishes I’ve made in my dorm thus far, from worst to best.

The time I burned water. I never would have thought this was possible, but you learn something new every day, right? This shocking incident occurred when I heated up my empty frying pan and suddenly, smelled the unmistakable scent of something burning. Turns out, there was a little bit of soapy water leftover from when I had previously washed the pan and it burnt when it hit the hot stovetop.

A very crispy quesadilla. I was in the middle of video calling a friend back home while attempting to make a quesadilla, my fatal mistake.

very burnt quesadilla
I hope you like your quesadillas very, VERY, crispy.

Imagine my surprise when my very pale tortilla began to smoke. Confused, I flipped the seemingly underdone quesadilla over to discover a disconcertingly dark underside. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “that might be the cause of the billowing smoke.” I panicked for approximately four seconds, then realized I should probably do something to avoid setting off the smoke alarm. How mad would everyone be if the alarm went off and they had to trudge out of their rooms into the cold at 9PM? It could have been an opportunity to learn some new french curses, but I decided it would be best to just remedy the issue. I cracked my window open and held my pan outside to let the smoke blow into the night. Later, after recounting the night’s events to my friend across the hall from me, she only chuckled and said “Oh yeah, I keep smelling stuff burning from your room”.

A nice warm bowl of chili… or not. On one of the many cold, rainy days we have had in Metz, the idea to make a large, comforting pot of chili to warm myself up popped into my head. Naively, I thought to myself, “How hard could it be? I just need to throw a few things in a pot, right?” As I now know, there is much more involved in making chili than simply just throwing things in a pot.  Most of the recipes that I read online called either for using a slow cooker, which I unfortunately do not have, or for a few hours of cooking chili, which I also did not have. This was news to me, but apparently, throwing some canned tomato puree in a pot along with meat and vegetables isn’t quite enough to taste good. I was still determined to get my chili though, so the next time I went grocery shopping I settled for purchasing an already prepared can.

Pasta. Pasta, in any form is a truly classic meal. It is relatively difficult to mess up, but with my track record I am rating my rendition relatively high – both for not having burned it and for having completed it. The only thing I haven’t liked about my pasta dishes is the frozen meatballs I’ve gotten from Cora, finally something I can vindicate myself from blame for. Hopefully, a trip to an Ikea (maybe even the original Ikea in Sweden?) for some Swedish meatballs will be able to elevate my spaghetti and meatballs dish. For now, my specialty will remain pesto pasta.

Pretty successful pad thai! At last, a successful dinner.

an image of Kaitlyn's pad thai
Successful pad thai? I’ll let you be the judge of that… at the very least it looks delicious.

A friend and I pooled together the odds and ends from our fridges to make some pad thai. Thanks to the magic of pad thai sauce and some fancy garnishing with lemons, we were pleasantly surprised at our creation. In hindsight, maybe the key to making it taste good was covering the dish in sriracha, which, given my previous cooking experiences, seems highly likely.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go (Like Cora)

Meet Noa – the Georgia Tech-Lorraine student blogger for Spring 2019! She’s already settling in nicely, and is ready to take on the semester. Check out her first blog!

Written by Noa Margalit

Bonjour! Salut! Oh la la une baguette! Je m’appelle Noa Margalit and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to blog about my experience at GTL and provide some insight into the things I wish I knew even a day ago.

I wish I could have told myself yesterday or even this morning what my first evening at GTL would be like. After waking up at 3AM in Denver, having an 8 hour layover in Dallas, and finally making it to Paris, I honestly arrived feeling pretty detached. I’ve never left home before alone for such a long period of time, and I’m a transient student from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Having lived with my parents for this long, leaving was pretty emotional. While I’m sad to leave all the close people in my life behind for four months, it’s about time I got out of my parent’s basement. (Just kidding, I live in the backyard, which is a HUGE upgrade from the basement.) Luckily on my flight there were two other students who were from Georgia Tech, and while we weren’t able to sit together on the flight, it was nice to already have some familiar faces when we landed. I also am really glad that another student from CU-Boulder is on this trip, but I also quickly found out that some people don’t know anyone, and we all started meeting people pretty quickly.

I was on the shuttle which (WOAH) took 4 hours when the train only takes an hour and a half. Not gonna lie though, I really am glad I did because I took up two seats, fell asleep, and felt a whole lot better afterwards. Maybe don’t do this though because I’m currently up at a very late hour writing this blog post due to my inevitable jet lag and my lack of attempt in trying to stop it.

When we arrived to the dorms (I’m living in Aloes), we signed in, got our room keys and made our way to our rooms. I live in a suite with my own cute room and a shared bathroom. My suitemate, whom I met a few hours ago, is from Tunisia and doesn’t speak much English, which will honestly be great since I need to practice my French a lot. I tried as much as I could today to speak in French but it’s pretty nerve wracking, and I felt like a small child who couldn’t formulate coherent sentences. I know it’ll get better, and I am looking forward to being able to speak more confidently.

I spent about two hours getting my dorm looking nice, showering and getting comfortable. I am really happy I brought a tapestry because the walls here are pretty bare, and I also was glad that I brought my favorite toiletries from Target (which I can now justifiably pronounce that as Tarjay since I’m in France). It was nice to have those immediately after all that travelling and I made sure to underpack on clothes because I know myself, and know that I will convince myself to buy a lot more clothes than I need.

My cute room!

Afterwards we had some weird pizza, set up the internet which works well in ALOES, and then 3 other students on my floor and I decided to head to the supermarket. We went to Cora, which is like a massive Walmart where all of my dreams came true. It’s only about a 7 minute walk from the dorm which is super manageable, and I brought my backpack to use since they charge for bags, and it was easier to carry that way anyway.

The first thing I bought was sheets for my bed since I really didn’t like the ones provided by ALOES. They gave us two fitted sheets and I’m definitely a duvet cover kind of girl. I also got a power strip since there are three outlets in the room and you need to unplug the fridge to use the microwave or the desk lights?? Problem solved, thanks Cora. I also got a BAGUETTE! For .90 Euros! And CAMEMBERT. And some yogurt, cause yogurt here is good. I don’t know why, since I hate yogurt in the States, but the French do yogurt right. The people at the supermarket were super nice, even though we were slightly overwhelmed by the monstrosity that is Cora. My French penpal from high school was saying people in the Northern areas of France are nicer than other areas, and even though it’s only day one I am feeling good about that statement. While I wasn’t sure about going to Cora on the first night, I’m really glad I did since now I’m sitting in my bed with my new linens and feeling a little bit more familiar with the area and the people.

But you know what is most important? That I had some of my baguette. (Fine. A lot of my baguette.) This is going to be fun.

Learning to Cook in Lafayette

Future GTL-ers, Maddie has some creative solutions for your food plans while abroad, so take notes!

Friendos with cinnamon apples, a chocolate mug cake, and vanilla ice cream!

I am always very excited about my mug cakes.

One aspect of Georgia Tech-Lorraine that has been both fun and difficult is cooking my own meals. On the one hand, it’s fun to try to learn new recipes and make and eat new things; on the other hand, the lack of an oven as well as the difficulty of buying a reasonable number of ingredients somewhat limits what one can reasonably make. The thing about cooking is, it’s pretty difficult to make anything substantial just for yourself without resigning to eat only that thing for the rest of the week. Especially because, given the busy travelling schedule of GTL students, we’re usually only in our dorm for three or four nights out of the week anyway, so we have to make sure we eat all our leftovers so they don’t go bad while we’re traveling over the weekend.

Sarah made amazing fajitas, which we had with many yummy toppings!

The solution to this problem that my friends and I have been utilizing lately is to have little mini dinner parties in our dorm rooms! One person will offer to cook for one night of the week and will have a couple of people over to eat whatever they make. This way, everyone gets fed, everyone gets to try a variety of meals, and everyone gets to try their hand at making something new! Sometimes people will contribute different things—one person will make the main course, but others will bring side dishes, little appetizers, desserts, or the ubiquitous and always yummy baguette. All this combined with good conversation or a card or board game makes for a night full of fun and deliciousness!

One of my favorite things to contribute to dinners are microwave mug desserts. Upon arriving at GTL, I knew that the lack of an oven meant I would be utilizing the microwave a lot, so I bought a cookbook that has a bunch of recipes just for mugs in microwaves! There’s one recipe for a melty chocolate mug cake that I’ve made several times—it only takes five minutes and it tastes amazing served with vanilla ice cream.

Itzel had already taken a bite when I asked for a photo to prove to my mom that I’ve actually been cooking.

Unfortunately, we can’t use this system every night. We’re still GTL students, so many evenings, we don’t have enough time to spend cooking big meals because we’re working on homework or labs. On these nights, the leftovers problem becomes a convenience instead. I’ll often eat leftovers of a big meal or pasta on busy nights like this, or I’ll make a sandwich out of a baguette. One of my favorites to make is a light sandwich with tomatoes, brie, pesto, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Sometimes, after a long day at Georgia Tech Lorraine, I won’t feel like cooking at all, so I’ll walk down the street past Paul to the little sandwich shop by the car wash. They make incredible sandwiches right in front of you, and on a fall day a warm sandwich straight from the oven is often just what I need. On the whole, GTL is a great place to get out of your comfort zone and try cooking new things, but after all, this is France—you can find amazing food easily if you look!