Wednesday is our day off from the Institute, and we had plenty to do. Late morning we made a long shopping run: Auchan for some food and supplies, Ikea for a few small items for home and Institute, and then Metro for a bunch of food for both. We went upstairs at Metro for the first time, and they have a lot of interesting stuff up there, including an office supply section which is akin to a small Office Depot. We haven't found anything like that here yet. When we got home, we made it from the car in one trip, but very slowly -- lots of bags, large and heavy, and only possible because we left half of it in the trunk for the Institute trip the next day.
After that, my wife soon walked down to the local stores to get a few items. Meanwhile, I made some phone calls and sent some emails to handle stuff for my in-laws' taxes, as well as figuring what to do for my upcoming 401(k) to IRA conversion. I also worked on my Friday lesson for a good while and am enjoying the translation process. The presentation requires a lot of cut and paste and formatting. I tweaked the layout a fair amount from the original (English) version, and it seems much improved to me.
This evening we went to dinner at Sugo with four other senior missionary couples, including the Smiths, who just arrived and are heading to Palermo tomorrow to take over from the Garretts. The Smiths are wonderful folks and will do well. He served in the Italy North mission in the early 1970s. This is one of the very few times we've been out to dinner at a restaurant here -- things are indeed settling down. The food and company were great. We hope to spend more time with the other senior couples, and we'd be happy to go that restaurant again.
My wife baked a bunch of chocolate chip cookies to take to our district meeting tomorrow, and also for the Institute. The house sure smelled good!