Eggs Benedict

I really like poached eggs and the other day I had Sandy, the chef here at the restaurant, teach me how to make poached eggs like they do at a restaurant. I've been practicing the last few days and now that I've kinda got that down I decided to try and make eggs benedict tonight with homemade hollandaise sauce. Making the sauce was a bit daunting, mostly because the lowest flame on the stove top is still really hot and you have to be very careful about not cooking the eggs in the sauce and making scrambled egg sauce. I was patient and careful, however, and it turned out really good. Here's a photo - please excuse the lighting issues:

After dinner I went for a short walk over to a nearby house with a beautiful garden. I took a few photos of some really pretty flowers they had:

I've started to notice I'm getting a bit bored around here. We work about 35 hours a week but outside of that there's not that much to do. In the evening we usually all sit around and read or play on one of our devices and I'm starting to get a bit restless. I could get another job somewhere in town for the evenings but then I'd have to walk home alone at night along a road with very few street lamps - not really my style, plus I've watched so much SVU and Bones that I'm slightly paranoid someone is always following me in the dark or lurking around the next corner. I'd like to say that if we were closer to town it would be better but I'm not sure it would be since town is so small, plus I'd likely just end up spending more money. I really need to find a hobby or something to do with my free time. I'd almost like to say some homework would be nice now, just give me something to do at night and something to challenge my brain. Crazy, right?! Looks like I'll be going back to school at some point in the future if I'm not turned off by the prospect of homework.

I've known for a while actually that I really need a new hobby. I'm not sure what I'm going to choose - or how to even start finding hobbies - but I guess I have all sorts of time to work on this now. I would like to do more baking/cooking but there aren't enough people here to eat what I cook and I don't think the cafe would be very happy if I used their ingredients to bake/cook and then gave it all away to other people. I guess I can just work on cooking myself intricate dinners and then bake occasionally and throw out what we don't eat - isn't that horrible!!! I need to make friends with the neighbors or something, people who want to eat things I'm baking. I guess this is a good time for me to practice my vegetarian cooking skills - or gain some vegetarian cooking skills. If I spend time at night trying to find fun recipes to cook the next day that'll take up some time as well so I guess that's another idea.....

I'm just getting bored. If anyone has ideas for me, please let me know. I might just be bored today because I didn't work. This is so weird! I'm finally maxing out on time off from work. Who knew this could happen so quickly. No wonder so many people get jobs after they retire. What are you supposed to do with all your free time? And I'm living in a foreign country! But I guess it's the small town life I'm not used to. There's always something to do in a big city. That's good for me to know while planning the rest of my trip - look for big city experiences! Okay, enough rambling for today - time for me to look for some good recipes to try out for breakfast and dinner tomorrow, the two meals where I can use the kitchen.

Best!