In France... still!

Recently what's been happening?

Well, I am now on vacation. The wonderful French education system believes that two weeks off every 5 weeks is essential, so after only 9 hours of official logged working hours, I am now on a week and a half of vacation.

On Wednesday I went to a museum in Perpignan. I can't remember the name of it, but it right in the city center up a street between Place Arago and Place de la République. The museum was quite cute! It is pretty small, 3 stories, and very laid back. There is next to no security there, so you can get quite close to pictures and nobody really worries too much about it. The first floor had a whole bunch of miniatures by more recent artists, and that had to be my very favorite floor. Sadly, it closes at the beginning of November so it probably won't be a place any of you will get to see if you visit.

I also found the Auchon, the Wallmart of Perpignan. It's amazing! It's bigger than the Auchon in Paris, or maybe it just seems bigger because of the throngs of people wandering through it. It is definitely the mecca for shoppers and bargain hunters. My roommates and I found a dish rack, tea, cutting board, scales, and a whole bunch of other (not so) necessary kitchen items at quality prices. YAY! I know, I know, shop locally. And I would, really, but the most inexpensive dish rack in Perpignan proper is 38 euros, and the one at the Auchon was 5. How *can* you resist?

Thursday was my first official day off, so I took care of some official business. I went and got my bank card and I also went to pick up my Recipissé from the Prefecture. I did not do much else, and the highlight of my day I suppose would have been randomly bumping into other assistants, which is always nice.

Thursday also marked the first baking adventure in our convection oven/glorified microwave. We made a quiche, and it was perfect!

Friday Amanda and her friend Ruth left for a hike of doom (from my perspective, anyhow) through the Pyrenese Mountains. They will be back on Wednesday. Hannah and I had our own adventure when we made another trip to our newfound shopping mecca. We also were going to make soup that night but could not find all the ingredients so we settled for frozen pizza cooked in our microwave and ... well, that's it. When Amanda leaves, the veggies go, too.

Today is Saturday, and I went in to town this morning to buy vegetables at the market (we're making an attempt to bring them back), Ribeïrou bread, and Chèvre. We were down to one box of Chèvre (GASP), so we bought a few more. For those of you who don't know, Chèvre is good on everything - crepes, bread, pizza, noodles, apples, Bounty Bars, and anything else, really.

This afternoon I "watched" a movie, meaning basically I had a nice nap on the couch. I also took this lovely picture of the green grass outside of my window, our lovely wall separating us from the commercial district we live in, and the neighbor's house.

No plans for tomorrow, as of yet. It is daylight savings time, though. I am thinking of walking in to town and calling my grandmother since I have found a card that for 7 euros give you 6 hours of call time to the US, so... that's pretty nice! And the buses don't run on Sunday since nothing is open to go to. Maybe the beach? Hmmm...

To finish off this lovely montage, I'll leave you with a picture of my driveway that I took the other night when it was particularly lovely outside. A+



PS - I burned myself with our iron "like whoah". I now have a groovy mark on my forearm. Next time my skin starts to feel all burny, I might do something about it instead of thinking to myself, "Hmm... that's odd. My skin feels all burny."