Thursdays are Market days in our little valley. Yesterday R and I hiked down to town and then back up home after our errands. It was a 2 hour roundtrip. We made two stops, first at La Poste for stamps. It costs .58€ to send domestic mail up to 20 grams and .87€ for international mail up to the same amount. Then a quick stop at the Turkish bakery for baklava and sweets shaped like a mini-eggroll. At the bakery, the daughter of the shopkeeper served us—she was quite young (maybe 9 years old) and barely reached over the tall counter. She was adorably pudgy and super polite. We'll be returning soon because the baklava was great.
This morning R and I planned to walk down again and take the market bus back up to our house, but we were too late. The market bus picks up the residents in our little village at 9am and drives them back up around 12pm. We drove down instead and it was an adventure—luckily we and the car made it down (and up) in 1 piece.
The roads in our area are narrow and seriously hilly with some blind spots where the road curves sharply. From what I've experienced so far, the French drivers here are seriously crazy drivers!! They claim their side of the road as well as part of ours, and they do not yield, instead continue doing what they're doing and hope you move out of their way.
As we were driving down to the farmer's market today, a car came flying up the hill, narrowly missing us by inches. Then the market bus (the one we had planned on taking earlier) drove up at top speed even though he saw us and should have seen that there was not enough room for him to pass us. The bus driver continued ahead anyways, and R had to quickly drive over the curb to avert a collision. Then bus driver just continued, not stopping to see if we were okay. I was pissed—and tomorrow, we're going to stop by the Mairie to lodge a complaint because this has happened way too many times and it's just not safe.
Anyway, we and the car are ok—so we head to the market which is already in full swing with many more vendors this week than the past month. R says it gets bigger in the warmer months as farmers bring more vegetables to sell. Today we spent 20€ for 2 pineapples, 2 kgs of tomatoes, whole wheat baguette, 2 fresh garlic heads (purple in color with tops on them), 5 apples, 2 pears, 4 peaches, 4 nectarines, 5 kinds of cheese (total price 7€), 4 avocados, and a dozen free-range chicken eggs.
Back at home, we had a nice lunch: salad with beets and tomatoes, cow's cheese with nectarines, peaches, and pear. And on the side, some pork terrine, smoked sausage, and pâté de canard.
For dinner I made a Vietnamese tamarind fish soup with prawns (heads still on). My mother makes a great version, and I tried to recreate hers tonight using jumbo prawns (which I purchased earlier today, 3€ for 300 grams which seemed like a great deal to me). I briefly looked at the recipe here and then used what was available in my fridge and pantry. I only used half of the prawns tonight, so maybe prawns for lunch tomorrow.
Last thing, the tail pipe is now fixed. Today I did much better driving the car, only stalling twice. R says I need to shift more smoothly and quicker. Still driving on an empty road, but hey, I am driving and on my way to mastering the clutch and gearbox!
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