Eat More Fruit!

Sunday, July 11, 2010 Day 11
I just realized that fruits are only half as expensive as I thought they were!! I was reading the price as Euros and making the conversion to dollars, but I forgot that the prices are listed as Euros per kilogram, and once I make the price conversion, I still have to make the weight conversion as well. So those cherries and apricots I thought were costing me $4.50 a pound are costing that amount for 2.2 pounds! The price in pounds is about $2.00. Not cheap, but way better than I originally supposed. As do most U.S. citizens, I still stumble my way around the kilograms thing. We passed a gas station along the street the other day and saw the price. When I realized that I would have to not only convert from Euros to dollars but liters to gallons as well, I didn’t even try. Sigh. Maybe it is not a problem for those engineers and scientists and mathematicians out there, but we English majors never learned the conversion charts for the metric system.

I slept until 9:00 this morning, but that is because I didn’t get to bed until after midnight, and when I did, I couldn’t get to sleep. I got up and spent some time on the computer, then went back to bed and fell asleep pretty quickly. After breakfast, we went to the market again, this time for fish (haddock), carrots, a bell pepper (no wrinkly skin), beets (lagniappe) and zucchini. Then on to the bank for some moola (my spellchecker does not recognize this word, nor its sister, moolah). While I waited for Roger to make a withdrawal (there was a line), I wandered down the market and spotted some interesting tiny red berries. I was curious as to what they were, so I bought some. It would help my French if I would try to discuss with the vendors whatever it is that they are selling. But I struggle so to understand them that they invariably revert to English. When I got home, I looked on-line and found that they are red currants. We tasted them, and they are not particularly good – very tart with an otherwise mild flavor. I have decided that I will use them to make currant scones. That will have to wait, however, because I don’t have any levening (my spellchecker does not recognize this word either). There is no baking soda or baking powder in the kitchen, nor is there any whole wheat, which this particular recipe calls for. I plan to buy those things tomorrow at the grocery store. There are no measuring cups or spoons either, but I will eyeball the ingredients. I thought about making the scones for Tuesday’s breakfast. Then I realized that Bastille Day is Wednesday, so maybe I will make them in celebration. I told Roger I could add some blueberries to the scones and make them French red, white and blue!

Other than scones, I’m wondering how to celebrate Bastille Day. I suspect that the crowds will be HUGE on the Champs-Elysées, probably something like Endymion or Rex. I don’t know if I want to have to fight the crowds, but a part of me says this probably will be my only chance ever to see the spectacle, so we ought to go. Of course, if we are in the back of 8-deep crowds, we won’t get to see the spectacle anyway. Do I want to see a parade of the French military? There will be fireworks at several locations. I think I might like to go in the evening to the Champs du Mars, which is the open grassy area below the Tour Eiffel. We could watch the fireworks from there if we can find a few meters of open space to sit on a blanket. We may just laze the rest of the day away before that time, maybe with a bottle of wine and scones and . . . who knows what!

I forgot to mention a minor amusement from the other day: when we bought the pasta sauce from the Italian deli, it came in a very thin plastic container with a lid. Roger, who is the designated microwave user, set about to heat the sauce. He realized how flimsy the container was when he lifted it to put it into the microwave, and wisely set it onto a small plate to heat it. It is a good thing he did – the container itself melted and the sauce poured out onto the plate. Fortunately, very little of the sauce ended up on the microwave turntable and we didn’t suffer much from the experience.

Ah, the joys of peach-flavored iced tea in a real glass!

As previously noted, we headed to the RER station to check out the train to the Charles de Gaulle Airport. I have a flight which leaves Sunday morning at 8:15 and I need to do all I can to prepare to get out there on time. For those of you who don’t know the story, when we were in Paris last fall, we took the Metro line out to the airport, and failed to purchase the correct ticket. When we got off the Metro at the airport after 10:00 at night, we inserted our ticket to open the gate, but it wouldn’t open. We had bypassed the booth to get the correct ticket in downtown Paris, and now we were stuck. Roger eventually gave me a boost over the gate, handed our luggage over, then hauled himself over as well. We spent the next several minutes wondering if the local gendarmes would be coming after us, but we weren’t alone in jumping the gate. However, it is an experience I cannot afford to have if I expect to catch a flight in a timely manner. So we dropped into the RER station and found a ticket kiosk which allowed me to purchase my ticket for the trip. One less thing to have to worry about Sunday morning. From there we wandered back home.

Our freezer and refrigerator are not frost-free. I haven’t seen one of these for years! I do recall defrosting the freezer portion of our refrigerator as a child, but I don’t think we had to defrost the refrigerator part. The build-up is not too great yet, but we haven’t been here two weeks yet. I don’t know if we will have to defrost it until we leave.

World Cup Final tonight. I don’t know whom to root for – the street seems to be pulling for the Pays-Bas, although it is rather hard to tell since there has been no scoring thus far in the game (almost 80:00). There have been moans and groans when the P-B misses, and slight cheers when Spain misses.