Le Sac Bleu

This will be short and sweet.  I am having a wonderful, normal day here in the Bastide.  I went to the market this morning and bought vegetables for soup.  I stopped in at the butcher shop on the way back to the apartment.  They are starting to recognize me and they know I am an English speaker.  But I have asked them to help me, because I came to Carcassonne to learn to speak French. They are all delighted to be my teachers.  They correct the tenses of my verbs, plug in the right word when my vocabulary fails and as long as they are not super busy (and they weren't at the time I stopped in), take the time and patience to wait as I struggle to form the sentences.  Oh and did I mention that they have the most wonderful meat!! Gorgeous rabbit, lamb, chicken.  And they had Pommes Dauphinoise--and were thrilled when I told them I would like to try them.  Just a few--je suis seule, after all.

My success story of the day--I finally found a purse.  And the most delightful part of the experience apart from its brilliant color--it was only 15 Euros.  On sale. because it was last season's....they'll never know that in Brookings!  And the one I was looking at immediately before seeing this one (in a different boutique) was a mere 470 Euros....but it was Italian.  The French ones were only 250 Euros.....

It did cool down considerably, but not enough to make me close my windows.  Perhaps I will do so tonight. I think that I will have to start wearing my coat when I go out now.  We went from 78 degrees down to the low 60's.  Not as bad as Lake Tahoe, I gather. It is supposed to be a beautiful day on Thursday.  That will be a day for the jaunt to the arboretum. In the meantime I am going to see if I can find a field guide to the plants and birds.  Maybe the library will have something.  It would be nice to know what I am seeing while I am there.

I am loving the French "cultural" channel, arte.....last night there was an homage to Fellini. I watched La Strada, with Anthony Quinn.  What a great film, even if it was a little dark.  It was a little odd seeing an Italian film dubbed in French.  But I "got" maybe 85% of all the dialogue.  It was followed by La Dolce Vita, but it was on too late for me to stay up and watch.  Another time, perhaps.  Tonight they are doing a documentary about "black money"  Banker, Banker, Bankster.......check it out.

http://www.arte.tv/fr