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It's been a difficult week... placement test for French class that begins on Monday... getting prepped for new house which we moved in to yesterday, fridge buying... microwave scoping... all microwaves in France are also "grills"... which is very... odd...
Lots of pictures & details soon.

Ann & Jason Come for a visit :-)

Ann & Jason came to visit... we hiked, we flunched, we ate... we drank... we drank... and Ann & I have different reactions to paintings of shushing monks :-)

Behold... best dinner ever.

Very rarely do I make a meal that I feel the need to pat myself on the head for making... last night was such an occasion.
Enchiladas and polenta bread... it was supposed to be corn bread, but cornmeal was unavailable at shope.
I made enchilada sauce from scratch, which was way easier than I thought it would be a SO much better than any canned enchilada sauce I've ever had. I highly recommend trying it.
The Polenta bread was flour, polenta, corn, and chopped jalapenos (well... the french equivalent of the jalapeno, which I believe is actually called a New Jersey long hot... how's that for funny)
We also made Sangria, which was delicious.. so delicious... we drank all of it... 2 pitchers worth... oops.
Sorry for the ghetto table & pitcher... I promise more glamorous table shots when we get our stuff :-)
So... who is the next to come visit?

Add this to the list...

Grated, shope is not exactly a huge market... but I went to go get stuff for cornbread... I left with flour and polenta... I'll let you know if I end up with something like cornbread... we shall see... add jiffy corn bread mix to the list.
Bah.

FLOWERS!!!

The flowers here are just lovely, but they don't last long. The lilacs are almost all gone, but the poppies are just starting to go crazy. These things grow everywhere, and if there is a field left untended... well... here ya go... I also found an iris field today. The weather here has been eventful. I guess I'm just not used to living anyplace with weather. There have been mistrals all week, rain, and thunder.

Fancy Yellow French House

So... we have been very busy with getting ready to move to the little yellow french house... on the 25th... but on the way to Manosque, I found an old abandoned yellow farm house, that has a hole in the roof and missing windows... but it is just a lovely little thing. It's what I had in mind when I pictured a house in France. it has a plaque that says 1903, and it is probably a wreck... but I adore it just the same.

New favorite Champagne

Behold... the new favorite Champagne :-)
Bulle de Blanquette... very delicious. I highly recommend it :-)

Bufords visit

Ann & Jason came for a visit. (I'll post pictures later)
We went to dinner on Thursday and we saved you all the trouble of finding the worst restaurant in Aix... mediocre food and horrific service.
Friday was better. We hiked to the Mary Magdalene cave then walked around Rians, drank a lot of wine & champagne, ate caviar and we made cassoulet. and then had cheese & dessert... or maybe we started with cheese...
Saturday we shopped our asses off in Aix, drank beer & pastis, then said Au revoir. Yay Ann for being our first visitor! They got us the gift of a guestbook that everyone will have to come visit and sign :-)
We are going to a Brocante today, then having Sergei & his wife over fir dinner.

Stupid Dog...

So... I'm in charge of watching these 2 little dogs for a friend of Mike's... One of them is this tiny little poodle dog, which normally I don't like, but she is very sweet & follows me everywhere... the other one is Inky. Inky is an older, very mellow & low key little black dog... until this morning... and this morning, he is not my friend.
He is not my friend, because this morning at 530, I woke up to make coffee & figured I would take the dogs out too... cause I'm sweet.
So, I'm in my pink fuzzy robe and mikes slippers... when Inky takes off RUNNING. I ran after him, whisper yelling for him to come back, and one of the slipper flew off... I tripped and destroyed my big toe... I will spare you the pictures, as it's nasty... I got the friggin dog, walked him upstairs... bleeding and crying.
My toe is now missing a bit of skin and VERY sore... and I am crabby.
Stupid dog.

Wine!

On the way back from the ghost town, we went through a lovely village, had lunch & went to a winery. The wine was pretty good & reasonable. One the way we also found a baby donkey. Random, yes, but that is France. We had pizza for dinner & found a new favorite wine. SO good.

Castle

We went on a road trip today to a sort of medieval ghost town. Buildings, churches and a castle ruin... it was lovely. It was like disneyland.

Hiking

Took a crazy drive today... off roading on some heinous roads. Said roads led us to this lovely lake, which we hiked around... there is an old roman dam there, and the water is clear and deep. We hiked until it started to rain, at which point we fled home to make shepherd's pie.

Aix

Wandered around Aix-en-Provence today. Found a cultural center for Spain, which was very cool, and sold mexican food for 10x the cost.
Boo.
Aix is cool. Very easy to get lost, and hard, for me at least, to re-find places that I like.