Saturday in the park ... and at the market ... and in class ... and listening to Duke

Well, that's pretty much it. From 9 til 4, Betsy had her "Bloom While You Work" class over at the American Church - I had taken the "relocated spouse" version called "Bloom Where You're Planted" on Tuesday. Forty people, including exactly two guys - me and another guy from Mandeville, Louisiana, oddly enough. The class was worthwhile and helped us make connections that would have taken much longer without it.

The boys and I had a relaxed start to our morning, playing some games and catching up a bit on email (well, I did) thanks to our now-stable connection. Then we headed out to the market, boys on scooters and me watching warily. They're the little razor scooters I mentioned a couple of days ago, and while Carter can move well on his, Calvin sorta scoots then frequently tumbles and gets banged up and mad. The market on avenue Saxe is only about 4 blocks from here, but they were getting worn out by the time we got there (thankfully) so we folded up the scooters. I carried Calvin's, and Carter slung his over his shoulder. It's our third Saturday in a row at this market, and we're already getting much more comfortable. Yes, they laughed at me when I asked for a "demi demi kilo" of Rosetto (?) ham, but they helped me understand that "deux cent gram" (sp?) was more correct. We got the requisite donuts and pain au chocolat, and lots of yummies for lunch and dinner - ham, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, bread, cheese. Mmmmm. Carter requested morbier cheese, and Calvin petit Basque.

Morbier: A semisoft cow's milk cheese from Franche-Comte. It has a creamy brown crust, the interior is two layers of glossy, yellowish-ivory paste separated by a thin flavorless layer of ash. This separates the morning milking from the evening milking. It is a creamy cheese with a flavor of nuts and fruit and an aroma of fresh hay.

Petit Basque
(Sheep's milk, France)
There is nothing about Petit Basque to dislike. It is mild and sweet and nutty and the size of the wheel is, well, petite. It is one of the milder sheep's milk cheeses we carry from the French Pyrénées.

They also each got to choose one other yummy, Carter selected flute au (whatever the French word for poppy seeds is) and Calvin got a mango. We were getting pretty cold, but there's a nice flat stretch at the end of the market where they could practice scootering, so we did that for a while. Check the pic, looking toward the Eiffel Tower with the market behind me.


We headed back to the apartment, had our lunch, played some more, then took nice long naps. We woke up around 4 and headed out to play some ping pong and soccer on the Champs de Mars where we'd planned to meet Betsy.

(Sorry about the formatting, I don't know enough HTML to get the pictures to stop overlapping.)



When we walked home, we were greeted by the odd sight of a small train of tiny ponies in front of our apartment. (We're in the building above the Mac store, but back down the square off the picture.) Well, seemed strange to us, maybe it happens every couple of days here. We think they give rides to kids on the Champs, and were heading home to their stables. I watched them wait at a traffic light on my way to the grocery store.

The evening was nice and casual. We had ham and cheese sandwiches with salad and wine, then settled in to listen to the Duke-Wake game on goduke.com. With that, time to sign off, turn in, and say GO DUKE!