2 (stories from the force)

The streets are really narrow here, so much so that I was hit on the sidewalk by a car's sideview mirror as it drove by. The woman stopped a couple meters ahead and when I reached her, I adjusted the mirror so it was again usable. She waggled a knobby finger at me, which seemed to mean "don't hit my car with your body."

At the market yesterday, I bought des pommes, des pommes de terre, des avocats, et du fromage de chèvre. I still needed mushrooms, so I found a stand with some massive ones, each is maybe the size of a small apple. I want one of them, so I say, "un des champignons, s'il vous plait." He nods and goes about putting some in a bag. I realize he must think I want a kilo of them, which is fine with me. They go for 2.85 euro per kilo, so that won't be too many and won't be very expensive. Well, apparently I know nothing about the metric system, because a kilo of mushrooms turned out to be 8 or so and I get to carry a Santa's sack full of Super Mario-sized shrooms.

I woke up this morning and went to make breakfast, which was going to be the second half of a baguette from yesterday turned sandwich with mushrooms, avocado, eggs and Camembert cheese. So I pop the baguette into the oven to make it less stale, then scramble the eggs and fry the mushrooms, smash up the avocado and mix it with a little mayonnaise. Then I check the baguette and discover it is burned to a crisp and smoke is filling the kitchen, so I use a towel to pull it out of the oven and chuck it out the window. It's a good thing people don't have screens in the windows here. Also that they keep every door closed, so I had time to clear the room of most of the smoke.

This same oven-destroying a loaf of bread happened to me my last week in the states, except it was Jimmy John's day old and I didn't realize I had left it in the oven until after I had already left the house for half an hour.

p.s. Nobody told me the keyboards here were different.