Yesterday I got absolutely nothing accomplished but I was busy all day. I have no idea what I did with my time other than chop up some parsley and strawberries! I still try to think back and I can think of absolutely nothing else I did except check the internet from time to time looking for a great little weekend trips we can take in the future. France has ANOTHER holiday in July. A nice two day one and this time, we will be prepared. I really wish we had been prepared the last 2-day and 1-day holidays! It would have been great. We could have done so much. Now it looks like the holidays may be dying down a little bit but there is still so much for us to see and do before the summer is over and it begins to get chilly. So for our 2-day holiday in July we have decided to go to Turkey to an all-inclusive resort. We went to one while I was in Istanbul in October and it was so much fun, you didn't need to bring your wallet or anything and you got to eat all day long and lounge by the beach. It was wonderful. They had great nightly entertainment and the whole thing was very nicely packaged and priced. It was like a cruise but without the moving. But there are also so many other places I want to visit and I don't know if a weekend is time enough to visit them. In France, EVERYTHING is closed on Sunday unless it is a touristy area but even so, a lot of places are still closed. This happens in Switzerland and Germany also. I think Italy is the only country that seems to have a welcome, all is open here sign out for us weekend adventurers.
GE would have made it so much easier on us if they had rented us a car for the duration of Soner's stay. It would not be so terrible if renting a car was not quite so expensive. For a day's rental, it costs 60 or so euros, almost $85! Quite pricey for someone who is used to renting a car for $20-$30 a day without having a really great deal! Supposedly you can take a train everywhere but is the train going to drop me off along every vineyard I want to see and every country side I want to drive through with the option of staying really late? We rented a car this past weekend for Saturday and Sunday with a Monday morning return because the rental places are not open on Sunday. A bit of a bummer because you have to pay for 2 day rental then no matter what. If we want to go drive through the wine routes, we have to pay 96 Euros at a minimum with Soner's discount. It is incredible to me! I hate it. I've thought about trying to rent a car just for the Saturday and return it Saturday evening but no can do. They close at noon on Saturdays! You get a better deal if you go for longevity! 15 day car rental at Avis without any discounts is 578 US$! That is only $38.50 a day, only 27 Euros. How amazingly different is that compared to the 60 Euros they want you to pay a day for a weekend! In Europe, they seem to want to charge you an extraordinary amount of taxes also. $151 of taxes is tacked on to that 15 day car rental. It is very depressing.
So anyway, on with my day. It rained all afternoon but I need to run out and get some lettuce for our new Monday night tradition. It is no longer Monday night Pizza night as it has been for quite a long time BUT Monday night Salad night! Woohoo! A great big salad each in our great big bowls. So I went out to brave the rain and check the mail and I had a nice little notice saying I had a package at the post office. (Big smiles!) Its raining and I am getting wet but yay, I have a package at the post office. I practically skipped down there only to be met with a crowded room full of people. Oh well, this can't possibly be hard. At least I knew the word in french for package, "colis." So I waited in the line, if you could really call it a line, that said "colis" over the window. I kept getting looks from this man in front of me though, I mean I know I am drop dead gorgeous with frizzy rain hair and no makeup on but is that any reason to stare! Eventually...he spoke! And he spoke English. Apparently I was not supposed to wait in line but to take a number and wait for my number to show up on the board. Thank you for the kindness of strangers or else I would have been waiting there until they closed trying to figure out why I had not been helped yet. And I got a super cool looking box. So nice and pretty and it brightened up the rainy day. I only wish it had not been raining or else I would not have put it into my bag to keep it from getting wet but I would have carried it proudly back to home so everyone could see how cool I was.
The contents were awesome! I was planning on baking a cake tomorrow for Soner and the pirouettes will go perfectly around the outside of the cake (I have to do something creative with them or else we will just sit here and eat them until they are gone!) and thank you Mom for trying to keep me healthy with Almonds instead of Cashews although if you saw my refrigerator, you would know you have absolutely nothing to fear! On Saturday mornings, they have a market and we bring my rolling cart and buy up a whooolllleee lot of fruits and vegetables. There is not a space that is not taken up with fruits and vegetables right now. We have eggplants, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, parsley, broccoli, carrots, 3 different types of peppers, bell peppers, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, lemons, limes, bananas, onions, garlic and potatoes and I think that may have been all we bought the other day. We actually eat all of those things too! We will hopefully finish it all by the weekend. Last week we bought a few less items, just tomatoes, a couple types of peppers, pears, appleas, limes, onions, garlic and potatoes and we ran out by Thursday. Anyway, all the goodies in the box were wonderful and it was like Christmas. I keep having a lot of "like Christmas" moments lately. New apartment, furniture, all the goodies from Turkey, all the goodies from US. Its wonderful.
So that was my exciting day. We finished the day off with our nice big salads and strawberries and ice cream.
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