Looking for fromage blanc or fromage frais can take a day away.

The only problem I've run into thus far is the language, and it's going pretty well.  It's total sensory overload with everything in French!

Today held quite a few activities.  You would think grocery shopping in a place with fresh and good food would be easy, maybe in the markets, but the grocery store is a different story; especially when you don't know the language yet!

Renee and I woke this morning around 10am (4am in jet lag time), and I put on a pot of french press, how appropriate.  After a banana and coffee we changed out of our night-wear and headed out to Apt.  After finding a comfortable parking space for our "large" van (european standards) we immediately happened upon some nice strawberries.  That was a no brainer and right after that we found a vendor with fresh fish.  I believe we bought sea bass and that would be part of tonight's dinner.  We never had a proper breakfast so we stopped in a boulangerie for pain chocolat and they had some tasty looking pizza, so why not?  A restaurant/cafe had an open table outside and around the corner, so we settled and ordered some coffee.  A great compliment to pain chocolat and the pizza came afterwards, because you definitely don't want pizza before the pain chocolat!  The rain was periodic and we walked around town while the shops were closed for lunch from around 12-2 and also hit the grocery stores.

First, we went to Bio, an organic grocery store, and this is where I ran into my fromage blanc/yogurt issue. I know what fromage blanc/frais/natural are, but there were so many kinds and I didn't have many euros.  I accidently wound up getting the fromage blanc when I wanted fromage frais, but I will enjoy it nontheless. I'm a Grecu + fromage blanc tastes good = I will eat it in many contexts; be it fromage blanc on bread, fruit, with salmon, on its own, with dirty socks (just seeing if you're paying attention) or maybe even fromage blanc on fromage frais.  Anyway, we got through Bio (prounounced Bee-oh, like the stuff you get after exercising for a while) and we made our way to the big regular grocery store.  Here we cruised around the aisles while listening to Jack Johnson on the store speakers (kind of odd).  We gathered cheese, bread, more cheese, crackers, maybe even one more cheese, milk, wine (duh!), and other goodies.  All said and done, the guide house has lots of tasty num nums (technical term).

We drove back into Apt and stopped in the Orange mobile store to pick up a cell phone, and after a quick decision  I was outfitted with a nice little mobile (it even has a BMX wallpaper scene, sweet!).  By now we were getting hungry and realized it was after 4pm.  We went back to the guide house and had bread, cheese, tapenade, olives, strawberries and apples for lunch.  Then it was time to check out our bikes.  To my delight there is a 64cm madone 5.5 for me and it needed just a little love.  I quickly tuned it up (it, because I haven't named it yet), and we took our speedsters out for a spin.  The climbs are awesome, the views are beautiful, the flora is lush and the fauna wasn't really seen (maybe some dogs and birds).  We rode through Lacoste and another town for about a 60-70min. loop, which was perfect because we arrived home at 9:10 just as it was getting dark.  Next was dinner time!

Dinner tonight consisted of our fresh fish cooked with lemon, herbs, garlic and french butter; yum yum yum.  I prepped the salad and we complimented the meal with a fresh baguette and great wine.  The two of us finished the fish and most of the salad, so dinner worked out well.  Dessert was simply some Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt, which is delicious, and I am closing the night with this post.

I'm getting up for a run with Renee around 8, so it's time for me to get some sleep.  My posts will likely be much shorter because work amount is going to quickly increase.  I hope you all enjoy reading and I will try to keep my posts interesting, funny, and occasionally educational.  Stay tuned for some pics from today's ride and the general area!  Thanks!