Sunday the 4 of us headed out to Divonne for their imfamous farmer's market. I'd heard that this was a good one, and Zach and I had been meaning to check it out for a while. The few markets we've found so far have been pretty small and not too inspiring... This one, however, was HUGE-- tables upon tables lined up with everything from fruits and vegetables, to chickens and dried meats, to wine for the tasting, and finally some clothes and even matching women's underwear sets. It took us a good 20+ minutes just to walk from one end of the market to the other, to check out the goods, and that's not counting the couple of branches of the market that go off side streets. Here's a few pics:
To see some more pictures, click here.
I stopped at one booth to buy some raspberries, on my way to catch up with Zach, Barbara and Dion who had walked ahead to buy honey, and when the very animated older man working the stand came up I asked for one small basket of raspberries, for $4euros. Immediately he says to me (in French) "They're 2 for $7! Two for $7! And 3 for $10!! So how many are you gonna buy, 2 or 3?" I had to laugh, he was so excited. I went ahead and bought 2 little baskets. And some avocados. I later found out the same guy had (jokingly) given Zach a hard time for not trying some mushrooms he was selling.
The later on, as the market was dwindling down, we passes another fruit stand from which I'd earlier bought some peaches. They were starting to pack up fruit, and one guy was cutting up pieces from some sort of green melon that looked and tastes sort of like a honeydew, but looked almost more like a small watermelon (dark green and football-shaped). Barbara decided to buy one. As the guy was getting her her melon, he handed me a handful of small fruit saying "pour le bebe." For the baby. I smiled, didn't really get a chance to say thanks before he walked away again. It was a sweet gesture (even if he was giving away ripe fruit he knew he wasn't gonna get to sell that day) and it was also cool to have a stranger notice my belly, and to know that it now definitely looks like a baby belly, not just extra fat. ; ) So, yeah, overall the market was great, perhaps this one will take the place of the markets I've been missing in California. Unfortunately I don't know how much of the fruit was organic-- no one had signs about it, and the one place we asked said their stuff was "treated," which surprises me honestly. I would have thought Europe would be way ahead on all this stuff, especially with all the organic options you see in the grocery stores.
In other news, Zach was looking at our finances and discovered that last month, in spite of our trip home and all the insane amounts of shopping we both did (and eating out, etc), our overall spending was actually less than previous months. Now this summer we have done lots of traveling, and especially with visitors, but still. It's kind of amazing realizing just how expensive life here is. But, we're here, and might not be here for too long, and might as well spend the money and do the traveling and everything while we can. We've done a decent job of saving in years past, so I guess it all works out ok in the end.
You can't take it with you - you were raised by Mom, so I know you're not spending frivolously (the fact that you and Zach keep "finances" and look over them atests to that). If you have it, spend it, especially in the situation you're in now, because who knows if you'll have another chance like this.
ReplyDelete