After four weeks of travel we decided we owed ourselves a day of doing nothing. Today was that day, so today’s post is simply a little of this and a little of that, but nothing to do with travel.
In a way I have been remiss in describing where are staying while in France as an apartment. I could have used the term flat, but as in the times in the past when we have stayed in France, it would be better to use the term “gite” for our accommodation’s. As for anyone reading my musings that would like to know, our apartment-flat-gite is the upper balcony in this photo.
Not all things are as they appear. The person who checked us in to our gite did not inform us as to where the garbage should be placed once the trash can or bin had reached its full capacity. A later text it was in the basement of our building. In Ferdinand Magellan mode I set off to se what was at the end of the elevator. what appeared in the dim light ( the photo does not do justice to how dark it was) was this door.
Opening the door reveal only darkness, but by feeling around on the wall my hand connected with what felt like a light switch, the French kind, not what an American would expect. A push and a hallway with multiple doors at its end was revealed. Of course I would try the doors that would not open first, but at last the handle of one moved and once again I stared in to a abyss of darkness.
Fumbling around on the wall to my left I located a rotary switch and gave it a twist. The room was illuminated and recycling and garbage bins appeared, but only for a few moments as I was once again plunged into total darkness, the door I enter through having closed in the meantime. More fumbling and the switch was once again located and fully turned this time. Time for a photo, then a hasty escape from this basement dungeon. Those who never travel beyond their on country can never know the “Thrill” one can experience traveling in foreign lands. where even simply things can be totally different.
Another travel experience. maybe to some people operating this washing machine would be simple. My brilliant wife (she really is) had no trouble starting this washing machine, it was turning it off that gave her fits. Her fantastic husband to the rescue. I used my Vivaldi web browser and Duck Duck Go search engine ( no tracking, no way no how, no third party cookies, no ads) to find the manual.
Astute readers would wonder, how did he know what to search for? I took a photo of the this. The manufacturer was IKEA, the model was RENLIG. Up came the English version of the instructions and easy as pie we had had everything we needed to know about operating it.
Wine time. My wife of more that a half century, Linda, (it means lovely or beautiful in Spanish and she truly is) loves chickens which means chickens are also very important to me. Our first day in Avignon I was looking for a wine for me when I saw this bottle. I bought one. Since then I have bought four more with even more to be bought. The wine is Récolte which i have subsequently learned means simply “harvest”. I count it as a wonderful “stumble upon” as I written about before. Interestingly enough it is exported to the US and is a value priced wine.
Linda’s favorite wine! She loves Riesling which is about as far away from growing up on a small farm in the hills of Appalachia in Southeastern Ohio, USA as one could ever imagine.
i had no idea what Moelleux wine was when I bought it. I was looking for something different in a white wine than what I was drinking. This wasn’t it., but it proved to be another wine that my wife really liked. So many times we have heard people from America criticize what they experienced in other countries because it was different that what they were used to in America. Why travel if not to experience different things?
A shortcut that turned out not to be a shortcut. But it was rather interesting trying to determine how to get to where I was trying to go to.
Where I was trying to get to. The local Monoprix grocery store. Coming down the steps this is what greets you. Maybe this is why I never leave the store without several bottles of wine in my shoulder bag? May each of your days be filled with as much enjoyment as Linda and mine are. LIFE is short, live it to its fullest.
