So after finally getting a restful night of sleep, Alex and I jumped out of bed and ran down to the market this morning to get some deliciousness (stopping to take in the scenery on the way...not too shabby, eh?)
Now, Alex and I -love- the farmer's markets in Iowa City and Coralville, and get pretty excited to visit each week. But markets in France are on a completely different level.
For one thing, it's in France. But more than that, the vendors are amazing! Awesome strawberries from the silent strawberry guy, outrageous cheeses from cheesy earring dude, sausages from meat man, saffron/ginger flavored jellies from the hippie saffron guy, honey from the honey guy, foie gras from goosey man, mushrooms from the grumpy mushroom guy wearing a beret, and fresh crepes from crepe lady! (Those are probably not their real names, just what Alex and I have decided to call them).
After making some nice purchases we headed back 'home' with our goodies and had a nice little buffet in the kitchen.
I particularly enjoyed the strawberries!
After lunch we headed out to search for one of the last remaining rocks Alex needs: Chalcedony. It's beautiful stuff, but hard to find. And we looked. A lot. In rivers, in farm fields, everywhere. After a long day of driving around, a backseat full of KinderToy wrappers, empty chip bags, and crushed up juice de pomme boxes, we had pretty much given up, and were getting ready to set the GPS to 'home'. Then we found it. And we definitely found it. Before we knew it we were hauling buckets of it back to the car.
I treat the whole 'searching for flint' thing like an Easter egg hunt. But instead of a neon pink and yellow Easter basket, I have a .90 E black bucket from Bricomarche. Still, I run around in the woods and yell out "I found one!" and Alex comes over to confirm, or say "Good job!" or "That one's a little too small for testing" or "This one's too faulted, see the lines?". Either way, the rocks are more durable, and don't mind it as much when I slam them into the bucket.
Now the problem is figuring out how to ship hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of rocks back to the U.S. Most people ship back amazing wines from Burgundy. Us? We ship back freakin' rocks. :)
