Shopping day

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Well, today we went into Valence and (surprise!) it was market day. Actually, this one we were expecting. There is a market in Valence every day but the biggest one is on Saturday. We found cheese, pre-moldy cheese, extra-moldy cheese, and mold with essence of cheese. Plus bread, olives, skinned rabbits (eyeballs and buck teeth intact), plucked duck and chicken with head still on, and other local specialties.

We were looking for used novels in English (Lori is fresh out) and t-shirts in French (Nigel is fresh out...just kidding, we need souvenirs). Well, there were almost no English books (just Lord of the Flies and a used dictionary), and all the t-shirts were in English (see photo below). The t-shirts were either British themed or American themed strangely. That the English words were either randomly chosen (nonsensical) or spelled wrong was hilarious. A couple entrepreneurs must have cooked up the idea of printing English words on clothing assuming the French would go crazy for anything American (and their lack of grammar and spelling skills didn't slow them down one whit).

We went to the Armenian shop, twice. First to buy Turkish Delight. And the second time to buy even more Turkish Delight (and some marinated fava beans for Nigel). Later the kids had some beignets (pomme et chocolat) which are like Timbits only larger (and plumped full of chocolate). Nigel bought a chocolate croissant fresh out of the oven. My God that was good. A choir of chocolate angels sang in his mouth (which to passing tourists sounded like "Mmmm...urghhh..so gooooood...mmm...ahhhh." For dessert tonight, Lori bought an apple and candied praline tarte.

We wrapped up our shopping in vielle ville pedestrian streets by 1:00. Then we made our way to the big box stores just outside Valence to pick up the remaining items. At one point, we even found ourselves in a brocante (antique market, and apparently a favourite French pass-time on the weekends (not unlike Marilyn's quest for the best garage sale!) and managed to pick up some used books, travel chess, and Tintin and Asterix bandes-dessinées (french comics...remember those?).

It was a gorgeous day for weather and nice for walking around all day.

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Photos

And nothing makes Lori happier...
...then "everything this rack only 5 Euros"

...and nothing will ever make this guy happy
As Confucius says: "When you're a dead cooked rabbit, you're a dead cooked rabbit."

La maison des têtes
So called because of, well, all the heads.

Put any English word on a T-shirt and it will sell
I like my lovers to be very loose too - ha ha.

Napolean Bonaparte
This small fellow had a teeny role to play in French history (ha). Rachel and Russell, oblivious, pay him respect.