Saturday and ready for bed

Today was another exciting Saturday. We got up early, ate some bread with butter and jam and then proceeded to watch cartoons in French, including a translated Thomas the Tank Engine and a show about a lot of cars including one named Roary. Cartoons are nice because with the subtitles on, we can figure out what is going on. For instance, this morning, Roary had to go work at a farm and help a truck in order to get eggs for this man's breakfast. Then, we went down to the weekly outdoor market in Gex. It is a much smaller version of what you imagine when you think of a French outdoors market -- there were fishmongers, fromageries, a variety of breads, sausages, and other produce. We got some tomatoes, strawberries, and fresh gnocchi. Then we walked a mile back up the mountain, put everything away, and had some lunch. Then we walked back down to town and waited for awhile for a bus to Ferney-Voltaire, because I had scheduled a haircut. We walked around Ferney-Voltaire for a long time, window shopping, going into a few stores (Bonjour le sac Longchamp) and just meandering about. I went in for my haircut and began trying to explain to the stylist what I wanted in French ("refreshee ma coupe,

I must interrupt this, because there is a completely nude man on the German tv channel we are watching, who is wearing a ginat black afro wig and doing yoga. We are not watching a weird channel, but the equivalent of German PBS and the show we were watching is about the history of Berlin. They interrupted the show for that vignette. That was very very odd.

Anyway, I got out a few of my French sentences to the stylist, feeling proud of myself, and he responded with "We can speak in English if you'd like" which was very helpful because I had forgotten the French word for "wavy" and was getting scared. I got my haircut, which is spectacular (perhaps tomorrow I will get Matt to take a picture and I will post it) and we walked around some more to wait for the bus to go back to Gex.

In Gex, w walked halfway up the mountain, then stopped in a restaurant. I am finally realizing that Matt doesn't dislike wine, he is just a horrible snob. We ordered a cheap half bottle of the local vineyard's Pinot Noir, which turned out to be five years old and very very delicious. We ate a leisurely dinner and then trekked back up the mountain, only to collapse on the sofa and watch German television. Tomorrow, we will cook the gnocchi, sleep in and call my folks, I think.

Bon Soir.