The Waiting Game

The good news? We got a bank account!

The bad news? We still haven’t heard back about the apartment. I’m told that these things can take a few days, so I suppose it’s more like neutral news.

The appointment to get our bank account took about an hour and a half. The woman helping us kept apologizing for how long it was taking, so I am pretty sure that’s not the norm. American paperwork is extra tricky! She was a student at Lilian’s school and she told us how much she loved it there. She speaks four languages, which I think is a fantastic sign. Her English was really good.

I’m still really hopeful about the apartment, but I’m also glad to know that we have a “dossier” (all of the paperwork that you need to prove that you’re who you say you are and that you can actually pay your rent on time) ready to go if there needs to be a next time.

In the meanwhile, I guess we just have to be patient. Not exactly one of my strong suits, so I suppose this is good practice for me.

Today, Kristian and I went to the marché and got just about everything that we needed for dinner. I won’t rattle off our grocery list, but it included fruits and veggies, an assortment of cheeses, and a giant bag of pistachios.

We also stopped by a boulangerie and bought some fresh bread. No pictures, because it’s all in my tummy. You’ll just have to trust me that it was delicious. One of the cool things they have in the boulangeries here is a big machine that slices your bread for you. You purchase a loaf (or a half loaf), they stick it in a big metal box, it makes an unholy racket and then they bag it up for you. Then you have a delicious, crusty bread that you don’t have to cut with the terrible knives at your airbnb (can you tell that we’re super excited to get a place of our own?)

Because of how our work schedules lined up, I ended up doing the cooking portion of dinner. I think it came out pretty good!

With the exception of some staples (salt, pepper, oil, shallots, garlic), everything in my dish came from the market. And everything but the parsley was purchased this morning. I tossed the cauliflower in olive oil, salt and pepper and then roasted it in the oven. While it was cooking, I “zested” a lemon. We don’t have a rasp or a grater here, so I used a veggie peeler to get thin slices of the rind and then chopped them up finely. I sautéed garlic and shallot and mixed it all together with lemon juice and parsley. Then, I roasted the pistachios for a few minutes and coarsely chopped them. When the cauliflower came out of the oven, I tossed it all together.

It’s a testament to the quality of the ingredients here that even I can whip something up on the fly and have it come out well!

(And by “whip something up on the fly” I mean google several recipes for something super basic).

Tomorrow, we’re taking the train to Aix-Les-Bains. It’s our first train adventure, wish us luck!