You can't handle the skype!

Or rather, not everyone is skype-ready. That's cool, just let me know. :)

I went shopping at the marché at Bastille today (did you know it's the largest in the city?), this time armed with a shopping list. It's amazing how much food you can buy for about 20 euros. Getting veggies for one often results in a sub-one euro price. The most expensive things were the fresh herbs (up to a euro per bunch). Well, and the little teeny roast chicken or whatever bird that was, for four euros. Actually, that's becoming my traditional Sunday lunch after the market, roast chicken, and then some sort of awesomely buttery pastry afterwards.

What I'd really like to find tomorrow is some garam masala, so I can make aloo gobhi (potatoes, tomatoes, cauliflower...yum). So I have a different shopping list for Monoprix ("Le Monop"), the actual grocery store. And also looking for miso paste, so I can make the dish that J and I call "yummy noodles." I think I have to go to an Asian store for that.

Tonight I went to dinner at C's house, another one of these francophone dinner parties, though the native English speakers in fact outnumbered the native French speakers. I had been advised before I came to France that C is a good cook, and I can confirm that: yummy coq au vin, poires au vin. And, bien sûr, a whole lot of just plain vin.

I did all right with the French comprehension, but again, as people stopped speaking slowly, as the night went on, it got a lot harder. Speaking...certain things are getting easier, but certain things are still just not easy. Oh, I heard the first "n'est-ce pas?" I have ever heard in the wild as it were; predictably enough it was meant somewhat ironically.