Salsa

I finally tried out the chips and salsas I bought at the Monop' the other day, and while it can't compete with what you'd get a Mexican restaurants in Austin, it' actually wasn't bad. "Se marché" as the French would say ("It works").

I also stopped by the local FNAC (essentially a French Best Buy+Barnes and Noble) to check it out since I hadn't really explored it. I ended up picking up some 365 day calendars (as I always have a Dilbert one) that have a photo of French villages, plus another that teaches an English word a-day. Or in my case, a French word a day.

Watching movies subtitled in French in the theaters has really helped my French vocabulary though. Unfortunately the a word is spelled and the way a word is pronounced is often far different. But it's helping. I've found I'm often even more amazed how much French I can read. For instance I recently ordered a new French SIM card for my parents to use while they're here, and I could understand the whole ordering process without having to use Google Translate.

I also finally was able to throw out our Christmas Tree today. I kept waiting for Christmas Trees to show up on Paris doorsteps, but it never seemed to happen and I didn't want to make a faux pas and just shove it out there. But this morning I woke up early and noticed there was another golden sack sitting out there, so I ran down and put our tree next to it, and a few hours later when I checked again, it was gone. I'm still surprised at the lack of Christmas Trees (sapin noël) that I see on the streets at night/morning, but somehow they disappear. Note that I would have recycled our Paris Christmas tree but as it was so heavily flocked, we had to throw it away as they only recycle "natural" trees.

Though I will say, I was impressed our Paris Christmas tree lasted 5 weeks without any watering. Maybe the French do know what they're talking about in that regard with the magic log.