Yesterday a rainy day. There are worse things.
We spent an hour or more at the market buying veg and such. Much fun
tasting, to the point where I don't think we've bought a lunch here
since our arrival.
Or a dinner either, since the market makes cooking took tempting.
Four evenings now spent cooking, drinking wine and eating. Then
flopping with a glass and a book or catching-up on photos or doing
laundry while listening to podcasts. Kinda like having a cottage in
southern France rather than on Lake Simcoe. :-)
A great way to spend time on a rainy day is on the little electric
buses that work the old part of town. E0.50 means you can get on any
bus within an hour. For a day's worth of access to any bus in the
regional system you pay E1. What we would consider the regional
municipality is well-served by buses.
There are three routes for the electric buses. You can get on and
off anywhere, though the connections to the rest of the transit
system are fixed stops like what we're used to. We did the last
route today. The bus a bit hot (we found it so anyway, though we
kept seeing people in jackets and wearing toques) as the day was
about perfect but after we got off to stay, around 11, we saw that
the sides of the buses had been taken off. Would be fab on a
reasonably warm day.
They are a little unpredictable as the route changes now and then if
there's a delivery vehicle etc. in the way. Streets not large enough
for passing even for this little things and so its not unusual for it
to start down a street, come across another vehicle and then back up,
go looking for another route. This isn't a tourist bus either, but
the way people get around the older bits of the city.
The drivers friendly. Clearly a lot of the passengers are regulars;
everyone gets caught up on everyone's news. Waste workers flag the
bus over for a quick exchange of news with the driver (I suspect a
bit of chatting-up is going on as well :-) ). As with most city
workers we have seen, the drivers women. You can ride up front with
the driver if you went to school with them or are particularly old it
seems. :-)
Geri found us our local. Bar PTT on Place de Richlme. Corsican
owner, though he is, as most are here, a support of Marseile
Olympique. Tiny, might hold 12, plus four tables out front.
Corsican beers. Grossly over-salted heavily roasted yummy peanuts in
a bucket on the bar (dip your plate as needed). Floor covered in
buts despite the prominent no-smoking sign. Friendly bar tender.
Regulars. I could live here. There. I could live there. :-)
New drink, very local and similar to the lemonade-and-beer shandy in
Barcelona: a moncaco. 3 parts lemonade, 1 part grenadine, 3 parts
blonde (lager) beer. Corsican beers dandy. Pietre Rossa a bit odd.
Brewed with cherries added. Surprising pleasant when it's hot out.
Surprised I liked it. But then was surprised I liked orange juic and
beer in Costa Rica, so I shouldn't be.
The electric bus (Diabloline) took us through an upscale residential
bit of the old city. Who-ha. Buried in it was a cafe that uses what
is likely a 16th century fountain to keep a large supply
of rose cool and ready to drink. We tried to find it this afternoon.
No luck. But the search will continue...
The quality of public services here is quite astounding. Daily
garbage pickup in urban areas. Street cleaners (the place is
immaculate) all over the place.
Some noticeable investment in same too. Look closely at what seem to
be street corner garbage cans and watch a bit and you'll see a city
worker come by, bend over, stick a key in the pavement and a 2m by
2.5 m by 2m segment of the pavement with the bins on top rises up.
Under those two bins (garbage and recycling) is a huge elevator-like
box. It's emptied automatically by the truck the city worker is
driving and 2 minutes later it disappears back into the pavement.
Very impressive. As are the street cleaning machines of several
different sizes that wander the old town and the street cleaners with
brooms who work the touristy bits.
The BIG NEWS: Donkey sausages. Lovely. Now we have something to
bring home as gifts for all. :-)
Geri found, of all things, a Quebecois bakery. Best bread we've had
yet, and that's saying something.
Am a little interested in the erosion of the dividing line between
patisseries and boulangeries. Is that a regional thing or something
recent that I am just noticing?
Not so great are some of th beers (though not the Corsicans on offer
at our local). Seems churlish (not to mention a bit late and
useless) to complain when the brewery has been going since 1128, but
Grimhagen needs to roast its hops for an additional hour or 2,000.
Brand
of scooter I haven't seen before was spotted today. Called a
'Business'. While
the Dink and dinkiness generally are a barometer of the ideological
struggle, the People's scooter was a direct branded attack on
corporate hegemony. This
would seem to be a direct response. It may be that as the Dink
doesn't disappear but moves to the sidelines of history, the People's
versus Business struggle for scooter supremacy will or has become the
primary contradiction of our epoch. But the objective reality is
such that the
supporters of both,
the lackies of corporate
capitalism and authoritarian capitalism, will, through an upright
application of thought
reform (perhaps in the form of a Scooter Antis Campaign) and vigorous
struggle sessions, be exposed as capitalist roaders. Literally.
On a more mundane level, spring has truely sprung here and pollen is
visible everywhere.
New photos posted. Am trying to start new albums (mostly) when
posting rather than adding to existing.
