Yesterday was a day that epitomized what we hoped France would be like. We got up to a cool fall morning with some rain that ended by 10am, so the day was fresh.

We hopped on the quiet and half empty tram (a novelty in a city with 45,000 university students) to go downtown to see and shop the second hand book sale at the English-language library fundraiser and picked up a few new reads. While there, we chatted with a couple of new acquaintances.

Next, we walked up to the Saturday market plaza and purchased a bunch of fresh and local foods totaling about €32 across five vendors:

• Farm fresh eggs (6 for €2) and some bacon
• An English cucumber, five mandarin oranges, and five bananas
• A premade scalloped potatoes dish
• A baguette and a round loaf of fresh bread, sliced
• A chunk of brioche bread for Sunday French toast breakfast (hence the eggs and bacon)
• Two tarts with red fruits, like the photo above, for dessert

The bakery vendor even complimented my French! I’m not sure our French instructor would agree, but the compliment made my whole day.

After heading home for a lunch of sandwiches on our fresh bread, we walked to the nearby pharmacy to refill an inexpensive prescription which was dispensed from a vending machine to the pharmacist within one minute of asking for it (no automated phone calls or standing in a long line). Then a quick stop at the little grocery store next door for milk, some chicken breasts to go with the scalloped potatoes, and some cheese.

Once home, we did some reading, worked on our French homework for the coming week, enjoyed our dinner, and streamed a couple episodes of some favorite shows while eating our tarts.

Not many days are like this though. Most days are just average, doing the mundane things that we would be doing living anywhere on earth (laundry, foraging for food and supplies, cooking, cleaning, etc.). And some days are a slog of administrative paperwork, sometimes having to take two buses to get where we need to go, trying to understand instructions spoken in French at the gym or bike club meetup, or carrying too many bags of groceries on the bus. We’re just hoping to have more days that look like the one we enjoyed yesterday, as we continue to get our feet underneath us.

Wishing you all a great week ahead!