Grabbed a nice multigrain bread from this morning’s marché paysan, and this photo of fresh trout for sale from the bed of a pickup truck:

One of the attractions of Montpellier, and the Antigone district in particular, is the variety of “marchés” (markets, usually meaning farmers’ markets). There’s the one out on the Allée du Nouveau Monde on Sundays — tomorrow, yay !; the one in the plazas right out front on Wednesdays; and then there’s the Marché aux Livres, put on by La Mémoire du Livre  on the Esplanade on Saturdays. That’s where I was today, of course.

That’s right, a book market, every weekend (unless it rains). Here’s today’s catch:

From the bottom up, one book of Renoir paintings, two from Camus, three from Daniel Pennac, one Marguerite Duras, one Blaise Cendrars, and a lexicon of Occitan (the old language of these parts) to French. Because, you know, linguistics.

There’s also the full-on Comédie du Livres, but not until May.

OK, I’m a few days past due, but hey, it’s my blog.

Note to self: It’s important to read the labels, especially when many of the words are not so familiar.

Today was Toussaint, which I now know is the French equivalent of “All-Saints Day” elsewhere. The day after Halloween. Here, it’s a public holiday, so no mail, no banking, and many stores are closed or open reduced hours. Apparently also means a shortage of baguettes. So when there was no fresh bread to be had at the Bio-C-Bon store (Rayons Verts was closed), I grabbed a package of two mini-baguettes from the shelf. If I’d paid attention, I would have noticed it was “bake-yourself” bread. But not all is lost: One of the suggestions, via illustration, was to cook up a couple of slices in the toaster. Cool, found a use for the toaster I didn’t expect to use! Turned out quite yummy paired with some packaged hummus. But really, Fred, read the labels, even if you have to bring up Google Translate on the phone.

Next note to self: When shipping random stuff, take the time to take an inventory of what goes in each box and bag. As sensible as I thought I had packed, I’m still surprised by what comes out of the box of vital computer peripherals. Fortunately, with each external hard drive I in fact included the power supply and appropriate USB cable. <phew!>  Which means I can, as planned, transfer data carefully and logically (?!) to the new iMac.

Yes, I recycled the near-6-year-old iMac in Santa Cruz with the rationale that shipping it to France would cost at least half what a new one would cost. And I’d still have a 6-year-old iMac. So I ambled into FNAC (roughly equivalent to a Best Buy that doesn’t feel like it’s going under any minute), and said “Je voudrais acheter cette iMac,” pointing to the stack of 21.5” iMacs near the entrance. Bare-bones model, no frills, I don’t need 4K video, thank you. At least here there’s no add-on sales tax to bump up the price; in fact, having an FNAC card newly added to the phone saved a few Euros.

Oh, and it’s pronounced like a word, F-nack, not F-N-A-C. And the fidelity/loyalty card cost is not trivial — yes, you pay for the privilege in many cases — but the savings over time can be substantial.

Final note to self: French keyboards are significantly different from standard QWERTY models. M is under the right pinky, A is a top-row pinky reach, and so on; the numbers row includes several essential accented characters, such that the numbers actually require the shift key. And more. I’ll learn, I’m adaptable, really.

Or, paying bills from France.

OK, I started writing this post, and it got longer and longer and more convoluted, so here’s the short version:

• PayPal requires that one open a new account in whatever non-U.S. country your address is in. Can’t add a ‘foreign’ address to one’s U.S. account.
• Having done that, and added a credit card to that new account, said credit card account having the same address and phone number as the new PayPal account, and despite the issuing bank for said credit card being notified of one’s travel plans, still flags the account for unusual activity, blocks a PayPal transaction, and locks said account.
• And finally getting a notification of said blockage via the bank’s mobile application, and acknowledging that all of the pending are indeed valid, said account is unblocked, and the desired transaction goes through.

That’s Central European Summer Time > Central European Time, the standard time for France. We change from Daylight Saving Time (CEST) tonight, a week ahead of the U.S., so for one week there will be only 8 hours difference between here and the Pacific time zone.

And I just realized I don’t have any clocks that need to be reset tonight. Every timekeeping device I have is an electronic, internet-connected device: Smartphones, iPad, Roku, television. No car, no analog timepieces; OK, I ordered up an analog wrist watch, but it won’t be here until maybe Tuesday.

For lunch today I visited the little “pizza” joint downstairs, A L’R du Goût. Proprietors Claude et Richard remembered and greeted me warmly, which was nice. I selected the steak de thon (tuna):

And I opted for dessert, too, a moelleux au chocolat:

Cost? 15.50€.

I could get used to this.

In Montpellier, the subway is all above-ground (<< joke, ha ha). It’s known as the Tram, and is run by an agency known as TaM: Transport Agglomération Montpellier, which refers to the Montpellier metropolitan area (“métropole Montpellier”).

Of course they offer discounts to students and seniors (defined as over 60). Cost for a full year card, 321€, or about $365. A buck a day to ride wherever the Tram goes.

I got mine today. Made an appointment online for 10:00 today, showed up early, was called up early; card, complete with photo, created and I was out the door at 9:59, a minute before my appointment was scheduled. Tried it out on the Tram back to Antigone, worked immediately. A satisfied customer.