two things

I THINK I changed the settings so you can post comments if you wish, unlike before. Also, I THINK I set this up so that I have to approve them before they show up on the blog for anybody. So the next person who tries to post a comment, PLEASE send me an email saying you did so; that way I can see if it worked...


Secondly (am I turning into a Brit? I was told today that I speak French with a British accent, whatever that is...should I start spelling things like "flavor" as "flavour"?), I went to Bergerac this morning. It seems to have gotten hot, so any errands need to happen in the a.m. to avoid heat stroke. I had two primary goals: figure out whether that framing place was still there; and get some more minutes (e.g., euros) set up on our mobile phone over here. Actually I wanted to get SOMEBODY ELSE to set up the minutes, so I wouldn't have to follow rapid French instructions over a phone. I was successful in this. I also went further down the street in that dreary town to the Wednesday a.m. market. The food stalls turned out to be basically wrapped around the church.

Okay, I give up; I can't move the photo of the market. To the left of the church is the "place", the typical tree-lined park in the middle of a town; this is where the rest of the market was. That market was huge; you've never seen SO MANY stalls of seriously cheap underwear, clothes, makeup, more clothes, more clothes. It seemed to be frequented virtually entirely by very large groups of Muslim women and children. (okay, okay, I bought a dress for 5 euros, has a zipper in it, wonder how long THAT will last) It went on forever, and once I started down it, I couldn't get out, at least not until I reached the end where the war memorial would usually be. However, in Bergerac, the war memorial (normally WWI, WWII, Algeria, possibly Indo-China) was solely the Resistance memorial above (I can't position it the way I want to, either). It's this big (VERY big) thing you see here, surrounded by several smaller monuments to Bergeracois deported to concentration camps, killed, and to the various Resistance groups active in the area...

I also bought a new pair of sandals (NOT at the market), and some cherries and some end-of-season asparagus that looked pretty good.

Now you've seen Bergerac.

CHeers, Lillie