SSSBLOG: A Spanish Lunch, etc.

We were invited over to Fernando's family's apartment near the Place d'Italie today for a Spanish lunch, which we enjoyed very much, both the food and the company. The food was excellent -- appetizers consisting of bread with an olive-oil, garlic, and tomato spread; proscuitto and melon, and an absolutely delicious gazpacho soup; a main course consisting of a delicious, somewhat spicy combination of chicken, green and red peppers, onions, garlic, olive oil, and other assorted ingredients; a salad; a dessert of apple tart that Suzie had purchased, and ice-cream bars; along with bread, sangria, soda, water, and, to top it all off, espresso. We started at two in the afternoon and didn't get done until five fifteen, and the time seemed to fly by. I sat there wondering (marveling, really) at why these people who we'd just met would go to all this trouble for us, and how slim the odds must have been that we would meet people so friendly and so compatible within the first weeks we are here. They are, unfortunately for us, leaving next week, but I am sure that we will stay in touch. We invited Fernando Jr. to California and they invited us to Madrid, so we will see.

A few random observations --

1. The TV service here continues to perplex and bewilder us. From day to day we never know if it is going to work; just this evening it worked until I got to Channel 60, at which point it froze up and would not nothing (I could not even turn the converter box off -- I finally just had to unplug it). Last night it wasn't working at first, and then when it started to work all of the channels were different than they had been -- Channel 2 wasn't France 2 anymore, but something entirely different, for example. Then in a few minutes the channels all went back to their "correct" positions. Weird. I think the problem is that the TV service is not real cable service, but rather comes through the DSL phone line, and is thus subject to all the glitches to which a computer would be subject. We have resigned ourselves to having to live with it.

2. It kills me, absolutely kills me, to walk down the street and see how many petite, attractive, seemingly educated and intelligent young women in their 20s smoke cigarettes. If I had more gumption, and were less polite, and if my French were better, I would go up to them and say, "Mademoiselle, you are tres, tres jolie now, but if you keep up your smoking you will look like an old hag by the time you are 35."

3. I know readers of this blog like pictures, and while I haven't taken anymore outside shots, I thought I'd share these of our apartment which, as I may have mentioned, is in an old building with old, classic features. Some of the more interesting things in the apartment itself are pictured below.

The ornate porcelain fireplace: