Virtually Home

This morning I had a 9:30 appointment with a long-awaited plumber. We've had sort of ridiculous amounts of water dripping from our sink for upwards of four months now. Our landlady has variously claimed that the linoleum peels up because we spill water when we do dishes, that the wooden baseboard under the bar rotted completely because we spilled a bottle of water under it, and that the brown puddle that oozed out from under said bar with said rotting wood was simply spilled alcohol. Her solution to our problem is to have the counters and sink replaced, and I'm not sure if that will help, but at least it's something. So I'm awaiting the plumber at 9:30. Imagine my surprise when the door bell went off at 8 a.m., and my brain struggled out of its dream bliss to make my body get out of bed and answer the door. The fixit dude (who, as far as I can tell, is either in no way qualified to be a plumber or entirely trained to tell our landlady exactly what she wants to hear, i...

Yesterday we sort of delayed going to soccer until it was time for kickoff of France vs. Romania. Alex and I made some stir fry out of some bell peppers and mushrooms and chicken beforehand. The atmosphere at the pub was a lot different than it had been for the Bordeaux-Marseille game. I was expecting an even bigger turnout because it was the French national team, but my friend Marie, who is from Bordeaux, tells me that les Girondins et l'Olympique are two of the biggest teams and so everyone is interested in seeing the game. Anyway, Alex and I watched the game for a while and later were joined by Maria. I really much learn the rules of soccer -- again, we scored one more time than they did but our goal wasn't counted for some reason I didn't understand. The game ended at a 1-1 tie, which I guess is okay in the preliminary world cup rounds? Again, I was expecting penalty kicks or something. Afterward we wandered over to Place de la Victoire yet again and met some oenologist...