Une chambre enfin!

I never thought I would see the day, but at long last I have my own real bed!  With a box spring!  And mattress!  And even sheets, blankets and pillows!  I am so excited about it that I have spent the majority of today sitting and/or laying in it.  I was finally able to unpack all of my clothes and other things, too, so this apartment finally feels like home.  And as it’s my new home away from home, I suppose I should take some photos of it so that those of you who won’t be visiting will get to see my humble abode.  So, keep an eye out for those; hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that over the next few days.

Also, strangest coincidence.  Just the other day, I wrote about Marcel Proust’s sensory experience with madeleine cookies, and how the taste brought him back to his childhood.  I was making a salad for lunch today, and I popped one of the cherry tomatoes I had picked up a few days ago at the market into my mouth.  Suddenly, I was my eight year-old self again, standing in my driveway, sweating under the summer sun while watering our tomato plant.  It brought back so many memories; it feels like yesterday when my dad and I would bring in our home-grown tomatoes and put them on the dinner table.

Which brings me to another point…the produce here is so fresh!  Even though it doesn’t necessarily look as pretty as the supermarket, picture-perfect produce in the US, it has so much more taste and doesn’t need pesticides to grow.  I always thought I was allergic to apples, but it turns out it was just the skin of apples, and that was actually due to all of the chemicals we use to grow them.  I ate my first apple sans allergic reaction today, and it was glorious.  I guess I’ll have to start buying more organic produce back home.