I got up as usual and headed out to do my weekly farmer market shopping. I am getting a little more comfortable and so have branched out at some of the shopping. I tried out a couple of new fruit and vegetable stands. I feel like my shopping French is getting good enough that I can be more adventurous in choosing things and discussing them with the merchants.

One of the fruit stands was handing out melon samples. It was really good. The vendor said it was from Marrakech in Morocco. I bought one as they are fairly small so I will not waste any of it by not eating it before it goes bad. I always worry about that with some items I buy as they are only in fairly large portions. So far, I have not had too much of a problem.

I paid for my olives with Euro coins. As I have said previously, there are lots of coins 2 euros, 1 euro, 50, 20, 10, 2 and 1 centimes (cents). The olive vendor laughed and said I must be English because the English always have lots of coins. Not exactly sure where he got that idea but it was funny as I did have lots of coins. I think part of it is most people pay by card even for small purchases. I wonder if there are different credit card fees in Europe than in the US.

After shopping, I went to the Palm Sunday service at St. Sernin. The English mass is at 12:00 pm and I got there around 10 minutes before the service. I walked in the church was packed and the children’s choir was singing and mass was still going on. I thought I had messed up and maybe the English mass had been cancelled because of Palm Sunday. As I was waiting, the mass was ending and the priest said in English that the English mass would start as soon as the current service was over and apologized for the delay. I waited with others and the mass did happen when the rest of the church had cleared out.

An interesting difference was in the “palms” that were given out. In the US, they are palm fronds from palm trees. It Toulouse, they seem to be olive branches. I am not a tree expert but they look like olive branches.

The service was very nice and it was nice to celebrate Palm Sunday in a different environment. I wish I had gone to the French service as the music sounded lovely. I might have to go to the French Easter services as it is going to be a choral mass.

I skipped running today as it was a little wet and I needed a restful weekend. I will get back to running on Tuesday.

I fixed a nice dinner. I am getting better at using the induction stove and oven so the meals are turning out well. The induction stove heats up quickly and has good high heat so I have to remember that things will take less time to cook.

I am liking the fresh ingredients that I get to use for cooking – all of it is really farm to table (or sea to table). I made baked Hake with spinach and it was great. I like that the olive oil comes from the olive vendor. The fish for the fish market where they actually filet the fish right there in the market. The spinach is from the farmers market and was bought that morning. It is really fantastic to enjoy eating this way.