Our desk (one end of long dining table), table for meals and kitchen just off the living/dining room. It’s a nice little kitchen. Very well-equipped. Yes, we found the milk frother.
Wynette: Thanks for your comments. We sure enjoy them. If you’ve tried to add a comment and were put off that you had to provide your name and email, don’t worry, your email won’t show up on the post. Also, I think (?) you can get by with just providing your first name or nickname. The first time you post a comment, it will have to be approved by us, but after that it won’t have to be approved.
You can click on any photo to see a larger and much higher resolution version. E.g., once you’ve made it bigger, try zooming in on the people in the photo below or in the vegetables in previous post.
Off the subject, but apologies for how slow the site is. We think it is because we have pretty minimal hosting service at Dreamhost.
This is the view looking down from our front window. Bar just below us does a very good business. They seem to have many loyal customers. Unfortunately, we weren’t crazy about their coffee so we are going to start search for our local bar.
Need cash to buy this beautiful food. We can’t believe the quality of the produce or how inexpensive it is, given the quality.
Charlie (with photos added by Wynette): In 1969 Christy and I went to Europe and spent an hour at the bank, in the US, signing $10 travelers checks. We visited at least 10 countries, each for a different currency. We used the price of an ice cream cone as our unit of currency comparison.
On this trip Wynette and I are doing most of our buying with cash.
Nowadays it is so much easier, we just get cash out of machines. A few years ago each use of a cash machine involved a fee and a 2% (or more) conversion rate. Now most people get debit cards with no use or conversion fees. We have Capital One Bank cards but there are many others. Sometimes these cards pay the cash machine fees for you. I’m not sure what the business model is that allows profits there.
But banks crave profits so in the last few years when you get cash you are presented with a choice, either have the cash machine’s bank convert to dollars or do the transaction in euros and have your bank to the conversion. I did this yesterday and it said (some European full disclosure laws I assume) that it would convert at $1.19 per euro and my 200 euros would cost $238. I have been following the rates for months and know it should be less than $1.14. So I declined the conversion. Minutes later I check Capital One bank and it had charged me $228. I googled 100 euros and got $1.394 so this is an excellent rate. That extra $10 would have been a 4.4% fee, much larger than the old 2% fee.
You are presented with the decision standing at the machine on the street with bare-bones information and no way to know what choice might be better. Like they used to say, a banker can steal more money with a pen (update to computer) than a robber with a gun.
We have no-fee credit cards also. I used it for the train fare but I didn’t check the conversion rate. You often get the same choice, convert here to there, with credit cards. I rail agent didn’t offer a choice. I assume it went through in euros.
We bought freshly made pasta and pesto at the market from this man. We’ll cook it for dinner tonight.We’ve never seen so many varieties of fresh mushrooms. The proprietor was puzzled by our taking photos. But she was very kind to tell us exactly how to cook the chanterelles we bought: Sautee with olive oil, white wine, and leeks. I asked about garlic and she adamantly said “no”. Only leeks will do.
