A better day

Today was about walking around, buying some some stuff, taking some pics and not getting angry in A Vietnamese restaurant.

3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Arles is a pretty nice town. Lots of Roman ruins, old buildings, art, flowers and food. (Ed. Van Gogh painted a lot of scenes here, which are indicated on signs).

First stop after showering off the residual heat from last night's "sleep", was a boulangerie (translation: French bakery).

Croissant for the Editor and pizza slice for me. I'm liking this place.

We walked, bought stuff that would definitely suit the new house (a metal hook shaped like a chilli) and an icy cold bottle of Coke that the Triple M black thunders of the 80's would have been proud to give away (it cost euro 2.50).

We walked, no stress, found where lunch would be eaten and then walked more before returning to Le Vietnam restaurant.

Seated in front of a welcome fan, I chose the pho and the Editor Plate 6. 

First up they didn't have any pho. It's 12:20. Where the hell did it go? So I chose the Saigon Soup (also pho).

What is the intrinsic difference between Plate 6 and the many other Plate numbers on offer?

Well Dear reader, Plate 6 had FRESH spring rolls, not FRIED.

Unfortunately this was not a fact that the chef was aware of, so when fried spring rolls arrived, you could cut the tension with the red chop sticks waiting on the table.

The waiter looked Vietnamese, probably spoke Vietnamese and French, and maybe spoke (without understanding), some goodly English.

The Editor, despite daily French lessons on Duo Lingo, did not know how to say "you @@@#ed up my order" when her Plate 6 turned up totally fried.

As I sipped my substitute pho, trying to eat slowly, the back and forth between waiter and Editor went on.

It was finally settled when she pointed to the word Fresh on the menu, got him to admit that fresh meant wrapped in rice paper and as he took her plate 6 away said that she "just didn't want everything fried".

What turned up next?

That's right, a fresh spring roll, minus the rest of plate 6's contents of salad, prawn things and other prawn things.

I had finished lunch by now. Why did I not video?

Then some minutes later, by some miracle, Plate 6, as advertised, had arrived.

I tried to sleep as she ate. Aren't holidays fun?

We headed back to the room exhausted by the day, got the aircon to actually spit out cold air and had a good sleep for an hour or 2. Where was this cold air last night?

Fresh from our Nana nap in our house,

we went in search of food to cook for dinner, and after a failed attempt in some sort of hippy whole foods place, found a real supermarket (where Pepsi and chips are sold).

We cooked and ate, used the wifi to catch up on Youtube on Aussie shows we had missed and slept in the chilly 19 degrees of the now working aircon (it was the batteries' fault last night).