February 19 - Cleaning Day

 

We had decided that today was going to be a day to clean the apartment and just kind of relax, which we did, kind of. We started by going to Feria market early. We had not gone to this market yet and the information we had seen was that it was more authentic and where the locals went. I don’t know if it was because it was a Monday or if it is always like this, but many booths were closed. We made a few purchases of ham, cheese and something fried that the vendor gave us a sample of. It was so delicious we decided that we needed to buy some. Looks a bit like fried pieces of pork belly but I have no idea if that is what we bought but it’s good. Back to the apartment to bring our purchases.

Jacques worked on our pictures for the blog while I did a bit of housecleaning. Even if we are on vacation there is still some cleaning that needs to be done when you are there for 6 weeks. The drain in the shower was not draining correctly but I found that the metal plate could be lifted to help clean the deposit on the filter. We will have to mention to the owners about the drain.

After doing a minimum of housework we went to find the booth where we could buy the replenishable bus cards. We wanted to know if we would be better off with each a monthly card where we could have unlimited use or one card between the two of us and add money as we go. It’s a good thing that someone stopped to ask if we needed help while we were looking for the booth. He explained how the card works and recommended we take the single card between the two of us. It works out to 69 cents per one hour trip. When we got to the booth the teller did not talk English or French. We bought our card and put 10 euros on it so we should be good for a few rides on the bus or tram.

Back to the apartment for lunch and then to the bigger supermarket to replenish the fridge. We should be good for a few meals. We found baguettes in a 3 pack for 1.25. We use one a day, so we froze the other 2. The Ikea bags work great for that. We bought pasta for a rainy day along with a sauce and a ready-made lasagna for supper one night this week. Also a few croquetas to try and some duck pâté and olives with anchovies. We discovered the olives with anchovy flavor more than 10 years ago when we visited friends in Paris.

We tried to do a couple of caches but no luck today. We couldn’t figure out the answer. They are very peculiar and the accents and symbols on the letters have to be there. We will try again another day and maybe a good samaritin will offer to help like yesterday. It’s a good way to meet people.

Tomorrow we are thinking of trying our new bus card and going to visit the Seville Costco which is about 45 minutes by bus. We will probably not buy anything, but we are curious to see how different their products are from ours.