Feed a Cold

My cold arrived Friday and I spent a long night with a sore and scratchy throat. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be a severe cold. When my landlady, Francoise, heard I was under the weather she ran upstairs and came back down wielding a long, thick, fuzzy scarf. Those of you who know about my "guillotine complex" know that I hate having anything around my neck, especially something thick and scratchy. It makes me feel like I am being strangled. Francoise insists that I wear the scarf, even indoors. I spend my time now trying to sneak out the front door without being spotted. I am afraid that if she finds out I am going without the scarf I might be the unwilling recipient of an onion poultice and a jar of Vick's Vaporub. A truly horrible thought. Francoise is such a dear though!

I walked back to the bakery across the river and bought a Nutella croissant drizzled with chocolate feeling sure it would contain recuperative qualities. It was good, but not great. I think to be truly great it would need to contain 3 times more Nutella. Still feeling distinctly unwell, I walked around the area and did my weekend grocery shopping since stores are closed on Sunday. 'I found my way back to the mall to look for a lighter weight scarf which might be tolerable and, instead, discovered a grocery store in the mall itself. It was a bit like a Central Market with all sorts of interesting foods and a huge wine department. I bought a container of Neptune Salad containing pieces of salmon, sliced potatoes, cucumbers, and some other vegetables and seasonings in a sour cream based sauce. I also found an olive bar with bins of marinated artichoke hearts, black olives, and baby squid. I bought some small, greenish-black olives glistening in a coat of olive oil. I also bought dessert, a package of Black Forest tartlets. Guess what dinner consisted of? The Black Forest cakes, Foret Noire in French, were wonderful. The "crust" looked solid but was actually very soft, and was filled with chocolate mousse and a thick layer of whipped cream dusted with cocoa powder, with a chocolate fan inserted on top as decoration. There were some cherries concealed between the layer of mousse and the whipped cream as a surprise. I ate one for dessert, and then ate the second one as a research project for this blog and so I could take pictures of the layers. I spent the rest of Saturday floating on a sugar cloud. Heavenly!

Before going to the mall, I had an assignment to complete. When I purchased my ticket back to Florence from Orbitz it included a bus transfer from Strasbourg to Frankfurt, a trip of more than 2 1/2 hours. I emailed Orbitz asking if I was to catch this shuttle at the airport or what. This instituted a string of emails where Orbitz repeatedly asked me to call their customer service number and I asked them to provide the information by email as it would cost me $1.60 per minute to call them. They eventually referred me to an 800 number provided by Lufthansa, which left me with the same problem, an expensive overseas phone call. I finally logged on to Lufthansa's website which provided some information about the shuttle including a street on which I could catch the bus. The street is near the train station so I walked down to see if I could locate the stop, which I did without too many problems, the stop being marked by some laminated yellow Lufthansa signs. It does mean I have to drag my steamer trunk through the crowded streets of Strasbourg to the stop; however it does save me the very expensive taxi fare to the airport. All in all, I'd say I come out ahead.