Food

Yesterday I had the best mint chocolate-chip ice cream I've had in a long time. I bought it at a bread store (patisserie). It's not too hard to find ice cream here, as many bread stores, sandwich stores, and ice cream stores (imagine that) here sell ice cream. Not all stores scoop it; sometimes they use a tool that looks like a rice paddle to form the ice cream onto the cone. I say store, but they're really more like shops in a mall, and they sell everything. Cooked meat, raw meat, curios, bread, sandwiches, clothes, cheese, knives, sweets (I found one sweet shop that was two stories tall). They vary in size from about 8'x20' to 40'x60'. Side by side, they line the streets of Annecy, forming the foundation of the apartment buildings above them. Big stores or malls are rare in comparison; I know of only 3 in a town about the geographic size of Martin (about 5.8 mi x 5 mi, for those of you who don't know. Random fact: I'm about 4692 mi from Martin). 


Obviously, both the bread and ice cream is good. I think I mentioned that it's pretty tough, too. The white bread, which is what baguettes are made from, tastes a lot like crackers. The sandwiches are pretty simple: variations on cheese, tomato, and salade (lettuce), and a meat, but no sauces. Panninis are common, and are made from a much softer bread. They are pretty cheap, from 2.5 to 4 or 5 euros.