This, of course, doesn't even include the little niceties that the French do so well. Fresh flowers literally on every corner, shoppes alternating between chocolate and wine on each block. It's a style of living that I will always cherish in the cities, as similar memories come to mind for Rome, Malta, London, and New York City.
However, my gratitude for Asheville, despite the small size, has increased quite a bit. The access to fantastic music in Asheville really is amazing, and the restaurants, well. I need to stop taking them for granted.
For example, a proud Parisian explains that his restaurant smokes their own meat and handcraft their ginger ale in-house.
Eric and I look at each other, mentally counting the number of Asheville restaurants that do the same. I feel a bit of shame for my recent ingratitude in Asheville that tends to come with living in a place for awhile.
Then we discover some "cool" places that are incredibly difficult to get into, and no matter when we went, the bar was simply packed to overflowing .... but I had to smile with renewed appreciation that the famous chef there had the same global ratings as our own chef for Nightbell and Curate ....
We don't have the castles, ancient history, and amazing wineries that we get to explore next week on the road trip through France, Luxembourg, Germany, and Switzerland (recently added Basil to our road trip), but I was reminded that we did pick a fine place to live in the States for our ever increasingly obnoxious palates :)
Meanwhile, it's time for the evening snack of bread and honey!
