Well I burned my hand. File that under lessons in caution when cooking in someone else’s kitchen. The oven mitt here isn’t like mine, no palm protection. So I’m typing with a throbbing hand. Also I never found salt in this kitchen. But the differences between our kitchens are surprisingly few. We seem to buy the same stuff, at the same stores. From the Kirkland olive oil and frozen shrimp to the Peet’s coffee beans. We like to think we’re unique snowflakes, but really we aren’t all that different.
This is our first house swap. A foray into the sharing economy of vacation lodging. A brilliant concept if you love to travel but don’t want to spend money. We are spending the weekend in Monterey swapping our San Francisco condo with a couple who lives in a house that’s just about the same size as ours. It’s very cute and comfortable, and walking distance to the wharf and other tourist attractions. They also left us free passes to the Monterey Aquarium.
In an attempt to not spend more money than we would at home we showed up with 4 bags of groceries from our kitchen. Everything we would ordinarily eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That plus a stop at Trader Joe’s last night to pick up salmon and asparagus for our Saturday night meal and we’re set for eating in for the weekend. Trader Joe’s was an interesting experience in house swap culture. The check out guy asked us what our plans were for the weekend, clearly mistaking us for locals. I suppose the tourists rarely make it to the grocery store, or if they do it’s only for prepared foods.
I also brought my bike on this trip. And the biking around here is amazing. This is so much better than paying to rent a crappy bike. Overall a lovely weekend in a beautiful spot, for the price of gas for the 2 hour drive.
