Part Deux

French Food is Going to Kill Me.
 This is an observation that doesn't directly have to do with the holidays, although the point has definitely been driven home over the last couple weeks. I am going to be honest. I have gained some weight while I have been and I do find this somewhat upsetting. I am going to try and explain why the food here has so many alluring qualities, and why I am somewhat surprised that there aren't that many obese French people

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it isn't good. The problem is quite the opposite. Or rather, part of the problem is. It is true that everything here has a different flavor or quality than in the US. This is partially because many people in France have such a focus on regional specialties and and on locally made food. This leaves me with no choice but to try everything. The bread is delicious, so is the butter, so is the regional cheese and the locally made rilletes, and the locally raised chicken, the home made jam, the pastries from the patisserie down the street--are you starting to see my problem here? It's really hard to resist when your host mother calls you down for an apératif (glorified pre-meal snack) saying "I've made home made paté that you have to try", or "look! I bought you all éclairs from the bakery!". I think it is easier to eat healthy in the US because, quite frankly, the food is more boring.

This isn't to say that I don't like healthy food. Actually, I am quite a fan of healthy food. I actually really enjoy vegetables. I would eat them if I could. The problem is that no one else seems to really care for them (not just my family, I feel that the entire country of France seems to be in agreement on this point). In my family, it is rare to have them as a side dish, and when they appear I get really excited. One of the saddest days of my stay here was when my host mom was preparing steak with spinach--I wasn't too excited about the steak, but about the spinach, yes. Unfortunately, 10 minutes later I smell a burning smell. I was heartbroken when she announced that she had burned the spinach and that she would be serving potatoes instead.

In contrast to the usual delicious food, despite the lack of vegetable matter, there are somethings that I sometimes get in my family that seem absurd, and, quite frankly just wrong. The most egregious example of this is sometime when my host mom is in a rush so that she just cooks up a bunch of pasta. This in itself is not wrong. What is wrong is when she gets out the bottle of ketchup and puts it next to the pasta. When this happens I feel like standing up and making a speech:
Hello. My Name is Nell. I come from the USA, which could be considered the birthplace of ketchup. Let me clarify something. Ketchup is not tomato sauce. You put ketchup on hamburgers and fries and maybe chicken nuggets. You don't put it on pasta.
I can't explain why this seem like a horrible violation of the codes ofhumanity, but it does. And there you go.

Ok, so this wasn't about my break at all. My apologies. I think I just needed to get this off my chest.


More General Reasons France is Out to Get Me
Because it is perverse and likes its little jokes.

It all started on the 31st of December, when Josh and I were setting off to get back to Paris.
The car didn't start. It turns out we'd left an ipod charger in the outlet and it had drained our battery. Whoop dee doo. Anyhow, the problem wasn't that hard to solve--all we had to do was find someone with jumper cables right?

Right. Picture us, 7 in the morning in Chamonix, where it is just cold enough to alternate between a heavy drizzle of snow and rain. We went back to the hotel to ask if anyone had jumper cables. No. We went to another hotel to see: "Yes, madame we have someone who has jumper cables, but he is not here right now, and it is possible he may never show up". Awesome. I started polling random strangers (incidentally, jumper cable in French is pince), and no one had them, although one nice man offered to push our car down the hill to give us a hill start. No one. Chamonix is a very crowded tourist town full of people under 30 who drive nice cars, hence, no jumper cables. We finally called a mechanic and were on the verge of paying 113 Euros just to have our car jumped, when the only lady in the town over the age of 30 showed up in the hotel and lo-and behold, she had jumper cables. Thank God. We managed to get off on the road to Paris.

The rest of the day was uneventful until we got into Paris and had to return our car to the Gare du Nord. Driving in Paris is a nightmare. Driving in Paris when you are unsure of where you are going is even more of a nightmare. Anyhow, after finally navigating our way to the general area of Gare du Nord, we had the problem of finding where exactly to put our car. We blindly drove around the station and eventually found an unmarked Parking garage. On a whim, we decided to enter it, and as we were going in, I saw the logo of 4 rental car companies posted on a post that was conveniently out of sight of the entrance. The French definitely win at clear signage.

Fast forward to the morning of the New Years morning, when we are trying to get Josh onto his airplane. We had left his luggage at a hotel my uncle and aunt were staying at, and had gone off to experience New Years. It was only on our way back to hotel in the early morning that we realized that some of the trains were starting a little later than expected--we were not going to be able to get back to the hotel to get his luggage. We decided to try and take a taxi. We exited on to the street only to find 5 other people with the same thought in mind and no taxis to be found. Finally, we realized that he could still catch his flight if we just left directly for the airport without his luggage, which is what we did--he barely made his flight.

I then went back to the hotel and had to figure out what to do now that I had his bag and my bags. I ended up lugging both of them on to a train to Laval(this was hard because my bag is a piece of crap that over balance any time you let go). When I got to Laval, I knew there might be some problem with the buses, it being January 1st. However, I checked the bus schedule and there was, supposedly one running, so I sat down to wait on a park bench for an hour for it to come. It did not come. I called my host family to see if they could help me out. They did not answer. I called again. They still didn't answer. I realized that all of the people I knew in Laval were not currently in Laval, and I realized that there was a good chance that I was stranded. Then, being overtired and stressed, I did what anyone would do. I started bawling.

This did not help the situation, because I still had to find a way home and this involved calling people. It is very hard to call people and communicated when your voice is wracked by sobs. Now imagine doing this in French. Luckily for me, I remembered that I knew some Americans in a nearby town who I had met occasionally and had dinner with them a few times. They came and picked me up, and I think I was weepy until I finally got some sleep.

That is why France is out to get me.

Now all I have to do is to figure out what I am going to do with this extra bag.