Food

My old advisor, Eiichiro, said one of the hardest thing about moving to a new country was getting used to the food there. At the time, I didn't believe him, but now I see how right he was. I get very homesick when thinking about food (perhaps it is such an integral part of day to day living).

It's not just green chili. I would love some great refried beans right now. Or a burrito. Man, what I wouldn't do for a burrito.

Or even simple things. Popcorn. Peanut butter. Muffins. Root beer. Root beer. Root beer.

I tried to make some cookies the other day. I had no idea what I was thinking - baking in France? It's hard enough to make dinner. Everything is in metric here, so ingredients are measured by the gram, rather than cups or tablespoons. I bought myself a nifty scale. I actually like that - you can get very precise measurements that way.

The only things (for baking) I could find with relative ease were flour and sugar. Vanilla I found after some searching. But baking powder and baking soda? I had to enlist the help of a random woman I found in the store who spoke both English and French. Baking powder comes in little packets I would have never found on my own. I have yet to find baking soda. It's been a month, and I still can't find it. Maybe it doesn't exist in France.

But there are pluses too. French food - ah yes - I have never seen or had so much great inexpensive wine in my life. It's everywhere. It's cheaper than water (really). And cheese. So good. And bread and pastries. Everyday I walk past a bakery. It's a great temptation.

We had a party in my department and they had the strangest things - an open bar with pour your own wine, steak tartar, whole shrimp, marinated duck liver... you would never eat like this at a departmental party in the middle of the day in the States.

Then there are things you should just stay away from. My husband and I went to a French restaurant where one of the things on the menu was "calf's head". We thought perhaps it wasn't a literal translation - lots of things translate strangely off a menu - but after our waitress insisted we DID NOT want that, we reconsidered.

Ah, French food. An experience. And now, I think I'm off to make some popcorn a friend brought me from the States...

The Language

A lot of people have said I am brave to come to France without speaking French. My response to this is "brave... or stupid". Some days I'm more inclined to go with the latter.

It's ok. I have found ways around my lack of knowledge of the French vocabulary. My iPhone comes in very handy sometimes - I type in what I want to say into translate it tells me what to say (even though most times I just hold it up to whoever I'm talking to so they can read it). Hey - it works. It got me a bank account.

Or trying to buy shampoo the first time. I spent a good 10 minutes staring at a wall of body wash before I realized that none of them were shampoo.

I'm taking a French class, and just being here is slowly allowing me to learn more and more French words. I even had a full conversation in French with a woman trying to sell me a cappuccino machine! Little victories!

Life in France

I have been thinking for a while to start a blog about my time in France. But what to say? I could tell about the thrill of finding anything resembling Mexican food in the stores. Or the "adventure" of navigating to the airport across Paris during a strike. Or trying some great French food (all the wines, cheeses, etc) and some not so nice French food (food that looks a bit too much like it looked when it was alive). Yes, every day is an adventure. Let's see what I can write about it. :)