Aujourd’hui j’ai acheté un miroir de poche

You know when you’re really hungry, and all your friends around you are talking about food?  Your mouth starts to water, you can hear your stomach growl louder and louder, and when you close your eyes you imagine your favorite foods dancing slightly out of reach in front of your eyes?  That was my experience in class today.  Almost all day too.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about food; how to order food, how to buy food, how to cook food, etc.  We today we spent the majority of the afternoon speaking about meal habits in our respective countries and how they compare to those of France.  This included things like “If you have a dinner planned at 8pm, what time do your guests arrive?”  In the United States, between five minutes early and on time is expected, and anything later than 10 after requires a phone call.  Well in France, if you show up five minutes early you may catch your host in the shower.  15 minutes late is normal in France.  We also talked about table manners, which was interesting, what you bring to a dinner you’ve been invited to (be it flowers, wine, chocolates, etc), and the amount of courses a normal and a formal meal has in each country.  A lot of food talk for a girl who’s been giving half of her breakfast away.  This is because the thought of a croissant or pain chocolat makes my stomach turn now, seeing as I’ve eaten it nearly every single day since I arrived.  Either way, considering the fact that I’m always a little hungry when we get out of class on a normal day, today I felt exceptionally hungry.

Jon and I decided to treat ourselves to a meal in Vieux Nice.  We walked around, reading the menus and consulting our wallets, and settled down at a table at a restaurant in the main square.  The name fails me, but thats okay, we won’t be going back.  First, one of the menu boards on the wall said “Menu 14,90€” where you could chose an entrée, plat et dessert from roughly four choices each.  We saw a few things that sounded appetizing, and thats why we picked it.  Unfortunately, though the sign said nothing about when you could order from it, we were not allowed to order from that menu.  In the US, I would have had no problem saying “Oh, sorry, we were under the impression that we could, and thats why we picked it, we’re going to find some place else.”  It wouldn’t have made them super happy, but its mildly acceptable in the States.  In France, its extremely rude, because they display their menus outside.  Essentially, you’re supposed to decide that you want to eat there, and essentially what you want before you bother wasting their time sitting at a table.  So, we found something on the menu that sounded okay, added some socca for us to split, and said “Oh well.”

I would have much rather been that “rude” American.  I ordered Poulet à la Caesar, something I’ve found to be surprisingly easy to mess up.  The chicken was really dry, and tasted like it was canned.  Given that it probably was, it was more grey in color than normal, and just generally unappetizing.  The croutons were stale and soft, the tomatoes were practically flavorless, and the lettuce seemed like its seen better days.  Jon ordered a calzone with tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, ham and eggs, made it half way through when he noticed there was some sort of clear-ish liquid in it that seemed a tad unnatural.  Given that the yokes were runny, we both instantly thought “Uh oh, uncooked eggs” and he lost his appetite.  To make the whole thing worse, the socca wasn’t even that good, and I had been craving it for a few days.  Ugh.

After our dreadful meal, we went to the market close by.  We were expecting it to be all fruits, vegetables and flowers like we usually find it to be, but today it was a whole bunch of vendors selling all sorts of really neat things.  For instance, we spent a good twenty minutes at a table FULL of old (like, 1960s old in some cases) advertisements for nearly anything and everything.  The Coke ones were particularly fun to look at, and of course rather pricey for some.  We decided we had to go back when we had more money, because I could probably find a few really neat things for my friends, family and myself.  I did treat myself to a little mirror compact though.  I have been looking for one for a very long time, but one thats kind of nice.  The problem is, I always find the ones that are either cheap, plastic and have some brand name printed across it, or I find the super fancy and terribly gaudy ones with ugly rhinestone and gold plating designs.  This one is simple, perfectly round, and has a  mother-of-pearl design on the front.  After an entertaining conversation with the vendor, who knew instantly we spoke English and teased us by saying “We only speak French here”, only to later comment me on my ability to carry on the necessary conversation in French (score!), I had a wonderful new compact mirror, all for only 8€.  Kind of a silly purchase, but I really have been looking for one forever.

After looking through all the tables, I found a lot of neat things I would love to go back for if I had the money.  For instance, designer silk scarfs (only 80€), really awesome old festival and event posters from around France (anywhere from 200-400€), large sets of real silver table settings (of which I didn’t bother to consult the price), and whole bunch of old keys (only 1,50 €!).  It took up a good portion of our afternoon, and we saw some really cool things, so I’d say afternoon well spent.

Given that we still hadn’t had anything tasty to satisfy our taste buds, we got some sorbet from a place we hadn’t tried before, and decided to walk up to Chateau de Nice (the wonderful park with the great panorama views I’ve mentioned before).  Sorbet proved to be a wonderful idea.  Jon got apricot and I got pear.  Mine was incredible.  It seriously tasted like I was biting right into a really juicy pear.  Jon kept stealing bites and said with sarcastic frustration  “Damnit! Now we have to come here every single day to get some of this” all while making his oh-my-gosh-this-is-the-most-delicious-thing-I’ve-ever-eaten face.  After the long, dreadfully steep walk up the hill, Jon enjoyed playing on the rope play thing while it was kid-free.

We took a few detours going back down to sea level so we would know where all the paths were, and proceeded to go home.  But not without stopping at Zara to get Jon some new jeans.  Two pair, to be exact, since he’s managed to wear holes in one of the pairs he brought.  All and all, a very wonderful afternoon.  I hope the sun sticks around for a little bit longer, and that the tickle that popped up in the back of my throat isn’t the sign of a cold to come.  Especially since we hope to go to Torino this weekend.  And yes, for all my motherly readers, I’ve eating and drinking all the Vitamin C I can manage.  :)

Bonne journée!

Mon cœur est au Japon

Though it’s not exactly related to my travels in the slightest, I’d like to talk a little about todays events.

When I got home from class today, the first thing Jon and I noticed on Facebook was something about an earthquake in Japan, accompanied by a towering 27-foot tsunami.  My heart immediately sank.

I lived in Japan for just short of five years, and know all to well the horrors of an earthquake.  Though I recall feeling small tremors almost daily, I do recall the Kobe Earthquake of 1995 and its aftershocks.  Now, I lived at Misawa Air Force Base, over 700 miles from Kobe, and was scared out of my mind about what was going to happen mid-quake, and that was only a 6.8 on the Moment Magnitude Scale.  I can’t even imagine was an 8.9 would feel like, or the damage that would ensue, or the number of deaths we should expect to see during its aftermath.  I can’t even fathom was a tsunami is like, and consider myself lucky that during my five years there I never experienced one.  Another sobering though, as awful as this may sound, I am beyond relieved that Jon and I opted to come to France, rather than go to Japan.

I have faith in Japan, and its ability to pull through this.  The Japanese are strong- hardened by their experiences, and armed with the best earthquake science to date.  They will rebuild, better than before.  They will prevail, they always do.

I did do a little bit of searching and found that all US Military bases in Japan (including Misawa AB near Misawa City, Yokota AB just outside of Tokyo, and Kadena AB of Okinawa) are okay, and are on stand-by, ready to provide relief to the Japanese government, Hawaii and the Pacific coastal areas of the US, as well as our Pacific territories.

If you would like to donate to the relief efforts in Japan, I found this list of ways you can help.

 

On a lighter note, here in France things have been fairly laid back.  The closing ceremony for Carnival proved to be a royal waste of our time, and caused us to miss out on a good view of the burning of the King.  Had I known the ceremony wasn’t anything entertaining, we would have just camped out by the beach for a few hours so we can see it.  Jon was bummed, he really wanted pictures.  We saw the top of the flames from several yards away, and with in two minutes the fire was out.  They did make up for their lame ceremony with a wonderful fireworks show, complete with music and all.  It was really very nice.  My camera died again, but that proved to be okay after looking at my pictures, because not a single one of them were even close to salvageable.  Oh well.

Today we finally went shopping.  I went out searching for a new pair of shoes, a scarf and mascara, and came home with a scarf, mascara and lip gloss.  I consider it a semi-successful day.  Plus that means I just get to go shopping for shoes again!

Until next time, bonne nuit!

J’adore sangria

Sorry for my absence, but its been a rather dull few days.  That is, with the exception of last night.

We had another one of our classmate dinners!  This time, it was hosted by Fabiola, so naturally, it featured a few of her Mexican favorites!  Mexican rice, salsa, guacamole (which Jon normally hates, but he actually liked hers!), quesadillas, and picadillo!  Everything was delicious, and since Jon, Fabiola and I had been missing our favorite wine beverage, sangria, the day before the dinner I got everything together for my mom’s recipe and made some, so it would be perfect for last night.  And boy it was.  I had to buy a little pitcher thing to make it in, and it was only big enough to put the wine, brandy, simple syrup and fruit, but that didn’t stop us.  Instead of putting the bottle of lemon soda in the pitcher of wine and fruit, we fill up each glass half way with the wine and fruit mixture, and then topped it off with the soda.  Super easy.  We also learned one of the benefits of sangria: when you run out of wine in the fruit, just add another bottle of wine.  We didn’t have the brandy there with us, so we didn’t add any more, but you could add some back into the mixture if you wanted.  And naturally, the fruit was delicious.

Fabiola’s tiny apartment was quite alive last night, and like always, we enjoyed nice conversation.  This time, Lloica (I’m sure I spelled her name wrong, but you pronounce it “Joy-Kuh”), Hameeda, Doha, Kahlid, joined us, and eventually Niko joined us after work.  What a wonderful evening.

Today has proven to be a little frustrating.  Despite the fact that I wasn’t up that late last night, Jon and I were exhausted, and our brains just weren’t functioning in class today.  At one point, towards the end, Martine said something to us so quickly that when I turned to Jon and asked “did you get all that?” he just replied with “do you know any French?”  Probably a bad move on his part, since I proceeded to burst into tears (quiet ones, but still) out of fear that I’m just drowning in the language and wasting all my time and money here.  Of course, he had no idea that’s what it was about, and when Martine noticed, he replied with “Elle est trop fatiguée” (She is too tired) and she completely understood.  Thank goodness, I was too cold to step out into the hallway (where its at least 10 degrees colder) to get a hold of myself.

After class Jon and I had our favorite club poulet and even added a sablé (cookie) of our choice: confiture for Jon, and figue for me.  Delish.  We were going to indulge in a little of what Nice does best- SHOPPING, but we opted for a nap instead so that we could enjoy the closing ceremony of Carnival tonight.  It was supposed to be on Tuesday, but the winds were too high.  Since they burn the float of the Carnival King, it was too big of a risk to proceed with the weather that day, and they postponed it.  That just means I get to go shopping tomorrow. :)

Bonne journée!