Differences in Dining

Just feeling like chatting about the food culture in France a little bit. I may have written about this in the past when I was in Lyon but it is funny to remark upon the differences between American ways of eating and French ways.

1. Bread is always a good idea. 
French people do actually eat baguettes or some sort of bread most days. When I was in Lyon, we always cut up a few baguettes and ate a couple slices with dinner. You must mop up your plate with your bread and leave no remainders. There's actually a verb for this; it's saucer or ???This tradition is not lost on me even in Toulon. Emma and I eat, at least, a half a baguette (a demi-baguette if you will) a day, often topped with the most delicious cheese or with Nutella or butter/jam if it's breakfast.

2. Lunch is the most important meal. 
In the U.S., we often say breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it starts the day off. But, in France, where breakfast consists of toast with butter and jam only, lunch is the big meal. In the school cafeterias, they serve three-course meals, consisting of salad, a main course (a grain like potatoes with a protein like fish and some sort of sauce), a dessert, a yogurt, and a piece of bread and cheese. The silly American used to bringing a sandwich, apple, and chips to school for lunch learns very quickly that the French bring huge tupperware of last night's meal (starch, protein, and veggies) accompanied by a yogurt, and a piece of fruit. Said America also learns that you are meant to bring large portions because her small amount of leftovers are made fun of my her collegeaues. "That's all you're going to eat. Aren't you going to be hungry? Here, have some of my bread!"Also lunch is a long-affair. You could easily sit around the table for an hour chatting and eating and stores, restaurants also close for lunch and students have the opportunity to go home so that everyone gets the chance to eat and fully digest their biggest meal.

3. Dinner is a family meal, eaten around the table. 
This is something I really love about France that I think we in the U.S. need to revert back to. When I was little, I was lucky enough to have a mom that made us dinner every night and also made us sit down together as a family to eat it. However, I think as a country we still do things quickly. When we sit down to eat, we are done eating in 10 minutes and then we go back along to whatever we were doing in life. In France, people eat slower and talk more and there's more courses all lumped together so you are kind of forced to be there longer.

4. You don't get food whenever or wherever you want it. 
In France, there are times when you just don't eat. A lot of families don't let their children snack whenever they want. Which is a novel concept I think in a country where many children and adults give themselves free reign to the kitchen at any time (me included!). I think it is part of the reason that French people remain thinner.

5. In California, we have options. In France, we have fresher foods. 
I know there are higher standards in the E.U. for food to be sold (well I have heard, so correct me if I am wrong) and a lot of things like bread are made in the bakery you buy it from. However, when it comes to different types of cuisine, it's hard to find more than French food, Italian and maybe tapas.  In California, you can get Vietnamese, Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian, Thai, burgers, Japanese, fusion,  Indian, Nepalese, anything you want, you can find a good restaurant in the area (again, as long as you live in an urban or suburban area).

So, yes this post may be leaning a little heavily towards all the things I love about France. But, that may also be because my stomach is still getting used to American food and I've been back a month!

February Travels: Prague, Czech Republic

The four of us, Steven, Becca and Charlotte and I, spent 4 days in Prague. I won’t catalogue everything because I know I am so behind at this point it isn’t worth it, but I will do my best to tell about all of the highlights!

The first day I arrived before them and took a walk (in the snow!) and had some pancakes (random I know) before napping and then waiting for them. There was a whole conundrum because I didn’t realize they had no internet or phone service. I thought I heard a small knock at the front door but I wasn’t sure and it was an AirBnB(so not my house and the owner was home at the time). Which turned out (a half an hour later) to be them knocking on every door imaginable because they had no way to reach me. Anyways, once we got settled, we went to a restaurant nearby and I had my first, heavy Czech food experience (goulash and potato pancakes). Yummy! 

It was snowing when we arrived!

Goulash!

The next few days we explored the city: we hiked up to Parc Letkin which overlooks the city, we saw the clock in Old Town, we crossed the Charles Bridge and took pictures in front of the colorful Lennon wall, we ate trdlniks from the street vendors on multiple occasions (even though they weren’t traditional according to our Airbnb host), we ate more fattening, heavy food, we went out on the town one night and got to boogie with the whole dance floor to ourselves, we had fancy cocktails in an impossibly slow cocktail bar called Le Fleur, we went to a beer hall where a jolly man played the accordion, we walked miles everyday, we went and saw the Prague Castle, we ate a meal on the river overlooking the Castle, we braved the rain pouring down on us a few days. Oh yes, and I can’t forget our whopping TWO trips to the cubist lamppost (Becca and Charlotte, I know you’ll be up-in-arms and that Steven will be patting himself on the back that I included that truly unique monument). And the best part of Prague is that everything you do is impossibly cheap when you translate it over to euros or dollars. So even the fancy restaurant that we ate at only cost us about 10 dollars a person (with wine and a huge meal!).

The next day there was NO snow! 

Cool moving sculpture

Old Clock Tower!

Charlotte overlooking Prague on her horse!

Charlotte and I 

Friends in Prague!

Gnocchi and bacon!

Prague at night!

The cubist lamppost

Lenin Wall

Prague Cathedral

See the street art?

The Dancing House

Mirror house!

Beer hall with accordion man!

Flying over the alps

Back to sunny Nice

FRIENDS

Honestly, it was just such a fun trip with wonderful friends. We laughed a lot, sang even more, and just had a great time together. I’ll always have the fondest memories of Prague. Naz dravi! 

February Travels: Würzberg, Germany

I have the absolute funniest (well I don't know if funny is the word I would use to describe it....) memory from this trip and it is of the hostel. When we arrived in Würzberg after I was in Heidelberg, we checked into our hostel which was called Babel Fish (a funny enough name as it was). We checked in at the hostel around 11 or 12 and left our bags there. In the room, we met a middle-aged man on his computer and a young Korean girl on a 50 day European trip alone. It seemed a little strange seeing as the bed next to us was filled with random junk: food, books, a walker, etc. But we left for some sightseeing for the day.

We walked around the streets, took a tour of the Residenz there which was really cool. It was all done up in baroque/rococo style and we got a free tour in English which was the best part! Then, we went to this hole in the wall to have amazing hot cocoa. Finally, we had a final meal together (sausage and potatoes and white wine from the region) which was at a restaurant right on the river. We chatted and just relaxed and grabbed a drink before heading back to our hostel. It was our last night together before I went off to Prague and I was sad to say goodbye!

The Royal Residence (we couldn't take pictures inside but it was magnificent!) 

Rococo Style!

The fun began in the hostel that night. We got in around 10 or 11 pm and got ourselves ready for bed. There was already a ton of people asleep and no one in the common areas which we found strange! We were watching a few things together on our phone when a young guy on a bed across from us starting whispering things to us. He called me “Frenchie” and asked where we were from/”if I had a Nokia charger.” We went out to brush our teeth and ran into this frantic redheaded man, a “self-described Scottish man”. He asked us if we could help him because he had missed his bus and had nowhere to sleep. We were unsure what we could really do but directed him towards the receptionist. We returned to our rooms and went into our beds to go to sleep, when the young guy started talking on the phone with someone, while 4 or 5 other people were asleep in the bed’s around us. We started cracking up and that was actually when he called me the Frenchie and asked for a phone charger. And then proceeded to speak extremely loud on the phone to someone while everyone else was asleep. 

Finally, we thought we could get some rest when the Scottish man came in barreling around, breathing SO loud and talking to people who were asleep. He came up to the Korean girl, woke her up, asked her where she was from, and was getting closer to her until I said “I think she’s sleeping, you should probably leave her alone.” He apologized and started trying to get on his bed. He was clearly very drunk, so drunk that he couldn’t get up the ladder to the top bunk and tried going around to the other side of the bed until his bunk bed mate told him he was on the wrong wide. Finally, he made it up but was still breathing heavily all the while basically doing seat drops (all you gymnastic kids out there know what I’m talking about) on the top bunk next to me until the same guy yelled at him again. At this point, he settled down, promptly fell asleep and started snoring like a freaking freight train. Berenike and I were just like “this can’t possibly get any worse.” We finally fell asleep only to wake up again around 3 when the guy got down out of his bed. Luckily, a nice American boy we met in the hallway gave us earplugs which helped for a bit. At 5, he ended up leaving the place and we saw him again when we woke up at 7 in front of the bathrooms, passed out on the floor because the other guy had told him off for being too loud. All in all, we slept like 3 hours and it was THE most ridiculous hostel experience ever. But it made for a story, at least. 

The next morning I took a Flix Bus to Nuremberg and then a DBahn bus from Nuremberg to Prague! It was a pretty easy trip, maybe 6 hours altogether. And I was in Prague! Ready to meet up with my other Toulonnais pals: Steven, Becca and Charlotte. 

Stop in Nuremberg 

You can't see but it was starting to snow!!