C’est la vie!

Bonjour, mes amies! Je suis de retour! For those of you not fluent in French like me, (and by fluent I mean I know how to order a cup of coffee, a baguette, or a glass of champagne better than anyone), I have returned from my trip to Paris! And try as they might, with their cheese and butter sandwich, faulty head rest and screaming baby in front of me, Air France did not succeed in erasing a wonderful week from my memory.

I remember the last thing I ate: a little baguette topped and filled with a savory gruyere cheese…just like the asiago cheese bread at Panera! Except NOT! Similarly the “quenelles a la lyonnais” (heavenly, seafood dumplings, as light as clouds) were just like the filet of fish sandwich from McDonalds. NOT! The parallels with the cuisine just go on and on and it got me to wondering if Europeans visiting New York compare the techniques of the hotdog venders from corner to corner, the way I did the skills of the crepe makers in Paris. Picking the perfectly boiled hot dog, out of greasy, hot-dog water and slapping it onto a preservative filled bun is so akin to making a crepe so thin you-can-almost-see-through-it but strong enough to hold a quarter of a grated lemon and a sprinkling of sugar. Yup, I’m not having any trouble adjusting to being home.

Despite my withdrawal from the baked goods, it is easier to be home, being able to converse freely using more than 20 words, because let’s face it, one certainly gets tired of ordering champagne and baguettes. Well, that’s not actually true. But I do miss watching my husband struggle with the French language. “Mav,” I said to him, “speaking English with a French accent isn’t the same as speaking French!” “I know,” he said, with a desperate look in his eye and a Pepe le Pew lilt, “but no matter how hard I try, I just don’t understand anything they are saying!” Translation: it’s time for me to go shopping.

Did you know that the French don’t get thirsty? They are like camels. Any vessel containing a non-alchoholic beverage, be it juice, soda, coffee or water, is the size of a shot glass. And it costs about twice as much as a big glass of wine. Which only costs about as much as a small cup of Starbucks. I’m not gonna lie, we were shelling out the dough for the waters and the cups of coffee. But then it was time for champagne and I got over it.

You know what else? The waiters and waitresses never rush you. EVER. Mav usually needed a shave by the time we got our l’addition, I mean, our check! So much more refreshing than having a waitress tell you about the “specials” before you get served a cocktail and then she brings all the food at the same time and someone starts clearing your plate before you are finished! Nothing like being in and out of a restaurant in under an hour. On a Saturday night. Yes, I’m disgruntled to be home.

And being so, I have had to look for the down-side of Paris, because I have to accept that my life is here, and I am too old to become an ex-pat living on the Left Bank struggling to complete my novel. Plus I don’t want to take up smoking. So, I will admit, the public restroom situation in Paris could be better. Never knowing if you were going to have to pee into a hole or an actual toilet is a bit of a stress. Especially for someone like me who has terrible aim. I have been known to pee on the leg of my pants or my shoes. When you’ve been walking the streets of Paris for hours on end, the last thing you want to do is further work out your quads trying to straddle a hole without falling in. The little footrests are an interesting concept but I think they are put in place only to make fun of people like me who aren’t sure how to use them. Sure there are great public “kiosk” toilets right on the street and those are truly state of the art: self cleaning, power flushing toilets for 50 cents a shot! With the Euro at only $1.30, that’s like 66 cents! A bargain that rivals the cheap wine for sure, but I just couldn’t relax knowing that there were people on the other side of that plastic wall that knew I was in there trying to make a wee-wee. Furthermore they are not heated, so that cool wind rushing through also presented a problem. Then, there’s the panic that ensues when you realize you might be about to use up your last, timed, minute and the door will automatically swing open and expose you to the masses with your pants still down, and your coat up around your waist. Walking out with a piece of toilet paper stuck to my boot was really the least of my issues.

So, little by little I’m forcing myself to accept my American life back in the ‘burbs, where I am installing a wine fridge in my bathroom so I can enjoy the best of both worlds. And in case that was lost in translation, I mean I can now enjoy a “coupe de champagne” while “assis sur les toilettes!”