I can't throw a rock without hitting a wheel of cheese

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!!

Today was one of the best days I've had so far, actually. It's been very relaxing. I was insanely tired yesterday evening, so I was asleep by 11:00 PM by the latest. I had my metal shutter cranked completely down, and so I didn't even budge until 7:15 this morning. I usually wake up at that time during the week, so I think my body just thought that it was time to get up. Instead, I rolled over, readjusted my weird french cylindrical pillow, and slept until 11:45. As I've said before, pretty much nothing is open on Sundays, so there was hardly any clatter or chatter on the street below to wake me up. The next problem was if I wanted any breakfast, or lunch, as it were. It took me all of 10 seconds to decide that a banana and a mandarin orange in my room would hold me over until dinner.

The main reason was this: Every meal in France is a process. One does not simply "eat" in France. So even if I was to go down to the kitchen to grab a sandwich, I would feel extremely awkward next to the girls who are always cooking pasta, soup, galettes, and cooked vegetables for lunch. And whenever possible, they sit down for meals, often in groups. I'm not talking about getting-lunch-at-the-union-between-classes kind of a meal--they take their time, talk to each other, and eat very slowly, with their courses carefully spaced out. A typical girl at the foyer may have soup, then some sort of main dish, yogurt or fruit, and finish with bread and cheese. Always the bread and cheese! Soft cheese, brie, camembert, goat cheese, mozerella, cottage cheese; you name it, they eat it.

To be honest, it is kind of nice once you get used to it. Even when I eat by myself in the kitchen at an off time, I find myself chewing slower, actually tasting the food that I am eating, and trying to add some variety to my meals. The idea of cooking meats on a hot plate doesn't really appeal to me--I'm terrified of under/overcooking it, and I don't have a lot of experience with that at home anyway--but there's plenty I can eat that doesn't require a lot of preparation. I've found pre-made galettes with ham and cheese that just need to be warmed up in the microwave that are quite tasty, actually. However, the pasta-in-a-can that I ate tonight was fairly disgusting. Ugh. Definitely not doing that again and I'm glad I didn't stock up on that because it seemed easy.

Breakfast and dinner is provided by the ladies at the foyer Monday through Friday, plus breakfast on Saturday. The breakfast has no variety at all, and it's very simple, but that's okay. I actually hate the idea of missing it, and that seems so silly because it is nothing special at all. It's just slices of french bread with butter and jelly, plus a few different drinks. In our french textbooks back home, it's been mentioned that Frenchies drink hot chocolate out of a bowl for their breakfast drink. It seemed so odd that I've never actually taken it to heart, and I've never seen it in a movie or whatever, but it's TRUE. There's even hot chocolate/powdered chocolate mix in the breakfast section of the supermarkets. So for the past two weeks, I've been drinking hot chocolate out of a big glass bowl with two or three tartines (the slices of bread + butter + jelly), And I LOVE IT. It's yummy and has just enough sweetness to get me off on the right foot. I think it's something that I'll definitely keep up when I get back home to the states. The other options are hot tea, cold milk, and coffee.

However, I think I need to cut back the amount of tartines and add some fruit into there because I feel like all I've been doing is eating bread since I've gotten here. Tartines for breakfast, generally sandwiches for lunch with what is called pains au lait (milk bread), which are essentially smaller, denser, sweeter versions of a hot dog bun, and the bread and cheese course with dinner. Maybe I should just invest in some whole wheat bread here. Oh, the supermarkets also sell sandwich bread with the crusts already cut off. It seems popular: a lot of the girls at the foyer eat it. I think it's kind of bizarre, personally.

Dinner at the foyer starts at 7:15 with an appetizer course. This has ranged from salad to sliced tomatoes and hard boiled eggs, to pureed vegetable soups, to puff pastries filled with some sort of cream cheese (it wasn't very good but whatever). There haven't been any repeats so far. There is a meat and a side for the main course, though pasta has repaced the meat at least once. The side is usually a vegetable of some kind, and once they made these amazing mashed potatoes that had to have cream or something added. YUM they were delish. On Thursday, it was couscous topped with cooked chicken and vegetables. I don't think there were any leftovers from that meal! However, Friday was a bit odd: pizza as an appetizer, chicken nuggets and a zuchinni/ham/cheese casserole, and a mish mosh of leftover desserts. Every dinner is followed by a bread and cheese course where the ladies carry around platters with individually wrapped cheeses of all different varieties, and we pile them on slices of french bread. I usually dive for the camembert, but I've been trying to expand my horizons a little bit with the goat cheeses and a few cream-cheese based types. Dessert changes from day to day: sometimes it's fruit, sometimes it's yogurt, and sometimes it's a pudding or a custard-type dish. I really, really, REALLY need to stop eating dessert every night. But every time I make this decision, they come out with something that looks absolutely divine. There really isn't much sugar added to the desserts, or to anything in general, so there are a few days where my "fat American" tooth is really craving something and ends up being unsatisfied with unsweetened pudding or fruit. Plus, if I turn down the dessert, the ladies ask me what's wrong and what they can get for me. It's nice of them, of course, but I also just want to say that I'm fine, I just feel like a fatty. The whole dinner usually runs 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how good the food/company is.

Oh, wow. My across-the-street neighbor just put out his trash. And by put out his trash, I mean he leaned out over his second-floor balcony and dropped the bag down to the street. Hm.

Anyway, a few comments about French table manners: The reach for everything. One night a girl just reached across another girl's plate without looking to grab a peice of bread. No "excuse me," nothing. Just snatched it, and the other girl didn't even blink. They also place their bread directly on the table, not on their plates. I've seen a couple girls balance their slices on the crusts so that the white centers don't touch the table surface. In America, I think we prodominately pass food dishes around the table, but here, one girl will serve the other five at the table before they place any food on their own plates. It's the same for the water pitcher and the appetizers, too. And if one girl goes for seconds, she also asks if anybody else would like some. At restaurants, you typically don't get waiters that are constantly stopping by your table. They bring you your food, will stop by maybe once to ask how it is and if you'd like any dessert, but for the most part leave you alone to enjoy your meal. I like that a lot--I can't stand it when waiters are constantly flitting around.

This is insanely long, now, so I think I'll stop here. Have a great week! I can't wait for classes next week, really. I'm such a nerd. I'm going to round out Valentine's Day by watching Pride and Prejudice and finishing off the chocolate that Sara gave to me yesterday. Bon appetit, y'all!