Last Call for Fall

…YOU GONNA EAT THAT?

         The week I got back to Paris was Chris’s last week. There was no way he’d be able to cram 6 months of accumulated belongings into his suitcase, so he invited me over on Thursday to collect his Parisian hand-me-downs. I am a compulsive gleaner. Like a human raccoon. I will wash and wear the clothes I discover in the lost & found, I will eat your leftovers, I will ride the bike that has been rusting in your garage. I really can’t help myself. It's hard for me to see things go to waste. People tend to look down on this, but it seems silly to waste things out of principle, to act like things are unusable because somebody else used to own them. Whatever. Chris didn’t mind giving me his leftovers and I certainly appreciated taking them. 

I came away with bags of loot, including (but not limited to):

- a big ol’ orchid (I got a lot of looks carrying this on the metro)

- top notch olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard. I’m in condiment heaven.

- all the fixings for miso soup (I tackled this one for the first time on Thursday night and I’m not sure I made it right, but it was still deeeelish. Miso soup with a baguette…too weird? I’m just enjoying the fruits of globalization)

- an awesome photography book called Paris, Mon Amour. It’s a collection of old photos taken in Paris. I realize that it's a circular sort of pleasure to look at pictures of Paris while I’m in Paris and to get caught up in the romantic image of Paris while living in the reality of it. But I love it. When I'm fed up with crowds and I’ve seen one too many dog turds, it reminds me why I came.

         To top it all off, Chris let me use his washing machine to get caught up on laundry. I’ve got a mountain of karma to pay back.

VIVE LE CHEAP WINE

         While my laundry was in the machine, we went down to a brasserie nearby to get some drinks and dinner. It turned out that this particular Thursday was a kind of unofficial national holiday. Every year on the third Thursday of November, France celebrates the début of Beaujolais Nouveau. This is a kind of wine that’s only fermented for a couple weeks after the grapes are harvested and then they put it up for sale. Most French people will tell you this wine is mediocre and that it leads to a killer headache. It's even served chilled, despite being a red, to mask the taste a little. But, as it is the first drinkable wine of this year's harvest, everyone agrees that it is cause for celebration. Bars and brasseries all over Paris were having specials. There appeared to be a lot of day drinking, including at my high school where they had set up a spread of the wine and some meat in the teachers lunchroom. Despite all of my co-workers’ warnings, I ordered a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau at dinner. I actually thought it was decent, but that just shows how little I know.

         Along with the wine, I ordered my first French cheeseburger. I was quite impressed. My only disappointment was that they served it with American cheese. As in the Kraft stuff that comes individually wrapped. Why would you even allow that stuff to cross the border?

LE SENIOR DISCOUNT?

         Speaking of cheese, on Saturday, November 20^th (yeah, I’m behind, get over it) there was a big farmer’s market on Rue de Reuilly. Chris and I went as a kind of last hoorah for the farmer’s market season. It’s crazy to me that we were out doing this 2 weeks ago, now it’s full blown winter here.

         Chris got a sausage at a “sanglier” stand. I had conveniently just learned what this word meant in a conversation with my student, Antoine, when he was telling me about hunting in Corsica. Sanglier is wild boar. Chris let me try a bite and it was good, but, in typical Amelia fashion, I decided to peruse the whole market before making a lunch decision. At the end we came back, but it was too late and they had already turned off the grill.

         While we were meandering around and trying to decide what samples to taste, an old woman ran into me from behind. Despite having bumped into me, she looked at me enfuriated and erupted in a long French tirade about how “some people” are “poorly raised.” Well, excuse me, for inconveniently existing where you wanted to walk. We just pretended she wasn’t there and she muttered hatefully for a while but eventually moved on to harass some poor young man at a cheese stand. Bonkers. We tried to keep a distance from her, but it seemed like everytime we turned around she was there. Chris suggested that maybe she was trying to pick our pockets. He was kidding, but I think that would be a brilliant strategy for theft. Being an old woman would mean that no one ever suspects you. You can bump into people and feel up their pockets and they’ll just write it off as you being old. If anyone catches on, you can get really indignant and rant about how they’re poorly raised. It's poor form for them to talk back to you as you are their elder. This is my back-up plan for old age, if the retirement funds for my generation are gone by the time I’m eligible for them. 

RECONNAISSANCE MISSION

         Sunday, Chris’s boss at the International Herald Tribune hosted a going away dinner for him. The food was ridiculously good. I learned that a “kir royale” is a kir with champagne in lieu of white wine. The meal was multiple courses, the main dish being ostrich. I, along with half of the other guests, thought that it was just a high-quality cut of beef until she offered us “more ostrich.” Umm, excuse me? It was delicious and lean though. Ostrich is red meat, who knew?

         She and her husband are both Americans, but they are ex-pats through and through. They've lived in France for 20 years or something now. They have a house outside of Paris and 3 kids who were born and raised in France. Two of the kids are in high school and it was cool to hang out with French high schoolers who speak fluent English. I used this opportunity to interrogate them about some things. They explained the system to me a little more (trust me, it’s complicated). And they talked about the requirements for the BAC and how their language teachers fall short. It was like getting a secret window into the French high schooler mentality. Back at school the next Tuesday I felt like I was "in the know."

         Monday morning Chris flew back to the United States and…Claire landed here! I will recount our Parisian adventures together next time!

Oh, something I forgot to mention about London before: did you know that the word "pants" in England means "underwear"? They call pants "trousers." Jeez, that's a recipe for a embarrassing confusion.

à la prochaine!