France

We’re back from France and it was a lovely vacation. It was great just to spend time together and relax and laugh again – it felt like I hadn’t laughed in a month. A little time and distance didn’t make us forget what happened, but it provided a blanket to help us cover some of our rough spots.

I was a terrible food blogger because I took no photos of food, but I did write down nearly everything I put in my mouth. But since No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, I’ll just summarize:

Wine
Cheese
More wine
Pain au Chocolat
Just a bit more wine
Fois gras
One more glass
37 ducks
Butter
Cheese (for dessert!)

Maybe I’ll post more later about some of our meals, but here are a few of my brilliant observations about Paris:

1.) Everyone is a good driver. No, really. It’s not like Rome where you fear for your life every time you step off the curb.

2.) No one was rude. No one. No one giggled at my awful French accent, no one made snooty faces or laughed at my Old Navy fashions, no one looked at us askance as we sat sipping wine among beautiful tanned fit men at what was obviously a gay bar.

3.) People really do walk around carrying baguettes all the damn time.

4.) Meals take longer. This is a good thing. You sit for a while, you get some wine, you order, you eat a bit of this and a bit of that and drink some more wine, maybe you have a coffee or a smoke, you wander home, maybe stopping for a drink on the way. Dinner is an event.

5.) The adorable metro! Cute little green trains, only 5 or 6 cars long, and the stations don’t smell like pee (as much). The best part – there are little digital signs above the tracks telling you when the next train is coming, and they come every 6 minutes or so. No more standing on the platform waiting if perhaps the entire subway system shut down and no one bothered to mention it to you.

6.) Like any other big city, there are plenty of mediocre touristy restaurants. With just a little research you can avoid these spots and get some great food.