Life in France

Yes the food is okay. There is too much meat and cheese and fatty sausages of course - all of which is delicious and a risk to my girlish figure. I refuse to tell French people their food is good though. They are too caught up in it and smug and I’ve had good food in many places.

However, I find it very doubtful the food I get in the school cafeteria would appear in a school café in any other country, but until the French learn to be a bit more humble about their food, they’re not getting anything else from me.

And what the heck is the problem with mixing vegetables with your aligot? It’s the only option when there’s only one hot plate and saucepan.

Aligot being a delicious local dish of potatoes, cheese and cream in a 4-2-1 ratio, and my condemnation arising when I suggested mixing a few veggies into the mash. I was roundly condemned by all present and informed later in the conversation it isn’t aligot lest the cheese come from somewhere other than a tiny block of farms somewhere south of Rodez.

I guess.

Too much about food!

Aside from that, the bureaucracy here is silly. I have filled out forms where I wrote my address down three times, on the same page! Opening my bank account required the murder of ten forests. Speaking of the bank, I deposited some cash today and it should appear on my bank balance by Tuesday. If I’d known it would take so long, I wouldn’t have bothered. I have general “life” insurance, not life insurance, just insurance for life. In case I step on someone’s toe or something. Before I join a gym, or take a yoga class I need to get some sort of form from a doctor, the cost of which will be refunded by the public health care.

And it goes and goes and goes.

So food, and bureaucracy. Seem to be the fixation of most people here. It isn’t about efficiency, that’s for sure, and come to think of it neither am I.

Maybe if I can figure out this whole language thing, thus enabling me to engage more fully in conversations over food, about food, during bureaucratic process or about them, I’ll like it all even more.

Right now, not being able to say what I really think is more than a bit irritating, and maybe if I didn’t talk to the other English assistants so much I’d be learning more and faster. Maybe.