Lauryn to Lyon

The Office/TV in general- French Netflix doesn’t have The Office or Parks and Rec. and it makes me very sad. I watch these shows all the time in the states and they never cease to put me in a better mood, so not being able to watch them since exchange can be such a hard and emotional event. In the States I was used to sitting down every night and watching a bit of TV with my mom and I figured that this would be something that would translate over when I was in France just with French shows and maybe a bit of variation on the time or person. However my host family doesn’t have cable. My host family only has Netflix and its not something they use on a daily or sometimes even weekly basis. I miss having that time at the end of the night where I can just sit down with my family and laugh at one of the many shows we watch together. 

My comfy spot on the couch- I have a particular spot on the couch at my home and it’s the most perfectly comfortable spot in the whole world. It has an arm rest and a nice cozy back so I can nuzzle myself into it for hours (and get yelled at for slowly pushing the sheet to protect it from dog hair into the couch). The couch my host family has doesn’t have a back and so unless you pad yourself with a lot of pillows it isn’t super comfortable to sit on for very long. 

Arguing with people- I get into useless debates with my family all the time and this usually entails us yelling at each other about how each other’s opinions are completely and utterly wrong.  When you can’t completely understand a language it’s hard to get into a good debate with someone. It’s also hard since I’m not comfortable enough with anyone here to start yelling at them about their opinions on things. 

American accents- everyone here seems to either have a french accent (as one would expect in France) or a British one. It is very rare for me to find another American here unless I go to the very touristy places. British accents used to be my favorite but after 3 months I really miss the sound of another American. 

Fried rice for breakfast- Ar home whenever we have leftover rice from dinner or another meal my mother will take it and turn it into fried rice filled with peas, ginger, and garlic. If I’m lucky and there is enough time there is also a perfectly fried egg on top. I miss this so much. This is something that I had no idea I would miss as much as I do. 

Really anything for breakfast that isn't sweet bread- I’m just really tired of morning stomach aches. P.S. My host mom was nice enough to ask me recently what I like to eat for breakfast back at home after my host dad mentioned to her that I had been eating guacamole for breakfast (something he though was a bit weird). So for the past few weeks I’ve had smoked salmon and salami to eat with my bread.  

American pizza- I have eaten a surprising amount of pizza while in France since both my host parents work and there is a pizza shop just down from my house. The thing about American pizza that I miss the most is the ability to choose exactly what you want on your pizza. In France you have to pick from a list of preset pizzas. Almost all of these pizzas have some form of meat on them that shouldn’t touch my pizza with a 50 foot pole. ( I also just really want Monical’s pizza)

When I first left I had only a small idea of what I would and wouldn’t be able to get once I got to France. Now after being here for almost 3 months there are somethings I’m really starting to miss. 

Hot Cheetos- there are no Cheetos here and it’s really sad. There are no spicy snacks! I have tried many different things that are supposed to be spicy and it’s all a lie.  

Salty Snacks- French people already don’t really snack but if they do it’s always sweets. I just really want some Gold Fish or some Cheezits or really just any other crunchy salty American snack food. 

Unsweetened Iced-tea- I drink a lot of tea and a large portion of that is unsweetened iced-tea. This just doesn’t exist here. I have looked all over the place and can not find anything that doesn’t have sugar in it. I went from drinking a large 99¢ unsweetened iced-tea from Dunkin Donuts  almost everyday to not drinking any iced-tea for almost 3 months. Oh what I would give for a giant iced-tea right now. 

ICE- there is no ice in anything and it makes me very sad. I love ice so so much. The other thing that makes me mad about this is that if you go to a place like McDonald’s they don’t put any ice in it but still leave the gap at the top you would usually fill with ice. If you AREN’T GOING TO GIVE ME ICE I WANT IT AT LEAST FILLED TO THE TOP!    

Packaged Ramen Noodles- This one is a little silly but still I really miss ramen. This isn’t something that completely doesn’t exist here it’s just not very common and not very good. I eat a surprising amount of ramen for breakfast in the states and right now I really miss that. 

Popcorn/Microwave- I miss popcorn. Microwave popcorn can be bought at most stores but there’s one problem. My host family doesn’t have a microwave. I wouldn’t say a microwave is something that I absolutely need in my life (especially since no one eats leftovers here) but it’s nice to have to be able to quickly reheat something. Another thing about popcorn. I don’t know if all movie theaters here are like this or if it is just the one I went to but they don’t sell salty popcorn. REALLY FRANCE DOES EVERYTHING NEED TO BE SWEET! I am someone who doesn’t like sweet popcorn I think it is an abomination in the world of popcorn. It completely ruined my evening when I went to the movies looking forward to some nice SALTY POPCORN AND THIS IS WHAT I GET!

 Local Restaurants- I’m really starting to miss the food from the restaurants in my home town. My host family almost never goes out to eat and so I haven’t really been able to find any restaurants here that I really like where as in the states I’ve had almost 10 years to be able to find places that I love eating at. I really want barbecue from Black Dog, sizzling rice soup and spicy tofu from Peking Garden, Udon from Sushi Kame, Sushi from Oishi, and Butter chicken from that one Indian restaurant that no one in my family knows how to say the name of. These are one of the hardest to miss since there is no way for me to be able to eat them until I return to the U.S. at the end of my exchange. 

So I have been in France for a month now and I officially feel like I can start talking about some of the differences I’ve seen here.

Breakfast: Breakfast here isn’t super different from the United States. The main difference I see is that everyone here wants something on the sweet side: Nutella, cereal, fruit, etc.  My host mom mentioned that she though the idea of eating cheese and meat for breakfast was crazy, since in her opinion they are very heavy things to eat as your first meal. For me I’d never thought of meat and cheese as heavy foods. It’s super common in my house to eat bread, meat, and cheese for breakfast. The one staple for breakfast here as you can probably guess is bread. The bread is so good here. You can get good bread in the U.S. too, but you can’t get it - freshly baked an hour ago at all times of the day - in the United States. There is nothing better than having slightly warm - fresh baguette in the morning.    

Lunch/Dinner: Eating here was a bigger change than I was expecting. The main meals aren’t that different, the thing that makes French meals different is the way you eat them. Here every meal (breakfast isn’t included in this) consists of an appetizer, entree, cheese/dairy, and dessert. For example my lunch at school today consisted of: a plate of salami and a pickle (appetizer), fish and cauliflower with parsley (entree), a little block of cheese (kind of like The Laughing Cow cheese)(dairy), and a piece of marbled chocolate/vanilla cake (dessert).

> (This isn’t the meal described above but one from another day) <

This is very different for me since I’m used to smaller meals without the dairy and dessert part that comes with French meals. Often when I eat here it takes a long time since there are so many courses to get through. Whoever said that French people eat small portions forgot to mention that there are way more of them. I feel like I eat more here than I eat in the U.S. on normal days, which I though was funny seeing that the U.S. is known for our outrageous portion sizes. This leads me into my next topic....

Leftovers:  The main thing about food here that bothers me is how much waste there is. No one eats leftovers here. The only time I have ever seen someone save anything is when there was enough left over for the whole family to eat it again as a meal. And when it comes to going out to eat there is absolutely no taking home any food you haven’t finished. I don’t even think that restaurants have the supplies for you to do that if you wanted to. This is hard for me, I come from a family where you eat something until there is none left or it has gone bad. I don’t even like leftovers but still every time I see my host mom scoop the last of the meal we have had into the trash it hurts my heart a little bit. All I can hear is the little Tiffani ( my mother ) in the back of my head chastising me about how there is still a whole other meal left. 

Snacks: Here in France the eating schedule usually goes:

               7:10 am - Eat Breakfast 

              12:00 pm - Eat Lunch 

               8:30 pm - Eat Dinner 

Notice that long amount of time between lunch and dinner? Yeah, my stomach does too. French people don’t snack. This is something that I still find a bit hard. I’m used to eating some sort of snack between 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm, your standard after school snacking. The French do have something called goûter which could be translated to “tea time” this is a sweet snack eaten around 4:00 pm by younger children. I’ve also seen people my age buy a goûter after lunch (to me this seems counter productive for solving hunger later, seeing as you have already eaten lunch but you do you). I have no idea how French adults can stand to not eat anything between lunch and dinner and still manage to be nice to others. I have also observed that French people seem to have a bit of a sweet tooth, in the U.S. if I’m going to snack on something it’s going to be something salty and crunchy but here it is always something sweet. People here always choose cookies, gummies, sweet bread, etc. (You have no idea how hard it was to find just a bag of pretzels).