More Things I Miss From The U.S. (not all food this time)
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)
So here’s another list of things that I miss. I’ve been working on a post about Thanksgiving for a few weeks now but Tumblr keeps deleting my progress so it’s been a bit discouraging. There’s nothing worse than spending an hour writing only to have it all deleted in 5 sec. So I’ll get that done at some point.
