Bienvenue to the ghetto

Well, Christmas has come and gone, and I have officially left Paris. I’m currently speeding towards Lyon, the last place my French will be useful for quite some time and the second leg of this trip before we hit Spain and I become essentially mute. A gaggle of French children behind me are chirping “Regarde Maman! Regarde Papa!” (Look Mom! Look Dad!) every five minutes and kicking the back of my chair, and I just finished the last of the macarons.

Playing tour guide is an exhausting task, and while I’m sad to see the City of Lights go, I’m looking forward to returning to a place where the only directions I ever need to give involve pointing in the direction of the pre-made sandwiches at The Shipyard.

Part of my duties as a semi-Parisian local included finding restaurants that were still open on Christmas Eve and Christmas, and subsequently booking reservations. I naturally waited as long as humanly possible before completing this task, but once I did, I was quite proud of myself. After a delay of two days, the Charles de Gaulle monster spit my family out and Christmas Eve rolled around quick. The restaurant I had picked for the evening was Brasserie Flo, one in a chain of well-reviewed brasseries all over Paris; I chose one in the 10^th arrondissement, based off the menu and assuming it would be a breeze to find since I had been working in the neighborhood for the last few months.

Like anything is ever that easy.

Best Hidden Upscale Restaurant/ Best Way To Scare The Hell Out Of Your Mother In A Foreign City

As I explained before, the 10^th is a charming neighborhood. There’s always someone getting their weave on, even if it’s 11 at night, and the places where Jess and I grabbed lunch a few times a week are nestled next to places with dingy windows and names like Pizza City and King of Subs.

Our reservation was for 8 p.m., and as we hopped off the Metro and I glanced at my crinkled and well-loved Paris Pratique map one last time, I felt confident. But, as the street continued on and on, and suddenly the stores were fewer and far between and lingering groups of 20 something guys with nothing better to do starting appearing on the corners, I could feel my mother panicking behind me.

Unwilling to appear lost or in the least bit confused, I powered on, my heels clacking over the day-old leftover snow on the sidewalks. Streetlamps began flickering. Homeless men with no teeth yelled unintelligible profanities and ramblings. After five minutes of turning around to see my mother’s dubious face growing worse by the block, I decided we might have missed a turn.

One nonchalant stolen glance at the map and one helpful street sign (posted by the restaurant, which is apparently used to it’s clientele wandering deeper and deeper into the ghetto in search of it’s doors) later, we found ourselves in a glorified alley, the burnt-out lights of Pizza City a stone’s throw away. And voila, Brasserie Flo.

I hauled open the unwieldy wooden doors and was greeted by not one cheery “Bonsoir!” but six. The staff was dressed to the nines and the coat check girl, who looked like she had just stepped off a runway, whisked away all of our coats, and we were soon led to our table by a penguin-suited maître’d. We took our seats, an amuse bouche starter and a round of champagne landed in front of each of us, a huge, very French menu gracefully appeared in our hands from nowhere and I began to panic like someone who, at least a few times in the last four months, has resorted to eating Nutella out of the jar to survive.

If you’re wondering, Yoda-French definitely works in fine dining situations. Then again, our headwaiter was so charming and jolly, I could have been Molière for all I knew.

“Hungry we were…SOO satisfying this meal was!”

“Very happy to hear that madame! Would you perhaps be desiring a coffee, or another round of champagne?”

“Another glass I couldn’t…coffee I can!”

I did encounter something new, in translating the menu for my English-speaking family. In translation world, especially where a menu is concerned and the French like to get poetic and rambly, I am no longer a Jedi Master, but more of an ogre type creature, with a limited vocabulary who points a lot.

"Meat...that. This...fish. With that. Ooh, ooh! Green beans there! That...meat?"

A respectful three hours later, we spilled into the alley once more. This time, drunk as I was on the pure thrill of a Parisian-amazing-secret-discovery, I gave a little curtsy to the toothless man talking to his beanie. Merry Christmas, indeed.

Next up, I try to convince Lyon, the culinary capital of France, that I'm just not hungry anymore.

Baby, it's cold outside

Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming! And, like every single year, like clockwork: the airports are failing, the airports are failing!

As far as holiday traditions go, I’m definitely a fan of the new ones I’ve adopted since being here; hot spiced wine, roasted chestnuts, catty roasted chestnut venders who scoff and yell at each other across the way and good-naturedly harangue passers-by…but most of all, the Code Orange This Is Not A Drill There Is Frozen Rain Coming From The Sky And We, The Airports Of The World, Are Not Equipped To Deal With This Sort Of National Disaster holiday news broadcasts.

Most years, I would be smack in the middle of this chaos, grumpily using my messenger bag as a pillow and swearing under my breath (just for the fun of being in a foul mood with everyone else—it’s a bonding experience!) as I spent seven euros on a stale [insert airport food of choice here]. However, this year, I am patiently waiting in a hotel for my family unit to arrive in one piece, while I watch French news correspondents with crazy eyes and ruffled French travelers who still look better than me on a good day, giving quotes like:

“I’m just…this is just REALLY NOT OKAY,” and;

“This is unbelieeeeeeevable! The flights are delayed, I am just in shock and no one is answering our questions and we will spend Christmas here I’m telling you because these stupid idiots here are unable to do ANYTHING, I will fly the plane, just show me where it is, I will fly it…” as if from a script.

Best Way To Wait For Your Family When All Of Europe Is Scared of Wet Snow

“Je vous arrête pour le meurtre…”

It’s Saturday night, and I’ve moved into a hotel room in the 6^th arrondissement, across from restaurants cheerily dressed up for Christmas, with awnings covered in snow and menus with prices that make me snort with laughter as I stand outside, squinting at the posted lists of delicacies on the windows. One of my last friends left in Paris, Pete, and I meet up to attempt to ice skate in front of Hotel de Ville, but are thwarted by a flash snowstorm of big fat flakes that are piling up on the ice rink and blinding small children faster that we can keep up with. We duck into a café off a side road and spend a little over five hours with espressos, roast chicken with gratin dauphinois and a bottle of red wine, while the French bar cat sits next to us in the booth, but shoots us judging French eyes if I try to pet her. Typical.

After navigating the Châtelet Metro station in a food coma back to my new home, I settle into bed and wind up watching dubbed reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent on French TV channel TF1. Except here, it’s “New York Division Criminelle,” and Vincent D’Onofrio as a costaud Frenchman puts a whole other spin on the series. I watch two episodes and am unable to decide whether the spidery suspenseful music hanging off of the jolly smart-alecky French accent we all know and love works for me.

The terrible dubbing does make me feel better about some things, though. “You’re under arrest for the murder of so-and-so,” for example, becomes “Je vous arrête pour le meurtre de…” Translated: “I stop you.” I can’t help but giggle, alone in the hotel room, at the politeness of it all. “Ahem, I’m uh, really very sorry about all this, but I’m going to have to stop you for this murder. My apologies, again.” The next day I watch Jurassic Park: Le Monde Perdu. (The Lost World. You go Jeff Goldblum.)

After I sleep through free breakfast the first morning, I get my act together and lope downstairs like Eloise on Christmas at the Plaza—did anyone else but me read those books?— to enjoy a peacefully silent breakfast with free wifi that I don’t get in my room. On the second morning, I wise up and sneak an extra pain au chocolat and croissant back with me.

(Upon arrival, I called down to the reception desk to see if I needed a password for the wifi. There’s a pause while the receptionist, a man with hair like a French banker, looks up my room.

“Trois cent neuf, c’est ça?” (Room 309, right?)

“Oui, c’est ça.”

“Il n’y a pas de wifi au troisième étage.” (There is no wifi on the third floor.)

“Oh, okay. Merci.” (What the hell do you mean there’s no wifi just because I am mere feet above the second floor?? This is so typical France, man, I swear. I’m going to fight this, you hear me?? You hear me???)

I spend the next few days sitting in the stairwell a floor below checking my email to avoid sitting awkwardly in the lobby.

Paris has an odd, quiet and larger-than-life quality to it now that the wolf pack of ladies has disappeared back stateside. Before, with empty bottles of wine in hand as we skipped down Rue Mouffetard after a long evening, cackling like hyenas and guaranteed to miss the Metro, Paris seemed smaller and conquerable.

My first night in Paris, I was a day early than most people in the program, and I remember being terrified in my miniscule hotel room in the Opera district. Culture shock is a bitch, and it can show up out of nowhere—mine wasted no time, smacking me in the face at Charles de Gaulle. If I thought I had been taking French for the past 8 years of my life, I was wrong, it must have been Swahili judging by the way I flailed around for an hour, lost in the underbelly of French cruelty at it’s finest.

Now it seems, alone again before my family arrives and I am tasked with carting three Americans behind me to all the monuments and France-isms I have come to know and love, Paris is mine for the observing. Except this time, I can expertly snack on falafel from Maoz in front of Notre Dame with a honed French scowl on my face, secretly enjoying the cold and the ignorant tourists schlepping overstuffed bags up and down the stairs at Denfert-Rochereau station.

The panic attacks of withdrawal are already beginning.

Have pity on the nubby pigeons

A funny thing happened as Jess and I walked to work in the 10th this morning. The frigid cold forced me to bury my face in my scarf as I subconsciously counted all the barbershops, wig-shops, children’s clothing outlet stores with shady shipments being carted in every hour and Chinese restaurants nestled in between two more hair salons with names like “Courageuse” and “Amazon Princess,” and as the 9 a.m. winter sun lit up the rows of apartments, it finally dawned on me—my time in Paris is coming to an end.

With a scant 3 days before the end of the program, and 21 until my return to Beantown, it’s becoming difficult to walk down the street and not wonder how long it’ll be until I can grab a leisurely espresso for only a euro at a café counter again. How long before I’ll spend five minutes too many trying to sympathize with a one-footed pigeon that’s hobbling around on its nub, being cursed at by passing Parisians on the sidewalk in front of me? Before a jolly accordion player comes through the aisles of the Metro for tips after a morning commute cover of La Vie en Rose and everyone gracefully turns their head away?

The thought is almost too sad to ponder.

So, in order to properly close out this saga in a few weeks, it’s time to begin the Balls in Your Coffee-style adieu to the City of Lights—the people, the food and the bizarreries, which really should be a word in English.

A certain photo album that one of our friends, Lily, put together inspired the idea; she whittled down her archives of Paris photos to a succinct 44, each paired with a “Best Of” category. In any case, that’s the way Paris will be truly remembered—snapshots of moments.

In our case, it’s more like snapshots of awkwardness. Same thing.

Best Drink In Paris That Will Make You Forget Your Name:

A few months into our stay here, we discovered a certain bar with a certain name that shall not be named, for selfish reasons—we shall call it Bar Voldemort—and began trooping to it’s worn wooden booths and collaged walls (good luck finding a bar in Paris that is not like this. Insert evil laugh here) once or twice a week. After a short while, we were bestowed with the best present an expat could ever receive: the cheek-kisses upon entry. Making it as regulars, and getting to “faire la bise,” is like receiving a sparkly flying unicorn that stomps glitter out of it's hooves and does your homework for you for your 6^th birthday, when all you wanted was a pony.

Anyway, at Bar Voldemort, there's this beautifully hefty cocktail list. On this list, there is a drink that when purchased and subsequently sipped, makes one believe first that there is no God, and then (after half the drink has been put away) that one is God. My one and only experience with said drink left me having this key conversation, yelling over the music, with a young French guy with slicked back hair and too much cologne.

“So, what are you all doing in Paris?”

“Oh, students! We are here for four months being students.”

“Nice. What are you studying?”

“Journalism! And French. Hahahahaha...ooooof course.”

Some time passes, I quietly work on my cocktail, and conversation flows around the table. We’re on fire, speaking French like mentally disabled locals, feeling good, ignoring the fact that our lips have gone numb. About a half-hour later, Cologne Man turns back to me. What he truly said, I can only guess at.

“So, the other night I was saying to my friend, this government is seriously out of control! Sarko thinks he owns us, man! And I’m like, yeah man, I just want to live my life, you know? Fuck this communist shit! Then he’s like, ‘Technically Sarko isn’t a communist.’ And I’m like, ‘Man, everyone is a communist these days right?’ That’s what all Americans think right??"

I reply, with a great big smile on my face:

“STUDENTS! We are here for four months being students.”

“….right. Have you had a chance to see any good stuff around Paris?”

I laugh heartily and slurp the rest of my Drink of Death:

“Journalism! And French. Hahahahaha...ooooof course.”

(*photo credit to a fellow Voldemort-going drunken comrade. We shall call her...N'Irelande.)

Spoiled Brat

I am, of course, referring to my stomach.

I suppose I should have foreseen this development. After taking it with me to Paris for four months, I don’t know who I’d be to expect anything less than an acquired constant hunger from my formerly well-behaved stomach. And when I say well-behaved, I mean it. When I broke down after seven years of vegetarianism and crammed a slice of pepperoni pizza gleefully into my face, then embarked on an expansion of my culinary palate and cooking experience with New York sirloin steak and Thai-glazed chicken satay soon after, my stomach joyously went along with it.

While the other stomachs of fallen vegetarians were busy rebelling, mine simply seemed to say, in a politely surprised way, “My, my! I haven’t had this in awhile. How delightful.” Like a proper Englishman out of a period drama really, with a dove-gray cravat and top hat and all.

When we arrived in Paris, a small trial period of adventurousness ensued while we tried the local delicacies, with marvelous success—with the exception of real Roquefort cheese, which mysteriously tastes like dry-erase markers to us. After months of becoming accustomed to baguettes with dinner and croissants on the way to class and coffees all over the place and good wine and overwhelmingly amazing quiches, my stomach took to loudly notifying me when it was time to give it some love, in case I got distracted by the monuments or the street scenes or my work.

This quickly turned into a game of let’s-get-into-awkward-public-situations-and-have-some-real-fun. I’m not sure how. I told you it was a brat.

Au bureau (at the office):

It's 9:45 a.m, office chit-chat has subsided and we've all settled in to start working. Stomach senses the time is right.

“PAIN….AU……CHOCOLAAAAAAAAT. Please.”

My coworker Elsa darted a glance up at me from her computer across from mine. I had been hoping that had gone unnoticed, but clearly, wishful thinking. I clenched my abs in a fruitless effort to silence him, like everyone does every time in a desperate attempt to stop the angry noises.

“Nice going.”

“Pain au chocolat?”

“Nothing I can do right now.”

“Then I shall grumble for TWO MORE HOURS.”

“Fine. You’ll give it up eventually.”

Two hours later:

“TOLD YOU SO.”

Elsa goes back to her typing and now pretends not to notice.

Dans le Metro (in the subway):

One major difference between the public transportation in Paris and the rest of the cities I’ve lived in is the noise level. Here’s the best way to describe it. This level change is noticeable all over the city for us loud Amuuricans, but on the Metro, where the wheels are made of rubber and don’t screech and only one out of 40 or so people is chatting on their cell phone (quietly, naturally), we may as well be sitting amongst monks.

“I know you had a café au lait this morning,” my stomach says in a hushed voice. “But guess what?”

I know what’s coming, but ask anyway. : “...what?”

“NOOOOOOOT SUFFICIENT!!!!!!”

An older woman next to me gives me a pitying and knowing glance. I awkwardly smile back, and kind of shrug in a sad little way.

“DOES SHE have a BAGUETTE in….her PurSE?”

“No, I highly doubt she has a baguette in her purse. Knock it off.”

“Then she is of no interest to us. Move ALONg.”

Parmi les bouquins (among the books, at Shakespeare & Company):

At Shakespeare & Company, the most charming little bookstore ever to burst forth from Paris, or the world, everyone mills around the cramped passageways, stacked high with books, in a reverent kind of hush.

“This sightseeing is kind of fun,” my stomach whispered, barely noticeable.

Distracted by the books and magical air of the place, I mindlessly replied, “Yeah it is, isn’t it.”

“So nice here. So nice…we got up kind of early this morning, you know. I’m really trying to work out a sched—I AM GOING TO EAT ONE OF THESE BOOKS RIGHT NOW.”

Pretty sure ol' William himself woke up with that one. I chose to nonchalantly ignore my stomach and curiously glanced around with everyone else. Smooth per usual.

Topless time-waster

I know what you’re thinking, some of you out there in the Internet wilderness. How could anything topless be a waste of time? Let me enlighten you, few scandalous-minded readers of mine, because you’ve obviously never been to the OFII medical office in Paris.

OFII, the French office of immigration and integration, is one of those “necessary” evils an ex-pat must face in France in order to remain in good standing visa-wise, just in case you ever decide to skip on back to the land of wine and cheese and clammy Metro poles. For months now, we have been slowly (and I mean sloooowly) completing this heinous process, aware that a visite medicale was in our near future. As the appointments began trickling in, and we began to talk amongst ourselves, it was clear that this was not just any doctor’s visit.

“They stick you in a room topless!” girls cried in horror upon return from their visits.

“But why? WHY would they do such a thing?” the crowd of anxious girls listening in would demand fretfully, brows furrowing and jaws dropping, many unconsciously clutching their chests in alarm.

Apparently the answer was to determine whether or not you had tuberculosis. In which case, if I indeed had the famed disease of Nicole Kidman’s doomed damsel in Moulin Rouge, by the time my appointment rolled around, I would have spent the last four months infecting all of Paris. Good timing, OFII.

Mysterious topless TB tests looming in my future or not, I was required to appear at 9:30 this morning at an obscure office in the Bastille neighborhood. My friend Hannah and I, both having landed the same appointment time, set off early this morning, the light hazy rain making my hair stick up in strange ways. After laying down 55 euros for a stamp (an inconvenient substitute for a co-pay), we pushed open the doors of the inferno and were faced with two waiting rooms packed to the brim with sullen-looking foreigners, passports and stamps in hand.

An hour passed. Hannah read off and on and I mindlessly flipped through a magazine I’d already read a few dozen times. Finally, our names were called—Hallelujah!—and we were moved into the next room. Another hour passed. Our names rang out again, and we were shuffled into a small room with two doctors administering simple tests and checking measurements: height, weight, eyesight. Except, at no point was I asked to remove my two and half-inch heels, or my jacket. So, by Parisian record, I am about 5’8” and weigh about 10 kilos more than usual. Also, I'm pretty sure I said "C" on my left side when he pointed at "O" and I still passed with flying colors. Go figure. O isn't that important anyway.

After this lovely jaunt—my male doctor gruffly asked me if I was pregnant. Hannah’s patted her stomach and cheerily asked, “Pas de bébé? Pas de bébé?” (No baby? No baby?)—we took our seats once again. We figured the toplessness had to be next. Had to be. And what do you know, we were right.

By the time another half-hour had passed, I was finally up for my x-rays. Four of us stood in front of three doors, marked like a shoddy "aaaand Bachelor #1!" type show. A tiny French nurse explained that I was to enter the room, take off my shirt and put my hair up. Sounds good, I thought, pleased that I had understood my directions. It wasn’t until I was in the tiny closet-like room with my shirt off that I realized I had no idea what to do next.

There I was, standing fully clothed from the waist down, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot and wondering why they had chosen such a bright yellow to paint the walls. Then, out of nowhere, an adjoining door was yanked open and a grumbly x-ray tech, (also a very small French woman. I’m sensing a theme…) bustled me out of my closet. Before I knew what was happening, I had managed to wind up pressed up against a large machine, both of the two nurses were animatedly telling me to breathe deeply, and then I was shooed right back into door #1.

After redressing myself, I burst out of the closet into the hallway I started from, looking mildly flustered along with my fellow visa-seekers, only to take a seat for another half-hour. Hannah soon plopped into a seat next to mine, and we waited to see a new doctor who would cluck about how good our x-rays looked and take our blood pressure before sending us on our way.

Almost four hours after we’d walked through the door this morning, we watched yet another employee land a glorified sticker in our passports, declaring us fit to return, TB-free.

Thanks, OFII. Don’t know what I’d do without you.

Zanksgeeving

American holidays, especially ones of the family-recipe-fueled-gastronomical-goodness varieties, are always tough when you’re yanked out of the traditional comfort zone and dropped in a foreign country. This year, in an effort to preemptively ease the holiday homesickness, the group of us ex-pats was invited to a tiny restaurant in the first arrondissement, Oh Mon Cake, for a “Thanksgiving cocktail.” (And yes, we all realized the words “Thanksgiving” and “cocktail” presented a bit of an oxymoronic situation.)

Whether or not we were aware of it, many of us woke up yesterday morning dreaming of stuffing and slow-cooked turkeys with gravy and homemade cranberry sauce simmering on the stovetop. Instead of sleeping in, shimmying into a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt and rolling up to Grandma’s house in undeniable I’m-ready-to-gain-15-pounds style, I took the Metro to work with the rest of the blurry-eyed commuters, and spent my morning explaining this picture to my coworkers:

"But...why?" was the most frequently asked question. "That, I know nothing," my sage French self replied solemnly.

“Zanksgeeving,” is a subject of simultaneous fascination and confusion for the French, as I soon discovered, which is perhaps why we ended up at a place serving Thanksgiving-type fare in the form of cakey breads and shot glasses of soup. Not quite American, not quite French.

Though I’m sure we were for the most part expecting the worst, the homage to our turkey slaughtering ancestors from across the pond was surprisingly edible and not as comical as expected. What was comical was cramming about 35 of us in a small upstairs room and watching everyone try to determine if this was a French cocktail party, where guzzling your drink first thing and hunting around for a napkin to fill up with a stash of peanuts or chips or something is a faux-pas, or an American one, where toting around a bottle of champagne for yourself is acceptable after a few rounds.

The confusion lasted for a respectable five minutes, and then disintegrated into a free for all. Five minutes after that, the conversations had ratcheted back to a standard American 8.9 on the Richter scale. Slices of the turkey cake-bread, corn bread with lardons, fromage blanc with cucumbers and tomatoes and small shooters of chocolate mousse were snatched off platters (Snatched! Who knew?), the whole thing passed quickly and the holiday was over before I knew it.

Even though there’s a small hole in my heart today where a leftover turkey sandwich usually goes, here’s to the French Thanksgiving. And to Apple and Cider, the pardoned turkeys, Paris is just bursting with semi-confused happiness for you.

Bring on the hot wine, roasted chestnuts and Mariah Carey singles—Paris doesn't mess around for Christmas.

Pretty lights, big rats and an anniversary

Well, well, well, boys and girls, would you look at that? Balls In Your Coffee turns one year old today.

It’s been quite the long haul; for those of you who have been here since the beginning, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and for those who have jumped on board during the past year, it is for you I keep writing these shenanigans down.

We’ve escaped The Martini, entered the world of organic groceries, and skipped off to another continent together, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Here’s to many happy returns for this little blog with big dreams and a dubious name.

As this Monday finds me slumped at my work desk, sharing YouTube clips with my coworkers and counting down the minutes until lunch, here’s a tidbit from last weekend.

Saturday night we were huddled along the Champ de Mars, the Eiffel Tower in the foreground casting a subtle golden glow over the grass, the temperature dropping to a wintery chill. We had stuffed our purses with the basics; a bottle of Bordeaux, a mammoth bunch of grapes the size of a two-month old child, 99 centime brie, baguettes and a packet of Milanos, intent on picnicking à la française for the last time before the snow arrives.

During the winter months, the grass in Paris is legally in “hibernation,” which means that our picnic was relegated to the cold benches lining the lawns as we watched the rats romp and frolic on the tourist-free green pastures to their rodent hearts content. I know endearing scenes from Ratatouille are currently replaying in your heads, and I hesitate before stomping on those fantasies, but I’m positive that none of these rats could make little rat-sized omelets or render a horrendous sweetbread recipe edible.

Like the real rebels we are, we passed the wine back and forth, despite the so-called police disapproval of open bottles in public spaces. We even put on nonchalant, very French faces as we were approached by three flics making their nightly rounds. The open Bordeaux sat on the ground in between us, and as the three cops sauntered by, we nodded, chimed “Bonsoir!” and smiled, my leg slowly moving to cover the wine.

As we sat together, sharing the brie and the Milanos, my hands going numb from the cold, the clock struck 8 p.m. and the Eiffel Tower burst into life, glittering as it does every hour of every night. Despite the regularity of this routine, it never fails to evoke a reaction from the milling crowd beneath the pillars or the starry-eyed tourists strolling along the paths of the Champ de Mars; it’s almost a shock every time the sparkling begins, as if you weren’t really sure it was going to happen after all. Everyone claps and whistles and screams like it’s a sign that yes, the world will indeed continue to turn and yes, Santa Claus DOES exist and that yes, this contraption of metal and lights and hauteur will continue to blow minds for years to come.

As we lapsed into silence and watched the shimmering Tower for a minute or two, I turned my head and caught a rat crouched a few feet behind our bench. Maybe he was waiting for us to drop some baguette, or waiting to pounce and infect all of us with a 28 Days Later-esque strain of rabies, but for a second, it almost seemed like he was watching the twinkling lights like the rest of the crowd.

So, alright, perhaps mini-gourmet chef rats exist. It is Paris after all.

Puttin' on the Ritz

As many of you know, the French Lunch, clearly deserving of two capital letters and internationally famous for its leisurely pace, is nothing to sneeze at. It is something that is at once beautiful to withhold, precariously difficult to execute correctly, and entirely worth working all day long for.

On most days, Jess (of the aforementioned Spacecake experience) and I take an hour and a half or so and pick a petit bistro, eat like sloths—whilst dreading the return to the American “oh, no thanks I’ll just eat this granola bar at my desk” lunch break—and then waddle contentedly back down the street to the office. However, every once in awhile, the evil twin of the French Lunch, the French Franprix Run, rears its ugly head with mixed results.

Franprix, a Safeway or Shaws-esque type grocery chain, is home to a sad and convenient array of culinary mockeries. Comté cheese that squishes between your fingers (wrong, I tell you!) and prepacked cold chicken salad dare desperate lunchers to waste a few euros rather than die of starvation from the shelves. At most, one expects fluorescent lighting, antsy checkers, and cheap wine from any Franprix worth its salt.

I’ve never been exceptionally skilled at packing a lunch and toting it to work, so when Jess had some work to finish up at the office a few days ago and our midday date was canceled, I made a French Franprix Run (poor decisions are always influenced by lack of breakfast) to avoid eating my keyboard at my desk.

Twenty minutes later, I emerged with a small box of Ritz crackers, an overpriced carton of raspberries, and a bunch of bananas. Clearly the Nutrition Fairy didn’t make an influential stop at my childhood.

Despite this haggard sounding meal, my growling stomach had decided to settle for it. I trotted back to the office, and was immediately faced with my two colleagues, back from their lunches, sitting at their desks across from mine, silently working away in that determined French way of theirs. It was this moment that I realized just how loud the Ritz crackers in my hand were about to become.

After attempting to open the package as quickly and soundlessly as I could (obviously failing), I bit down on a Ritz. I think I can say, in good faith, that I have never eaten anything louder in my life. So, doing what many people faced with a deathly quiet room and particularly crunchy food items do, I stopped chewing and self-consciously let the cracker get soggy and silent and chewed as noiselessly as I could. Compounded with my overwhelming hunger, I had no choice.

Now, of course, we all think we are being incredibly sly when we do this. The reality is, unfortunately, that it is very obvious to everyone around you that you are trying to avoid an uncomfortable chewing situation by holding your food in your mouth like a squirrel stopped in the middle of the road, hoping not to be seen.

This means it took me about 3 hours to eat approximately 5.5 standard-sized Ritz crackers. Not only that, the overpriced raspberries were covered in mold and the bananas, upon reaching my desk, inhaled deeply and ripened suddenly to a depressing brown and spotty state. My lovely coworkers managed not to comment on my seemingly bizarre eating habits, and most likely created a pool to see how many I got down before I bolted out the door at six o’clock and stood outside, eating whole crackers and crunching like a maniac.

I have learned my lesson. In the afternoons since then, Jess and I have taken refuge under the downy wing of the French Lunch, and I hereby promise to reserve the French Franprix Run for the apocalypse. And maybe cheap wine.