Well, yesterday I posted about the things I don't necessarily love about France. However, back to making people jealous, here are the things I love about France, in no particular order!
1) Pastries: No one in the WORLD can do pastries like France can. If you want a pain au chocolat or a croissant, or anything else in the flaky deliciousness department, COME TO FRANCE. The buttery layers cannot be properly replicated anywhere else on this planet. Why is that, by the way?! Why can't we figure it out?
2) Food Presentation: The French care a lot more than we do about food in general, but their presentation takes the cake. They just really care about the whole culinary experience, starting with visual appeal.
3) Appreciation of Beauty: This is linked to number 2. The French, in general, have more of an appreciation for beauty than we do. Much more of their decisions (what to eat, what to do with their free time, where to live, where to spend their vacations) are based on what is aesthetically pleasing, whereas in the States, much more of our decisions are based on convenience.
4) Pace/Appreciation of Free Time: Remember when I said I didn't like the pace here? Well, it's true. When it comes to getting anything done, I hate how slowly things go in France. However, I do enjoy that French pacing makes you slow down. It's nice to have an hour off for lunch instead of 25 minutes. It's nice to have two weeks of vacation every six or seven weeks. It's nice when the same timing expectations everyone else has apply to you too. I've mentioned this before, but a full-time teacher here gives class for 18 hours/week. HELLO. Compared to our 40+ hours/week at school... how amazing does that sound? It's nice to have free time. I practically forgot what it was over the past five years!
5) Good quality (yet inexpensive!) wine.
6) Attention to Food Ingredients: Honestly, French people are more into food than pretty much anyone. French people in general have an understanding of which ingredients complement each other, which specific (food/wine/spice/cheese/vegetables) come from which regions, etc. We are not that into that.
7) Fresh Food Emphasis: We just don't put as much emphasis on fresh food/markets, which is really too bad. French people love their markets. It really makes me want to be more supportive of my local farmer's markets when I get home!
8) Proximity to Interesting Things: For an American, the fact that you can just bebop on down to Spain for an afternoon or grab a €30 flight to Morocco or a €12 flight to Sweden continues to blow my mind. Despite the fact that France is the largest Western European country, it's still tiny compared to the US, and you can easily get around both domestically and internationally. Even within the country, you can easily get from the mountains to the ocean, etc. There's always something beautiful to go see, even if you don't have a long time. From Narbonne, the Mediterranean is 15 minutes away, the Pyrenees are an hour away, as is Spain. In the States, we have a lot of beautiful landscape, but it's just sooo spread out!
9) Public Transportation: Buses, trains, shuttles, cheap flights... public transportation is approximately 150,135,531 times better in France than in the States. It's better for the environment and it encourages travel. Win-win. I understand that the States are HUGE and our cities are so spread out and just laid out entirely different, but I wish we could get something cracking on this front, even if it's in our own way.
10) French people carrying around baguettes: Because it never gets old.
11) Dogs eating in cafés: Because who doesn't think that's funny/adorable.
12) History: It never ceases to be cool that I daily look out the window at a 1200-year-old cathedral, walk by a 2000-year-old Roman road, and live in a city that's been inhabited for more than 2000 years. It's humbling and incredible, and a lot of Europeans take it for granted, but Americans are generally continually impressed by history in Europe.
13) The word profiter, and how much I've used it this year: The French word profiter, which has no perfect English translation, is my favorite French word, and people use it all.the.time. I now use it even when speaking English. It means "to make the best of," "to take advantage of," "to profit from," and it encompasses so much of my French experience here. Il faut profiter!
1) Pastries: No one in the WORLD can do pastries like France can. If you want a pain au chocolat or a croissant, or anything else in the flaky deliciousness department, COME TO FRANCE. The buttery layers cannot be properly replicated anywhere else on this planet. Why is that, by the way?! Why can't we figure it out?
2) Food Presentation: The French care a lot more than we do about food in general, but their presentation takes the cake. They just really care about the whole culinary experience, starting with visual appeal.
3) Appreciation of Beauty: This is linked to number 2. The French, in general, have more of an appreciation for beauty than we do. Much more of their decisions (what to eat, what to do with their free time, where to live, where to spend their vacations) are based on what is aesthetically pleasing, whereas in the States, much more of our decisions are based on convenience.
4) Pace/Appreciation of Free Time: Remember when I said I didn't like the pace here? Well, it's true. When it comes to getting anything done, I hate how slowly things go in France. However, I do enjoy that French pacing makes you slow down. It's nice to have an hour off for lunch instead of 25 minutes. It's nice to have two weeks of vacation every six or seven weeks. It's nice when the same timing expectations everyone else has apply to you too. I've mentioned this before, but a full-time teacher here gives class for 18 hours/week. HELLO. Compared to our 40+ hours/week at school... how amazing does that sound? It's nice to have free time. I practically forgot what it was over the past five years!
5) Good quality (yet inexpensive!) wine.
6) Attention to Food Ingredients: Honestly, French people are more into food than pretty much anyone. French people in general have an understanding of which ingredients complement each other, which specific (food/wine/spice/cheese/vegetables) come from which regions, etc. We are not that into that.
7) Fresh Food Emphasis: We just don't put as much emphasis on fresh food/markets, which is really too bad. French people love their markets. It really makes me want to be more supportive of my local farmer's markets when I get home!
8) Proximity to Interesting Things: For an American, the fact that you can just bebop on down to Spain for an afternoon or grab a €30 flight to Morocco or a €12 flight to Sweden continues to blow my mind. Despite the fact that France is the largest Western European country, it's still tiny compared to the US, and you can easily get around both domestically and internationally. Even within the country, you can easily get from the mountains to the ocean, etc. There's always something beautiful to go see, even if you don't have a long time. From Narbonne, the Mediterranean is 15 minutes away, the Pyrenees are an hour away, as is Spain. In the States, we have a lot of beautiful landscape, but it's just sooo spread out!
9) Public Transportation: Buses, trains, shuttles, cheap flights... public transportation is approximately 150,135,531 times better in France than in the States. It's better for the environment and it encourages travel. Win-win. I understand that the States are HUGE and our cities are so spread out and just laid out entirely different, but I wish we could get something cracking on this front, even if it's in our own way.
10) French people carrying around baguettes: Because it never gets old.
11) Dogs eating in cafés: Because who doesn't think that's funny/adorable.
12) History: It never ceases to be cool that I daily look out the window at a 1200-year-old cathedral, walk by a 2000-year-old Roman road, and live in a city that's been inhabited for more than 2000 years. It's humbling and incredible, and a lot of Europeans take it for granted, but Americans are generally continually impressed by history in Europe.
13) The word profiter, and how much I've used it this year: The French word profiter, which has no perfect English translation, is my favorite French word, and people use it all.the.time. I now use it even when speaking English. It means "to make the best of," "to take advantage of," "to profit from," and it encompasses so much of my French experience here. Il faut profiter!
Hi Katie! I will be a teaching assistant in the Bordeaux region next year and I have loved hearing of your adventures!! I was especially excited to hear about those cheap flights to Morocco and other places and was wondering which airline you used? I would love to travel to North Africa while I am there!
ReplyDelete