First published July 11th, 2013
So, I talked about posting every day and it’s been approximately… one month since my last entry. Oops. It’s very different living in a city versus just passing through or even studying abroad. There’s less romance and more bureaucracy, and there can even be a little monotony… not that this it’s necessarily negative. I’ve learned to really enjoy my 10-minute walk to the RER station, the loud bleep as I pass my Pass Navigo to get on the platform, and the quality reading time I get as I ride into the city.
It’s difficult for someone who’s taking a six-month vacation in Paris to have room to complain about much of anything without sounding vapid and entitled. Luckily, that’s what immigrant friends are for. I finally found a group of girls, especially one in particular, who are going through the exact same thing as me. The girl I referred to is a cheeky New Zealander with a French boyfriend in the corporate world. Halfway through our conversation, she randomly mentioned that she once had to spend two months in Heber Springs, Arkansas. She said the only highlight was that cigarettes are so cheap and that trashy tv is bountiful in the States. (It’s things like this that make me so happy to say I’m an American.) I told her I just left Fayetteville and she said she’d never even heard of it while she was there. What a shame!
I do catch myself falling far too often into the trap of eternally comparing my home country to the current one you’re living in. I catch myself saying “Well, in AMERICA, we insert trite comments such as ‘we have this little idea called customer service!’]. Yes, true, but.. I’m America we don’t have:
- crepes de galette
- frangipane
- WINE
- Gerard Depardieu pissing on our airplanes
I’m learning to finally find my groove here. It’s definitely a bit of a challenge trying to eat gluten-free, lactose-free, and vegan in the land of red meat, red wine, and blue cheese. Not to mention trying to find things like kale and chia seeds. There’s even a website dedicated to it! (http://thekaleproject.com/mission/) I finally found a magasin bio relatively near my place where I was able to find things like chickpea flour. I set out to make the following recipe from a blog that is just about my favorite for GF/vegan recipes: http://www.healthfulpursuit.com/2013/04/grain-free-pancakes/
Sometimes cooking is my favorite thing about being in France. Coming home with completely wrong ingredients (as was the case with what I *thought* was vanilla extract), trying to find said ingredients in the crazy French-style supermarket layout, and lastly trying to figure out the metric system with a hot pan in hand.
The shape was a bit off cause I wasn’t used to the consistency…
But after a few tries, it came out a bit better and DELICIOUS!
More posts coming more often. Promise. Bisous!
Stephanie Lenogue 