Oh, France

Oh France how I miss you so. It has been almost four years since I’ve been to France and I miss it dearly, more each day; from the freshly made baguettes to the delicious homemade meals on a Sunday afternoon. Even though I wasn’t there for that long, I tried to make the best of it, but as a 16 year old, I didn’t. Instead of sight-seeing and learning about a new culture I decided to drink and eat the entire time. Don’t get me wrong, drinking and eating are fantastic but there was more I could have done.

The host family I stayed with tried to accommodate me as much as possible; they were fantastic. The nicest people I have ever met by far. They showed me around the city quite a bit and took me to a few places- lot of car stores mostly-but I loved it. After walking around for a while they took me to this little restaurant in the center of town, can’t remember the name for the life of me (something French).

As we walked in I realized that it was a four leveled building. The place was amazing. It had a very casual atmosphere but with so many people eating and all the wait staff running around it was somewhat hectic, but still nice. After waiting for a while we were finally seated; we were either on the second or third floor, I believe third.

I was looking pretty carefully at the menu trying to decipher French to English but I was having no luck. I should have just pointed to a random item on the menu, but instead I was a boring American and got steak and frites. I don’t know why I didn’t get something I’ve never had before; I mean food was the main reason I decided to go to France. See what I mean about not making the best of what I could have. But that is life, you live with the choices you make, even the meaningless ones like the one I’m describing but onward and upward.

On Sunday- a couple days before I was about to go home- my host family made me this huge lunch. I thought it was very nice of them. They said they did this every Sunday but I doubt with so much food. I don’t remember the meal very much for we were all drinking wine and eating cheese all morning, but it mostly consisted of a few meats, some nice fresh vegetables, and sauerkraut. I wish I could describe more of what went down but as I said, I’ve been drinking and it’s been almost four years. Their grandmother also came over afterwards for a drink, very nice lady, and extremely funny. I wish I could have got to have spent more time with them but everything must come to an end.

Hopefully I will get to see them again someday.