Pretentious Pasta

Thank you, Melissa Aney, for your fancy alliterations that will hopefully bring the masses to read my blog.

"What do you miss the most about France?" is a question I have received multiple times, and I believe I have now spent enough time in America to answer this question in a bullet-pointed list.

1. People.
• One in particular, but there is a handful of people that I miss like crazy.
2. Culture.
• A general enough topic to include everything from fashion, to eating habits, to public transportation, though I miss a little of it all. It's not so much the food itself that I miss (though I did just ask Kelsy to bring me back a bag of pasta noodles because I prefer the shapes that they sell in France), but the way people eat. Eating is taken seriously, and mealtime is a sacred part of the day. It sounds stupid, but it just doesn't exist like that here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• On several occassions in France I saw two straight men arguing about the order of a menu-- what wine should accompany which course-- and receive no questioning about their sexuality, in the meantime wearing nice shoes and looking you in the eye when they say "cheers".
3. Knowing that even on a boring, lame ol' day, there is something innately fascinating about my life.
4. People watching.
5. Two euro (or less) bottles of wine.
6. Picnics on the river.
7. Espresso.
8. Despite meager wages, my independence.