Gallic Expectations

My expectations of France were not at all disappointed. At least in terms of reuniting with Andy. I finally arrived in Charles de Gaulle airport after about 34 hours of travel. I was in a very focused daze while I waited in the line at passport control, which seemed to be continuously growing and barely progressing. I mustered a smile and "bonjour" that hopefully sounded more energetic than I felt when I finally reached the sullen man brandishing the stamp. Despite the line, inking my passport was expedient enough. And my backpack was one of the first things to arrive on the conveyor belt of luggage. I felt fortunate, since every additional minute of waiting was extremely irritating. I slung my massive pack onto my back, hopped once to help it fall into place, and made tracks for the arrivals gate.

I scanned left for Andy and didn't see him amongst the line of waiting people. So I turned right, searching. I heard my name and turned to see him trotting towards me from the left. I hadn't spotted him. Or maybe I just hadn't recognised him. Actually seeing him was quite startling. So was hearing his real voice, unaltered by phone and Internet signals travelling over great distances. I was taken aback at how weirdly like a stranger he seemed. That uncomfortable feeling lingered through our first hug. But it slowly dissipated after we moved off to one side and stood hugging for what was probably a solid 10 minutes. And it was replaced with an inundation of pure giddiness.

That lasted for the first few days. When I finally started to re-devote some sensory perception to my surroundings, I noticed that France was full of things I didn't expect. Like food that exceeded my idea of delicious by such a wide margin. Buttery, flaky croissants. Moist, soft, eggy baguette de campagne with crispy crust. Hot chocolate with thin sheets of actual chocolate melted into it. Warm, chewy, butter and sugar crêpes. Some sort of dessert that far surpassed the sum of its pecans, massive amounts of chocolate and sprigs of decorative aloe. Breakfast cereal that consisted of crunchy hazelnut pillows filled with smooth chocolate and hazelnut. Pitchers of house wine that were fantastic without exception. Even the oysters started to grow on me. I visibly gained weight within a week.

Given the overall deliciousness of the food, my first surprise was at just how bad some of it looked or tasted. On our second night in Paris, we were blissfully eating curried mussels at a restaurant in Montmartre. The pair of women at the table next to ours were appraising our food as they waited for their own to arrive. We returned the interested glances when the waiter finally delivered their dishes. Hopefully our appreciative looks remained in place, masking the philistine shock we felt when we saw what they'd ordered. A plate of raw hamburger, a raw egg, a chopped onion and various spices. They mixed everything together into a pile of pure uncookedness, ate every last bit, and gave their compliments to the chef. For what? we wondered. He didn't actually do anything.

I wish that another of our food mishaps had been merely observed rather than experienced. While Andy's French vocabulary has expanded immensely over the months he'd been there, he still is not able to translate every single word. I came across something called moelle d'os on a menu and asked him what it was.
"I don't know," he said. "Let's try it." That plan had worked well for us during the rest of the trip, so I agreed.

"What is it?" I asked when the waiter who brought the dish was safely out of hearing range.
"It's bone marrow," Andy said quietly and disbelievingly. We both picked up one of the tiny spoons and scooped some of the gelatinous substance from the centre of the large bones. We gingerly tasted it. We set the spoons back down and desperately reached for slices of the toast meant to be a vehicle for the marrow.
"That's AWFUL!" Andy choked, pushing the plate towards the edge of the table.

One waiter passed, glanced down at our plate and walked by without picking it up.
"He didn't take it," Andy said with dismay.
"Of course not. We have plenty of delicious bone marrow left," I explained. A second waiter rescued us from our culinary plight, but not our embarrassment.
"Is something wrong with it?" he asked, stopped in his tracks by the sight of perfectly good bone marrow not being adequately appreciated.
"No," Andy said, "We just thought we should try it."
"Yes, it's something you need to try," the waiter agreed, and took the offensive plate away.

Beyond the good and the bad of food, other aspects of the country did not fit into my perception of France as a stylish, romantic place of culture and refinement. The toilets were the most obvious departure. Most establishments offered a tiny, freezing, semi-clean single stall. Many didn't have seats, and I quickly learnt that toilet paper was a luxury. One had a particularly memorable DIY element to it. Instead of being affixed to the wall as it should have been, the soap dispenser was sitting on the counter next to the sink. You had to hold it suspended with one hand whilst pushing the soap-releasing lever with the other.

Sometimes we were lucky if there was a toilet at all. There were two armoured port-a-potty-like public bathrooms near a beach we were visiting in Sète one afternoon, but neither was working. One gave the impression of functionality by flushing its toilet every few minutes. But the red "occupé" button remained frustratingly illuminated. No-one came out or responded to knocks and inquiring shouts from the few desperate bystanders. It was a bit of an urgent situation, so we curtailed our beach walk and drove until we found a different, paid public toilet.

"My treat," Andy offered. But the coin slot built into the side of the structure only accepted 10 and 20 cent pieces. He wound up having to barter with a passerby to obtain enough correct change. Despite the printed claim that it was automatically washed and sanitised after each use, the facility's condition made me resentful that we'd had to pay to enter. But compared to a rest stop we used on the way back from Marseilles, that toilet was amazing. The women's stalls there consisted of two texturised porcelain foot grips, a handle and a hole. At least going to the bathroom was never boring.

Large packs of stray dogs, larvae in the holy water at a church we visited, a lack of some things we take for granted here (drop boxes at movie rental stores, for example), and completely erratic shop hours were some other things that surprised me about France. But even if some of these differences struck me as slightly unpleasant, they couldn't detract from the overall brilliance of the place. The food, as I said, was beyond delicious, people were warm and welcoming and the scenery was generally gorgeous and frequently breathtaking. And I was able to share all of it with Andy.

There were some surprises there, too. Andy and I had never been together continuously for such an extended period before. We did spend most of our free time together in the States, but we'd never had such an excess of free time. I think I would have begun to harbour some quite unpleasant thoughts about anyone else after so much quality time together. It was definitely an adjustment, but I learned a lot about Andy that I hadn't known before. That was really cool. And affirming.

I'm glad my time in France didn't match my expectations exactly. I enjoy staying somewhere long enough to discover some not-so-good elements along with the enviable aspects. At that point, I really feel like I've gained a sense of what life in a place is like. It fascinates me and often makes me appreciate certain things in the US that I'd always taken for granted. And some aspects of my visit were better than I could ever have anticipated. I'm happy for that, too. I feel some sort of need to like every place that I go, and it's wonderful when that comes easily. Not all of my expectations were met. But I wasn't disappointed. The reality was better.