Going to the market, which is second nature as an adult has prooved to be a daunting task when you are not so wonderful with the language, so kids rule number one when moving to a new country ( learn the language). Don't get me wrong i love going to the grocery, and finding new treasures like pre made waffels dipped in chocolate. or what about the kiinder bueno icecream. So much good stuff, and its great and dandy wandering the grocery until I was looking for cream cheese, there is noooo cream cheese. I think i stood in the vast cheese department for a good 30 min until i finally decided to call my boyfriend for assistance, half of the cheese are things i've never heard of before, let alone tasted. Being in the cheese isle in france is like being in the pototo chips isle in America the possiblities are endless. After he had instructed me in what could be close to cream cheese which is called Kiri cheese i moved on to the butcher.
One of the things i truley appreciate in france are their specialtiy shops, for cheese ( that i hate to go in alone), fruites, vegetables, seafood, meat, all of it fresh. I do feel much healthier with my groceries here, knowing they weren't sitting in a groceries warehouse for a while kept alive by all the unatural ingredience inside them..
Anyways back to the meat. I decided to cook beef and broccoli, all i needed was maybe half a pound of beef or less, its just me and my boyfriend that I cook for. Well as i got closer to the front of the line at the butcher shop i realized i had no idea how to convey what i wanted. Oh no Panic, how do you say " half a pound of beef"? How do you say "that is too much"? how do you say i'm coming home with a lot of meat because my stupid ass doesn't know how to say any of this. Well thats just what happened as nice as the butcher was he didn't have the half hour i needed to do my carades game with him to explain i only needed a little bit of meat.. So needless to day we had beef on the menu the whole week. Not to worrie i've finally learned how to say half " demi" or just say how much meat i need for how many people. " duo person" ( 2 people). Hey talk about living and learning. Just another lesson with living in France.
Until the next life lesson, Bissous from Paris.
M.M.
