FOOD

in french to say that one had "a good night" is to say that one ate well, drank well, and had good conversation. while my french has improved enormously since arriving to paris, and i have paid 6 euro for a drink on several occasions, i feel that the aspect i can comment on the most at this point is the food.  the food is so wonderful you can't even call it food. really, you can't. the word food directly translated is "nourriture," but in practice it means dog/cat/rabbit food.  "alimentation" isn't much better and is more or less the section of the grocery store where one can find food.  the best word is "cuisine," which for an american sounds ridiculous.  to call a standard dinner "cuisine," particularly when you're used to smith meals, is preposterous.   but food and eating are taken so seriously here that the word fits.

the first week i made a particular effort to write down everything we ate for dinner, things like lamb, salmon, paté, sole, curry, a variety of salads, fruit and cheese for dessert and ALWAYS bread. bread is not just something we eat here, but rather a tool used for eating without which we wouldn't even know where to begin.

as amazing as french food is, some of us found it absolutely necessary to find some mexican food. which we did, and it was fine...