Can I be French now?! Living local.
After living like a local in France for sixteen days, I’m obsessed.
The first night we got here, I was already in love. I knew I was going to be absolutely head over heels for this place. The sound of the language hypnotized me immediately.
We met Alexis, our host, who was nothing short of awesome! He warmly welcomed us into his home and immediately showed us the local life. He took us to the local bakery where we bought an assortment of croissants, baguettes and other French breads. We walked back to his house where an assortment of cheese and jams awaited us. I could get used to this. Out of the many things I tried, camembert, boursin (camden's favorite), french bread, rose jam, and chèvre, changed my life forever. Oh and of course coffee.
After breakfast, we met one of Alexis friends Phillipe. We spent some time at Alexis house getting to know each other before heading out to a flea market in the next town over. We had an awesome time! They showed us all the ins and outs of the place, as well as, some eclectic stores with nic-naks and antiques (right up my alley!).
We began to settle into a routine as the week began. Every morning we would wake up with Alexis so he could drop us off at the metro station (for our Paris explorations) while he went to work. Waking up is never fun, but those car rides in the morning were the best! We shared music, stories and got to know each other even better. A few mornings we went to his work before heading off into Paris, so we could see what he did, meet his father and use the internet.
Just me and my new friend I made at Alexis's job...
Our nights were just as special as the mornings. We told each other about our day, and then moved onto sharing past experiences, travels, dreams, and so on… Alexis taught us about French cuisine and introduced us to some AMAZING FOOD! I could go on and on about each night meals and how amazing they were, but I’ll spare you the hunger and just share the ones I think are most “French”. One night we had Ale Got (a thick cheesey entree) that is served with sausages and bread. OH MY GOD. amazing. I was so full I thought I was going to never be hungry again!
We were also introduced to Foie Gras, which is illegal in America. It was very good!! If you don’t know what Foie Gars is, look it up. But for a warning to anyone who cares about animals…maybe you shouldn’t look it up… sometimes ignorance is bliss. That is how I came to enjoy this specialty at first, by not knowing what it was!
This is not the picture of actual Foie Gras that Alexis made for us, this is a cheese that is flavored like it and I was OBSESSED..
Our original plan was to spend five days with Alexis and then make our way to Italy. However, upon meeting we clicked immediately and we decided that we were staying longer… or indefinitely. Alexis had to go out of town for the weekend and offered us a stay with his grandmother, Claude, until he returned. Then we would go back to Alexis house when he came back. We were in shock. This was such an incredible offer!! It was so unexpected and so genuine we accepted immediately!! We now had our new French grandmother and our journey could only get better from here.
We spent four days with Claude and those may have been the best four days ever. Although Claude didn’t speak English and we don’t speak French, we had the BEST time! We communicated as best we could, and surprisingly it was a lot! Her house was always bustling of friends and neighbors, so there was never a down moment! We met many amazing people while staying there! Each morning we would wake up to a fresh breakfast and coffee (yes, i said coffee….we are becoming adults hahah). We then would head to Paris and return for dinner. Which we would be crazy to miss. Claude is a KILLER cook. This lady can cook a rock and I promise you’ll be asking for more. Anyways, we were shown a whole new level of French cuisine here. First of all, French dinner starts around 7-8 and ends around 11-midnight. There are always four drinks during dinner. First, the apperative, which is basically a shot of good quality alcohol. This is typically drank alongside the appitizer. Second is French wine; which is always accompanied with the dinner. Finishing dinner, you drink a digestive, which is a vegetable based alcohol which supposedly aids in digestion of all the food you just inhaled. And of course, there is a constant flow of water, being the fourth and final drink in the line up. As the drinks and dining ediquitte intrigued me; the dishes that were cooked made me a new person. I tired things these past two weeks that I would have never dared tried being at home.
What surprised me was all the fish I ate. I had fish on many separate occasions, all being delicious. There was one occasion where I had to peel off the heads and tails of shrimp to eat dinner. My first thought was, “I am going to starve tonight”… but on contrary, I peeled and ate TEN! For me, that is impressive. 
I also tried a variety of pates. I am not sure what they are all made from but I do know that I didn’t want to ask and spoil it for myself.
One day, while Alexis was away, his friend Yahn decided to take us under his wing and show us the ropes. We went to a market in the small town of Mery. This artisanal market is only open twice a year and is in a castle! What?! There was wine, chocolate, meats, cheeses, bread and more. Basically anything you could ever want to eat in one castle. I of course, tried all the wine. Which was amazing!! I found out that many of these bottles that were 7-10$ at the market ran between 150-500$ at home!! INSANITY! I was pretty excited to try them, especially because I was not going to be buying them at home any time soon…. The wines were all fantastic, as expected.
We went on to try a LOT of cheese, meats and other delicacies. Once we were all sauced up on wine and ready to eat, we went back to Yahn’s house and had a lovely lunch with his friends and family!
We were so excited and incredibly thankful to be adopted into yet another French family! They were all so welcoming. We were curious about their life as they were curious about our journey and how we ended up on this crazy notion of traveling the world. It was fun to eat and drink the day away!
It was time to say goodbye and head back to Claude’s house. Alexis was coming home soon and we would shortly be getting back into our “old routine”. We were very sad to leave Claude but we also knew it would not be the last we saw of her!
We may sound absolutely insane. which is most of the time… but for our last few days at Alexis, we chose to stay at home and watch movies all day long. It was FANTASTIC. it has been ages since we just hung out and did absolutely nothing!! Besides walking to the baker to get a baguette, walking to the grocery store to pick up the basics and doing some laundry, we were straight up chillen. Needless to say it was much needed and we enjoyed every second of it!
We were set to leave early Monday morning to begin our Italian adventure and we had big plans for the weekend!
On Friday, our new friend Philippe invited us all over for an amazing dinner! We drank champagne, sang, exchanged stories and looked at pictures from all of our travels. We didn’t want to say goodbye, but we knew this was only the beginning of a weekend of hard goodbyes….
The following day had a slow start. We slept in, Alexis had work and some appointments to take care of while we cleaned up and sorted our bags and souvenirs we had accumulated so far. After working extremely “hard”, all three of us took naps until it was time to wake up and take care of business again. We were going shopping with Alexis to give him some fashion advice. It was a lot of fun! Alexis got some items and the rest of the time we joked around and laughed incredibly hard at things that won’t be funny if i try and explain it here (many of those “you had to be there” moments). Here’s a picture, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a giggle and a bit of insight to how this shopping trip went.
After the shopping spree, we went back to Alexis house to watch Taxi. From the moment we met each other, we were determined to watch Taxi (with english subtitles, which was harder than one would imagine). Alexis finally found a DVD Saturday at the mall and the date was on! We had some dinner at an amazing Lebanese place and started the movie the minute we got home. No joke, such a good movie. If you like Fast and the Furious or Bullet, then you’ll love this movie. It was great! Even better that we were able to make it happen and watch Taxi with Alexis!
Sunday was upon us and it was an unspoken sad day. It was our last full day in France and we would be saying goodbye to our little family that night. AHHH. its hard to even write about this…
Anyways, it was another lazy day at the house filled with cleaning and preparing for the journey ahead. Later that evening we all went to Claude’s house to have a goodbye dinner and stay the night (so we could easily catch our train at 7am).
All of the friends we had met along the way were at Claude’s house, so we were able to say goodbye properly to everyone! The dinner was TO DIE FOR. and guess what…it was fish! Claude was pulling out all the stops, with top of the line everything! We were even able to try some high quality cheeses she had pulled out for our goodbye. We felt incredibly special.
I did not want to go to bed. I couldn’t face the fact that we would be leaving in the morning. Each time I thought about it, I would tear up and get all embarrassed that I was getting upset. I couldn’t figure out why I was so soooo sad. Then it hit me. This was like saying goodbye to my family, friends and comforts all over again. We had become so integrated in the daily life and routine of our life in France, that the thought of leaving scared me a little. Funny to say I know, but I didn’t want to feel that sadness again! But we had to.this was part of our journey and it would ultimately make me stronger. Feeling that sadness was bittersweet. It meant we had met some incredible people who had genuinely changed our lives by being in them. I’m not sure how France would have panned out if it wasn’t for Alexis and Claude.
But the moment was here. we HAD to say goodbye. We gave big hugs, many kisses and headed off to bed. We had big plans for reuniting and I am insanely confident that it will happen soon than later.
We left around 5:30 in the morning, letting ourselves out and saying a final goodbye to “home”. We solemnly walked away to the metro where we could catch our train and begin a thirteen hour train ride…. fun stuff.
I have tried my best to share the experience I had living as a local in France, but it doesn’t really do it any justice. This experience really was beyond words. Camden and I have made lifelong friends and could not be any more thankful. I wish I could expand more on just how amazing it is, but describing this experience has been hard enough for me haha. so I’ll end with some French I learned while “living local”.
j'aime le fromage de chèvre, À tout à l’heure…
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