Market and Beach
Trip Start
Jun 23, 2008
1
16
25
Trip End
Ongoing
St Brieuc,
France
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Just meditate on that for awhile. You're in a kitchen. You're making a sandwich. You're making it with tomato sauce. Are you picturing this? if so, could you please explain what you are doing? Because I can't figure it out. How do you make a sandwich with tomato sauce and not have tomato sauce on it? was the bread made with tomato sauce? or the cheese? The mind boggles. Were they out of sauce? did she just make this up? I can't imagine what was going on.
After the restaurant we went to the beach in Les Rousaires. This beach was different than the last one. It had sand and water! Sophie and I went for a swim and it was pretty nice. The one thing all my friends ask me about when I mention french beaches is the toplessness. Every North American has this romantic image of going to the beach and seeing beautiful French women walking topless everywhere. And, yes, women got topless at the beach but never the ones you would want to see topless. If you are sitting on the beach and you see some giant fat 72 year old woman waddling right towards the empty area next to you you can be assured that they will be taking off their top. So anyone who might imagine me sitting on a beach surrounded by gorgeous bare breasted girls who need sun tan lotion applied to their back... don't get jealous too quickly.
That night we went to eat at Sophie's Uncle's. we had a really cool salad with blue cheese, pears, and pine nuts. And the main course was a big fucking roast tomato which I obligingly choked down. You see I will eat almost anything. I would eat bear or moose, I would eat snake if you cooked it first and, cry me a river, I would eat horse. Prepared the right way and after a few beer I like to think I would eat bugs. I would like to eat eyeballs some day and am looking forward to an opportunity to eat tongue. But I hate tomatoes. I don't hate tomato sauce or, like, rice with tomatoes but I don't want a baked tomato. Please don't slice up a tomato and give me some. It is slimy and gross and tastes like metal and I hate it. It is the one thing I don't want to eat. And there it was staring me in the face. And I ate it and it was gross.
Moving on: One of the worst things about not speaking a language is what happens when you are forced to sit at a table full of people who do. The second that the food is gone I am suddenly overwhelmed with boredom. It is horrible. Everyone might as well be saying "wha wha wha wha" the whole night. Sophie does her best to translate and I really appreciate it but all too often she will turn to me in the moment when someone has stopped to catch their breath and say something like: "okay, so, our cousin had a car accident and..." but then she stops. Her uncle has started talking again and Sophie is listening. Next thing everyone is laughing at some joke and then Sophie is talking about something and I am utterly forgotten. I stare at her for a few minutes before submitting to the fact that I will never find out what happened to her cousin. Other times I will be day dreaming about something when I will remember something that I want to tell Sophie. I will wait until a break in the conversation where I think I could probably start talking to her. This can sometimes take awhile because I never know if they are talking about something she cares about or not. When I finally do get her attention and start talking I will almost certainly be cut off by someone asking Sophie a question. It's almost as though they don't even realize that those were words coming out of my mouth. It's very frustrating.
We stayed way too late and I felt sick when we got home. Which made me wonder "can you actually die from boredom?"
