Rasmenia

There are so many things that France does right.  The wine, the food & the healthcare.  The 35-hour work week & the apéritif.

Some things about living in France have just been too easy to get used to.  The fact that in France, bad grammar is a worse offense than profanity just makes me feel at home.  I can no longer sit down to a meal without a glass of red wine, or go without an espresso after lunch – especially when lunch can often be around 2 hours long.

So many things about life in France are – yeah, I’ll say it – better than that in the United States.  But, you already knew that, right?  It’s hardly a secret.  People here have longer life lines for a reason.

That’s not to say that I don’t ever have a few complaints.  Believe me… I do.  (You knew that was coming, right?)

Sometimes, it’s just a matter of homesickness, or missing something from home that I can’t get in France… like an Arby’s Beef ‘n’ Cheddar.  Yes, it sucks that France has no Arby’s, but I’ve learned to live with it.  I have bigger problems with France than their painful lack of delicious roast beef.

I know. It's hard to believe.

I’ve already mentioned my problem with my now nonexistent personal space, so I won’t bitch about it again.  (For now.)  While the concept of customer service is really just a fading memory for me, I’m learning to live with the fact that in France, the customer is not always right & that the person I’m dealing with across the counter doesn’t give a shit about my happiness.

I do, however, have a problem with breakfast that I can’t seem to get over.  I’m sure you’re already aware that a French breakfast is really nothing more than some bread with some type of condiment & a beverage.  Maybe a croissant, some toast, or a stale chunk of baguette left over from yesterday’s 2-hour lunch.  Slap a cold slab of butter on it, grab a cup of coffee & voilà!  Breakfast.

My problem is, I prefer a bit more cholesterol to start my day, as opposed to a wad of dough & a cup of coffee.  I mean, come on… these are things that I like to have WITH my breakfast, not FOR my breakfast.

"Um... so this is just some breakfast snack to have while I wait for my bacon, right?"

But… I’ve learned to live with it.  I can make a real breakfast at home & whenever we visit other countries that start their day with more than a piece of bread, I indulge in a breakfast binge.

Yes. This is how I roll.

While some people judge a country based on its politics, its history or its scenery, I judge a country based on its cuisine – more specifically, its breakfast food.  In fact, whenever Olivier & I plan a trip outside of France, I get excited about breakfast.  If it’s a place I’ve been to before, then I get myself all worked up about what I’m going to eat to start each day, preparing myself for gluttony.

If we’re headed to a country that is new to me, then I’m asking questions about what the locals eat for their morning meal.  Recently, while chatting with a friend of mine who lives in Iceland, I learned all about the different kinds of fish Icelanders eat & all of the different ways that they eat it.  Of course, my response was, “Yeah, but… what do they eat for breakfast?”

Sometimes, Olivier will entertain me with stories of countries I have not yet been to.  The problem is, when I try to listen, I seem to have a case of tunnel vision.

“Just wait until we go to South Africa,” he said.  “We’ll go see all of the wildlife: the elephants, the lions and the –”

“Yeah, yeah… that all sounds very interesting.  What do they eat for breakfast?”

“Actually, they eat an actual meal, sort of like in the States.”

“Is there meat?”

“Um… yeah, there’s meat.”

“Okay,” I said.  “We must go there.  When can we go?  Do you have any vacation time coming up?”

Yeah… it’s pretty much an obsession.  I admit that I may have a problem.

During our honeymoon in Ireland, in between pints of Guinness & sight-seeing, I was busy getting myself worked up about the enormous plates of eggs, potatoes, bacon & soda bread.  Yeah, yeah… there were some big cliffs, relics… some sheep, yadda, yadda, yadda.  More importantly, there was this:

Note how the toast & jam is WITH the breakfast & not FOR breakfast.

In spite of the fact I’ve already stated that I believe Copenhagen to be the best place on Earth – which it is, goddamnit – I did find their breakfast to be lacking.  However, they made up for it with one thing: the kanel giffel, which is Danish for a cinnamon croissant. Yep, it’s basically a cinnamon roll.  Cinnamon seems to be a somewhat under-used spice for pastries in France.  I’ve never seen any type of cinnamon pastry here.  If you know where I can find a cinnamony pastry in France, give me a heads up, would you?

Because a cinnamon roll & some coffee… I might be able to start the day with that without pissing & moaning.

Because it's just that fucking awesome, am I right?

I won’t even mention breakfast in England, because the whole world knows that a good English breakfast kicks ass.  Aside from that, the next best thing would have to be the Frühstück in Germany.

It’s like they thought of everything: meat, cheese, cereal, egg, bread, fruit & veggies… coffee & juice.  Whenever we indulged in a typical German breakfast, I felt as though Olivier & I were each diving into our own little breakfast buffet.

There are a few other places that have served up a decent breakfast & I’m definitely nowhere near the end of my quest for the perfect morning meal.  Some places are better than others & really, as long as I can have something other than a piece of bread, I’m probably not going to complain too much.

Probably.  I mean, as long as I’m not hungover because if you have a hangover in France, you can forget finding in healing in a greasy McDonald’s Egg McMuffin.  I tried that once after a night of celebrating with a bit too much champagne.  It was the second time in 5 years that I had stepped foot into a McDonald’s in France.  On the breakfast menu, there wasn’t much more than… yes, a croissant & shitty fast food coffee.

And yes, those French croissants are delicious & the best you will find anywhere – as long as they don’t come from a crappy fast food joint -  but most mornings, I’d prefer to sit in some unknown greasy spoon with Formica table tops & surly waitresses, listening to the locals chatter over the sound of bacon frying.

When it comes to breakfast, I’m afraid that there’s just no place like home.

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
- T.S. Eliot

*

The year of 2010 just didn’t go according to plan.

Then again, looking back, I can’t recall a single year of my life yet that has.  That’d just be spooky & weird if nothing unexpected happened.  Not to mention boring, eh?

For the two residents of the Rasmenian Nation, the year of 2010 began with chaos, anger & the frustration of international & cross country travel in the dead of winter.  Indeed, our last days of 2009 & first few days of 2010 were spent engaged in family squabbles, re-routed Greyhound buses & bumming around airports.  Oh… & I was fucking sick, choking on & snorting my own phlegm, which is just as sexy as it sounds.

But, we summoned every bit of patience we had & made our way There & Back Again.

So, we eventually made our way back home, back to land of baguettes & stinky cheese.  Things began to calm down, but I found myself dealing with the pissing & moaning of the occasional reader whose delicate sensibilities cause their rectum to tighten up & cause pain at any mention of the word “fuck”.  I don’t fucking get what the fuck that is all about, but in February, I found myself touting the benefits of the F-Bomb & taking Pride in my Profanity.

In March, we went Storming the Beaches of Normandy, taking a somber yet enlightening look at some of the WWII memorials & the Mémorial de Caen.

In April, we took a brief tour of the Mont Saint Michel & because it was absolutely necessary, I called Bullshit on Your Writer’s Block & no, I still don’t believe it exists.

In May, while Olivier & I were actually enduring some chaos from outside forces & that annoying thing people refer to as “real life”, there was still plenty of good shit happening – the number of rejection letters I was receiving was beginning to decrease, while the acceptances were increasing.  I owed a great deal of that to a teacher of mine from elementary school, so I decided to tell you all about how Mr. O’Donnell & the Old Yellow Paper helped to make a goofy little kid into a grown-up writer.

Okay, maybe "goofy, grown-up writer" would be more accurate.

As it does every year, June eventually came along & that’s when I went off on my tangent about how a couple of years spent living in Paris helped me to become a bit of germaphobe.

I got pissed off in July.  Right around the 4th of July, I saw a few Americans who were ignorant enough to mistake xenophobia & French bashing for patriotism.  Of course, this started me off on a lengthy & colorful rant directed at the French Bashers & their exposed ignorance.

The month of August is a time to slow down.  The entire country of France relaxes, most people are off on vacations & I was no exception.  But I did get to thinking about the real & surreal aspects of Paris.

September took a bit of a somber turn, but it was necessary.  It was time to purge all of the bullshit & bad times that had been smacking Olivier & me down.  It was time for me to vent a little bit about how 2010 wasn’t this fun & amazing year that we had planned it to be.  The year got off to a turbulent start, but it was the Cruel Summer that really knocked us down.

But staying down is for saps & cowards.  So we got back up & analyzed the Science of Dry Humping.

Then it was time for more ranting & finger pointing about my Misanthropic Expat Syndrome.

Before we knew it, it was December again.  As is now the custom, I was fucking sick, choking on & snorting my own phlegm.  Rather than making the big travel plans, hanging around airports & sleeping in bus stations, we stayed home in France.  Oh, & we finally published that book I’d been writing.

So… now what?

Even though the year of 2010 has been put behind all of us, its detritus still lingers.  I suppose that it will for quite some time to come.  While it’s fun to look back on some of it, I don’t want to dwell in it.  There are new stories to write, new books to get cracking on, new places to go, new things to make fun of & whole slew of pet peeves & bits of jackassery that I have yet to address.

If you’ve missed any fragments of the previous year, have fun going back & having a look.  If you’d rather read some of the fiction, then maybe you’d prefer to check out the book.

Otherwise, stick around. Even though the chances of my plans for 2011 going awry are rather high, I still plan on posting here with a bit more frequency.  No, not every single day, because… well, fuck that.  Seriously.

I’m sure that in many ways, this year will be much like last year – some of it will be good & some of it will be a bitch.  There will be the expected & the unexpected; more of the same & a bit of the new.  But the stories we’ll tell & look back on at the end of it all will be different…  those bits of detritus that stick to us that we’ll carry with us into the next one.  The real fun is in gathering those bits up.

Giddy-Up.

“Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

— Oscar Wilde