I did try to help "push start" a car the other day. Yes, this poor Ky girl has had to do that before, both for herself and friends/family. Of course the last time I did that, I could speak the language of the person who needed the help. I also wasn't doing it for a car that was blocking a well traveled road and yelling "regardez" as the sweet young lady at the wheel was so intent at turning the car over that she didn't see the delivery van zooming up on her. Ultimately, the battery was just too dead to start this way, but my dear dad would've been proud of me for trying, not to mention the fact that I knew "why" they were trying to start it in this way.
I may have complained about this before, so if I have, please forgive me. You can't buy HELLMANN'S "REAL" Mayonnaise at the grocery here. I have found Miracle Whip…that stuff sucks…and I've also tried several of the French "mayos"….they suck too. Yes, I am a mayonnaise prude. Consequently, the TSA agents will ALWAYS find squeeze bottles of Hellmann's in my luggage. If you are coming for a visit (LISA), you will be asked to bring some….plan on it.
I placed an order from a French company called "My American Marketplace" last week. The box arrived and this is what $125 will buy a gal living in France.
No, I didn't hide half of the items, this was the whole order. That 8 oz jar of Hellmann's? It cost $6.23 (plus shipping). That 6 oz bag of Nestle morsels? $5 a bag. 2 lb bag of brown sugar? Also $6.23. You get the idea.
If you are one of my French friends and you are reading this, please know that I love you A LOT when I make you chocolate chip cookies, or bleu cheese dressing (American ingredients required).
Okay, I feel better getting that off my mind. Sorry, but I was fresh off of opening my box of goodies and doing the "what would I have spent at Kroger's" calculation….very depressing.
Next up….are you aware of your "personal space"? You know, the "how close" can someone be and not make you uncomfortable space. I have a fairly large personal space. I don't get too bothered by people who get too close to me when they are talking to me. I have noticed, however, that I do feel territorial when I am in line and YOU should be BEHIND me.
Europeans apparently do not understand LINES. If I am already standing in place when you walk up, you should stand BEHIND me. Just because I left a small amount of "personal space" BETWEEN the person who arrived BEFORE me and myself does NOT mean that I saved you a spot in line. (You can ask David's family about my typical reaction to this type of behavior when shopping the day after Thanksgiving)
This has not only happened once while living in France. (Asian tourists are even worse….they will not only cut in, but they will bring along the 7 other people with whom they are traveling.) I asked my French friend, Isabelle about why the French consider this to be proper behavior. Her response? "They are just stupid." Well, okay then, what do you say to that? I think that "I" will say something with my pointy elbow the next time it happens to me. I'm sure there will be a blog post when it does.
The "gray" season has settle upon the city of Strasbourg. Instead of my usual lovely view of the Cathedral every morning, all I can now see is a cloud of fog. It feels damp and like it could start raining at any (and every) moment. To combat the start of this lovely time (sarcasm), David and I took a quick trip to Cyprus last weekend.
Where is Cyprus? It is in the Mediterranean, south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and North of Egypt. WOW….can you say terror threat? Sorry family! We were only searching air flights that would take us TO someplace warm on a Saturday morning and bring us back to the gray land on Tuesday. We had NO idea how close Cyprus was to these countries until we had actually booked the flights.
It was BEAUTIFUL! Sunny and 75 degrees every day that we were there. The only "bumps" that we encountered were the road signs,
that the driver's seat AND the gear shift happened to be on the WRONG side of the car, and that we had to also drive on the other side of the road.
I was the navigator and David was the driver. He did a fabulous job and let's just say that the navigator struggled with the map a bit. In my defense, you try reading road names in Greek and then change your map scale from 4 km to 500 m within 1 minute and see if you don't miss a turn or two.
The country is very interesting. We didn't realize (again, until after we booked our tickets) that the northern portion of the island is Turkish and the southern portion is Greek. This happened in 1974 when the Turkish military invaded the island and forced the relocation of over 25% (200k) of the island's 800k population.
There is a region, now located within the Turkish border, named Famagusta. It was once the most visited resort area in the Mediterranean. It now is a literal ghost town. No tourism, only Turkish military patrolling the area that is comprised of bombed/abandoned hotels and apartments, and streets of looted shops, restaurants and mansions.
We were told by a very nice Greek Cypriot (sip-ree-et) that many of the Turkish Cypriots would like to leave their "part" of the island but the military prevents them from doing so. No, David and I did not go anywhere near the border.
November is not "in season", so we were only two of a handful of people staying at our resort.
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| Yes, if you look hard, you can see ONE person on the beach. |
At one point as we were leaving the beach for the day (at about 4:30PM) we saw no one….not at the pool, not at the beach. I turned to him and said, "Did the Rapture happen? Have we been left behind?" (A little Christian humor for you)
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| The sun was setting about 5:00 each night. |
We were sad to leave and may even try to go back before our assignment here is over. (Yes, we realize where it's located now)
Stay tuned…Thanksgiving is around the corner and I'm cooking…that sounds like a blog post to me!!
