Confessions of a salad-o-phobe

My brain hurts.

In a good way though. In the same way you feel sore but great after going running for the first time in ages, or the satisfying sting I'd imagine you'd have in your knuckles after punching Piers Morgan in the face. Living with seven French speakers for the last couple of weeks has been pretty intense, but I feel I'm already making some significant progress language-wise. I'm understanding far more than I was before and my vocabulary's expanded a lot too, but perhaps the most noticeable change is as worrying as it is encouraging... I've started swearing in French.

Yep, my usual repertoire of 'fucks,' 'shits' and 'twatfaced bastards' has been inadvertently replaced with a more continental mix of 'putain,' 'bordel,' and the delightful 'va te faire foutre.'* Even better, the French seem to like mixing up their swear-words just as much as us Brits do- 'putain de bordel de merde' seems to crop up surprisingly frequently, which I'm sure will delight all the feminists wondering why the French need about six different words for 'bitch.' Swearing aside though, I've learnt plenty of other things about French social culture recently too- notably, the French view on lager.

*Translated as 'slut,' 'whorehouse' and 'go fuck yourself,' if anyone was wondering

In England, lager-drinkers tend to have a pretty awful reputation as a whole. Fosters and Carlsberg are pretty much canned piss, anyone who drinks Stella Artois definitely beats their wife and Grolsch has a stupid name that sounds like the noise a German tramp might make when he projectile-vomits over your shoes. As far as acceptable lagers go you've got maybe two or three that are relatively safe bets, and one of the safer ones to order would probably be a Kronenbourg.

Not so in France. Kronembourg is the one lager that seems to be available on tap pretty much everywhere, but ordering one in male French company seems to be a pretty serious social faux-pas. I went out recently with a group of French guys, and whilst everyone else in the group decided to order obscure-looking beers that in terms of alcohol percentage were probably nearer wine, I saw the reassuringly red Kronenbourg tap and asked for a pint of that. From the disgusted looks on the faces of everyone around me, you'd have thought I'd asked for a dead orphan steak and a Smirnoff Ice.

Anyway, I had my birthday a few days later, which proved to be a lot more fun. I'd been expecting a quiet night, but I got jumped in a pub by a group of amazing, fantastic, wonderful friends who sang me Happy Birthday before whisking me off for a surprise evening bowling. And it was incredible. In a night full of highlights, my personal favourite was probably one particularly wayward bowl from a certain Miss Chula which somehow ended up missing the entire lane and scoring a surprise gutterball for the next team along.

SURPRISE GUTTERBALL

Despite the fact that I was still feeling a little sore from the night before and even though I lost (badly), I had an incredible evening celebrating finally becoming a proper adult in the best way possible... by indulging my inner eight-year-old. Twenty-one, and as mature as ever. Unfortunately, a few days later something happened that made me worry about something I've never really worried about before... growing up.

Several of my housemates had exams or lots of work to do for Monday, and as someone whose workload could very fairly be described as 'minimal' it fell to me to prepare a meal for them on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, being a Sunday all the shops were shut apart from a couple of local épiceries, and the gas for our oven had run out to boot, making my options painfully limited. A quick look in the fridge revealed my options for improvisation were pretty minimal too- there's only so much you can do with a bottle of Orangina, a jar of strawberry jam and some mayonnaise.

In a panic, I ran out to the nearby épicerie and looked around, unsurprisingly finding nothing but stacks upon stacks of vegetables. This was far from ideal- I've always prided myself on proudly following in my Grandfather's footsteps by avoiding eating anything green as it's either a) mouldy or b) rabbit food. But here I was, a few days after turning 21, faced with a painful dilemma... betray my youthful anti-greenery principles, or go hungry? With a head full of shame and a heavy heart, I picked up a mishmash of the least brown-looking vegetables I could find, got back and chucked them all in a bowl with some jam and mayo and dolloped a ladleful of it on everyone's plates.

I'm not going to pretend anyone was blown away- but there were nods of approval all round, with one housemate offering up the backhanded compliment 'pas mal... pour un anglais!' Given that I share a house with a chef in a country which is arguably the food capital of the world, I'm probably never going to blow them away either, but as a self-confessed culinary retard I'm perfectly happy with 'not bad.' And you know what? Even though it goes against every single one of my principles... I liked my jam salad. And I'm going to make it again.

Grandpa... I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

The whisky-fuelled misadventures of Genjamin Bell

I'm finally back in France after the Christmas holidays, and it's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks. We had a huge family gathering, an amazing Christmas together and best of all, everything was in a language I actually understood for once. But probably the most blog-worthy event of my two weeks in England was our New Year celebrations, which I spent looking after a friend who may have inadvertently drunk a little bit too much. For the purposes of maintaining his anonymity and dignity, in this blog I'll be calling him... 'Genjamin.' Or 'Genjamin Bell,' to be polite and give him his full name. Anyway, quite early on in the evening Genjamin decided for some reason that downing a full glass of neat whisky was a good idea.

Needless to say, it wasn't. A few minutes later, we found ourselves explaining to an ambulance crew in great detail how he'd fallen down the stairs, burnt his mouth trying to smoke the lit end of a cigarette and then collapsed in a particularly pungent heap. Indeed, when we finally arrived at the hospital one doctor refused to treat him until someone had found some Febreze because "you could get drunk just sniffing that." Regardless, I ended up spending four hours on New Year's Eve by a hospital bedside, bringing in 2013 itself with a hug from a sympathetic doctor and a bite-size Mars from the bottom of a box of Celebrations.

Oh, Genjamin

Anyway, having spent the first few hours of the new year watching paralytic, vomit-drenched 15-year-olds being stretchered into A&E back in the UK, I've finally returned back across the channel to a country that, unlike England, definitely doesn't have any sort of under-age drinking culture whatsoever. Thank God for that. I've also managed to move into my new place nearer the city centre without too much trouble- apart from almost murdering the neighbours' cat after accidentally locking it in our house over the holidays with no food or water, it's gone pretty much without a hitch. I've got an actual house to live in, an actual fridge to keep my food in, some really cool housemates and the neighbours' cat is still alive and well... if maybe a little wary of coming anywhere near our house ever again. Things are on the UP.

Not only that, but after only a few days, living with French people 24/7 has already shown me a completely different side to France. I've spent the last few months making cursory visits to tourist hotspots, ordered the same old overpriced drinks in touristy pubs and spent far too much time speaking English, just like the lazy tourist I'd always tried so hard not to be. I've had an amazing time over the last few months, but in terms of what I've achieved and learnt it's all been worryingly superficial. Much like reading the script for an adult video, you get the idea- but not the point.

But over the last three or four days I think I've learnt as much French as I did in the entirety of last term (ie not as much as I could have) and I've started to learn a bit more about some of the little quirks of French life beyond chain-smoking and drinking wine with every meal. I've been watching French TV, read French newspapers, listened to French music and (more predictably) gone out to socialise in actual French bars. Perhaps the biggest revelation has been the demi-pêche, a neat little combination of lager and sirop de pêche which somehow achieves the impossible and makes even Kronenbourg taste genuinely amazing. I've still yet to try and see whether or not it makes Fosters drinkable, but I'm not optimistic- even miracles only go so far.

But regardless, a couple of days of French immersion and it's become painfully clear that what I've learnt over the last few months has barely scratched the surface of what I could (and should) have been doing all along- stop living like an Englishman and embrace the local culture for once. In the same way that doing some weed and fucking a hooker doesn't mean you've 'done' Amsterdam, excessive Camembert and passive smoking doesn't mean I've learnt anything significant about life in France either. With the new year comes the perfect opportunity for fresh starts, so as terrifying as it sounds my resolution is simple.

When in France...
...do as the French do.

Bordeaux, fucking bring it.