Day 3 and 4: So French

I'm going to start off this post with a list of words I have learned so far: bonjour, oui, merci, pardon.  That's about it.  Every now and then I will remember the phrase for how to say "good afternoon" or how to order a meal, but I still think it is safe to say that I am far from fluent in French.  But progress is progress, and I have set a personal goal to be able to order breakfast without using any English.  While I have not met this goal, I am almost there.

It seems only appropriate that I should talk about food at the end of gastronomy day.  Here is a list of the food I have tried since I have been in Paris: the stereotypical escargot, many, many pastries, and an assortment of different cheeses.  I'm sure I have eaten more than that, but those are really the things that stand out.  While I would not have thought I would ever like snails, I really enjoyed the garlic and oil taste it had.  Even though it was really hard to get it out of the shell, I would get it again.  While I have been trying not to wonder into the realm of American food by stepping into a McDonalds, I have frequented the french version of it, the Quick, many times.  Even, though the food at Quick would not be my first choice in cuisine in Paris, it has a deadly trio that seems to draw me in: cheap food, long hours, and free wi-fi.  For the last few couple nights, me and Mikayla have come to work on our assignments and contact people back home in the evenings before we go to bed.  Needless to say, others are starting to catch-on to this genius plan, and now half of our group spends the hour before going to bed reading the articles for the next day and playing on snapchat huddled around a table at the Quick.  New personal goal: I will not go to Quick once the wi-fi is fixed in our building.

The Snails I got the other day.  Photo creds to Alexis Spahn