French Faux Pas

All I wanted was a slice of quiche.

I confidently popped into the boulangerie/patisserie, in search of the flaky crusted treasure. I peered past the local French patrons, into the glass display case. The croissants, au bon pain chocolate, and other delights, all much more familiar to me these days than my waistline would like, smiled back at me. Yet to my dismay, I saw no quiche!

Quiche has been a dear staple in my life ever since I worked as a waitress at the local tea house in West Palm Beach and wrote, "Keeshe" on the ticket the first time a customer ordered this unknown food.  Since then it has become to me a cultured way to cook eggs; a fun and classy way to sneak protein into breakfast. I loved it even before I tried it in Paris, but I may now be ruined for any quiche made outside of the country of France. It was another remnant of redemption from our trip to Paris that has sweetly lingered with me.

My eyes darted disbelievingly around the restaurant. No quiche at the boulangerie?? It couldn't be true. What I saw gave me hope: the customers seated at tables were reading menus. Surely, I thought, my quiche is waiting for me there on the small printed cards. A quick glance toward the door revealed a shelf with hoards of the little menus and drink cards stuck inside of rocks-turned-paperweights with small slits inside to hold the cards.

I stepped around a couple seated at the table closest to the sliding glass door as inconspicuously as I could. My hand reached toward the shelf, but as it did, the door slid opened for an entering customer. I grabbed the menu and rock-menu-holder just in time for the sliding door to hit my wrist, knocking the menus and rock to the floor. The rock landed with a loud snap behind the door and the diners heads all sharply turned my way.

Trying to recover quickly, while ignoring the 25 French citizens and one husband who had their eyes on me, I reached for the rock. It took me several attempts to realize that each time I tried to grab the rock, my hand initiated the automatic sensor to open the door, grating against the rock and trapping it behind the glass, outside of my grasp. Finally, a kind man at the nearby table was able to retrieve one of the fallen menus for me.

As nonchalantly as possible, I thanked him in a hurried combination of German, English and French, and abandoned the trapped rock. I stepped away, trying to blend in with the chocolates as I skimmed the elusive menu.

And there it was, just as I had suspected: Quiche Lorraine. Jordan followed me on my walk of shame to the back. We crammed ourselves into a one-person table and waited. The waitress arrived, acting kindly unaware of my embarrassing blunder. I convinced myself that all would be well from this moment onward and ordered my quiche. "Ahhhh, skjdl asj&dflj dllsdfo-ssd//hjsksjks, ,lksksdno iw9aw ij akmn," she said regretfully. I didn't need to speak French to understand that I would not be having quiche for lunch today. They were out.

My game time decision resulted in ordering what I thought was the tomato crepe. Because when there is no quiche, crepes, I told myself, are a completely adequate substitute.  The problem, though, with relying solely on language cognates to interpret a menu, means that you miss the little word that means "egg" before the easy "tomate". Normally this wouldn't be a problem for me, except that I prefer my eggs cooked. What appeared on my plate was a yolk that jiggled like jello, threatening to burst it's yellow goo all over my crepe under the slightest provocation.

Burst, it thankfully did not, so I gingerly ate all around the egg, ignoring the fact that the bottom of the crepe was completely burned, and if I hadn't just caused a scene and possibly broken one of their rock-menu-holders, I would have complained and sent it back through a series of hand-motions and gestures and disgusted-looking facial expressions.

Though my experience today was traumatic and probably damaging to my psyche, I do feel as though I was reminded of something important: Be grateful for a husband who willingly sits with you at a restaurant where everyone else is shunning you and who will verbally walk through the entire embarrassing scenario again and again as you process, and who will also support you in ordering an au bon pain chocolate to finish off lunch when the raw egg crepe just doesn't hit the spot.

I love him.

Here is a sneak peak at the fun part of our day:

Saw this lovely wall of corn on the way to Neuf-Brisach.

Christmas Market

The walled city was a fortification built in the shape of a star!

I tripped while running over to pose for this one. 

Fail.

Win!

I really wanted to take pictures by the yellow doors on that hill.
Unfortunately, they did a good job with the fortification and we couldn't reach them.

I had to settle for pictures by the cool, red door.

I thought the live nativity was charming!
Until I saw that the three wise-men were played by women who were chatting and drinking coffee the whole time.
Kind of killed the mood.

These guys really were charming.

The day ended with one of my favorite pastimes: sunset chasing.

The German Doctor

I alluded to my first visit to the German doctor in my Paris post. I was brave for two, long days after the stress-induced seizing up of my neck, but in a weak moment, Web MD's information about meningitis got the best of me, and after a frenzied 2 am phone call to my Mom, I made a doctor's appointment to make sure I wasn't dying.

And for real, I couldn't move. I just laid there "whimpering," as Jordan put it, most of the night, because I couldn't turn my head an inch (or centimeter, as we say in Europe) and felt constant pain. My phone call to the doctor was brief, and largely aided by Google Translator. I hung up, hoping that I had made an appointment.

A few hours later, Jordan and I were on our way to the doctor. The drive took about one minute. (I love living in a small town!) Fifteen frantic minutes after we parked, though, we found exactly where the office was located. Once inside, I gave them my name, and we sat down in the waiting room where I "read" an article about Kate and William in the German version of People magazine. Having been deprived of my secret habit of reading People (#justonvacation #idon'tsubscribe, #don'tjudgeme #it'smymom'sfault) for two long months, during which time a royal baby was born, I've never wished I understood German as much as I did during those 10 minutes in the waiting room.

I'd heard rumors that doctors in Germany don't follow the same social norms for patients undressing as we do in the states. Aka, there are no paper gowns. And the doctor doesn't leave you alone, in private, to change. So I was not completely surprised when, after asking me a few questions about my pain, the doctor told me I could take my shirt off, while he finished up a few notes. Thankfully, I'd thought ahead, and worn an undershirt.

After I few minutes of poking and pushing on my neck, the doctor told me that "the muscles have had too much contractions." Just as I suspected. My treatment? Two prescriptions. One for physical therapy. The other, for pain medication that I later learned is banned in the US except for treatment of large farm animals, because of its risk of some disease I can't pronounce. 30 drops every 4 hours. In addition to my prescriptions, I was to have three treatments of electrotherapy, beginning right away.

The nurse ushered me into a different room where she proceeded to hook me up to a machine using four large suction cups with wet sponges inside. She set the timer for 10 minutes. Thankfully, I had asked her if "mein Mann" could join me, because two minutes later I was blacking out and Jordan was running to get the nurse. She burst in, turned off the machine, popped the suction cups off my back, and heaved my legs into the air where she held them for several minutes until I came to. By this time, the doctor had joined us. "You are okay?" he asked. "Yes, I think so," I replied.  "Good. We try again."

The second attempt was successful, and after a few weeks, and 480 drops of medicine, my neck felt much better.

Homesick

Though I feel little pangs of sadness and homesickness for the places I love, it is a comfort to know that they are there. Not only can I mentally walk the streets of Lake Bluff, noting the familiar cracks in the sidewalk, and admiring the street corners where the leaves are surely burning red this week, but even as I write, people are walking those streets, the leaves crunching beneath their feet. Some of them are strangers, but others are so dear, the lines on their faces as familiar to me as the cracks on the sidewalk.

I remember visiting West Palm Beach after graduating and after breaking up with Jordan. It felt so empty; so hollow. Like seeing Nana lying in the hospital bed after she died. It wasn't her anymore. West Palm Beach felt like a body void of its soul apart from the people who made the place so dear.

It is the people that make the place what it is, yet it is not people I have missed since moving to Germany. I miss the places. I miss Lake Geneva's silky, warm waters. I miss Breckenridge, with its crisp mountain air and sunny skies. I miss Captiva and the familiar crunch beneath my feet as I walk to the beach on streets made from crushed bits of shell.

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

Captiva Island, Florida

Vail, Colorado

This is not a new phenomenon for me, this missing of places. Freshman year of college in Florida, I plastered my walls with pictures of my beloved Lake Bluff. Sophomore year, I longed for the warm beaches of Florida, as I spent a semester studying in Colorado. Junior year, my desk was adorned with pictures of Colorado...

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

 

Lake Dillon, Silverthorne, Colorado

I am often longing for...elsewhere. Dreaming of the day when I will return. And when I do, it's not long before the elusive desire for elsewhere grabs me again.

Is that why I wander?

South Park, Colorado

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy,
 the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
 

Perhaps that is the reason I long for elsewhere...

...I am homesick.

Paris: The Worst Trip of my Life

So it's been a few weeks since we eagerly returned home to Kandern from an adventure in Paris. 

And it's taken me this long to decompress and debrief...to make some sense out of it. 

To find redemption.

Okay, yes, I'm being a little dramatic and I realize I sound like an absolute brat complaining about a trip to Paris. I can feel the judgment.  For the record, I know that not having a fun trip to Paris is not a big problem. It's not really a problem at all, but it did teach me a few things that I feel 

compelled to share.

What do you imagine when you think of Paris? I anticipated romance, dressing like Audrey Hepburn, charming patisseries, music from my 'Paris after Dark' CD playing on every street corner, and of course, a view of the Eiffel tower from our hotel room. I went into our Paris trip with high expectations. Visions of sketching in the Tuileries, walking hand and hand alone the Seine, and eating crepes in the park under the Eiffel Tower enticed me.

And in fact, these weren't just visions. My life briefly turned into a movie for 5 days the summer after I graduated from high school when Betsy, my MWAITWWW (my most wonderful aunt in the whole wide world), took me to Paris for my 18th birthday. (Michelle, Kathy, Bonnie, Bet, you are all wonderful, too.) I was mesmerized by the City of Lights: awed by the Louvre, delighted by the charms of the Champs-Elysees, and over-all, just tickled pink. And our hotel room really did have a view of the Eiffel tower. So my expectations were, in a sense, rooted in reality.

As it turns out though, grown-up Kate does not like big cities. I find them quite overwhelming, and so does Jordan. Paris, I re-discovered, is a very big city. Especially when you are trying to navigate by car and attempting to park said car. Beware the sneaky underground parking garage that will take you through a mile long maze underneath the city after which you will pop out who knows where. As it turns out, the affordable hotels do not have views of the Eiffel tower. They have views of the goth store across the street selling creepy black trench coats and dog collars (for people). And that was one of the nicer stores in the neighborhood. As it turns out, grown-up Kate has panic attacks on the streets of Paris when she gets lost on her bike. And an entire weekend of biking can land you at the German doctor's office the following week when your neck and upper back seize up from stress. Are you beginning to see how my expectations were not lining up with my reality? And that was the root of the problem. In fact, that seems to be the root of a lot of my problems.

Lest you are beginning to wonder why I even bothered to share the story of this weekend getaway gone awry, two things did redeem the trip: the Eiffel Tower, and the lesson.

The Eiffel Tower was just as magical as I remembered. Ten years ago, (!) Aunt Betsy took me to eat in the fancy restaurant on the second level, and we didn't have to wait in line to go up. Afterward, she asked if I wanted to go all the way to the top, but I declined, tucking away the idea to save a trip to the very top with my future husband.

Though waiting in the long line that evening made our backs ache and our feet sore, it also heightened our anticipation for the adventure that awaited. And the trip to the top of the "Tour Effiel" was enchanting. A dream come true. I took about 5 million pictures as the 

sun settled down for the night while the City of Lights seemed to awaken

A few weeks ago, I asked God for a lesson from each new city we visit. (I may need to modify that to towns now that I realized we don't like visiting cities.) In Paris, God showed me that my expectations have the potential to ruin the experience. Or at least miss the real experience. A wise friend recently told me, "The difference between expectation and reality is misery." I expected so much out of Paris. Had I begun the trip without so many notions of what it would be, I would have been much more open to the beauty of reality, and much less miserable. As it was, it's taken me a few weeks to look back on the trip with fond memories. 

I'm grateful for this insight now, because it gives me a glimpse of how my expectations have the potential to damage my relationships...especially with my husband, and with the children I don't yet have. Poor Jordan didn't know when he married me that I had years worth of future husband lists recorded in my journals...qualities I hoped and expected my husband to have. These lists were compared with my friends' lists at countless sleepovers and small groups and ultimately became a larger-than-life mental picture of the amazing man my husband would be. And my husband is amazing...but he doesn't qualify for every item on my list. No one could. It's now my choice, faced with that reality, whether to focus on my unmet expectations, or to focus on the beauty of what God has given me. Similarly, my hopes and dreams for our future children, and who they will someday become are already forming in my heart. I want to let go of those expectations and replace them with an openness for what God has in store. 

Thank you, Paris. Thank you, God.

Here are more 'redeeming moments' I captured between the traffic, panic attacks, and getting lost.

Giverny

I painted this very bridge in 3rd grade.

"Hay" there!

So fun to search Paris for "The Happenings" with this sweet girl and her hubby!

Isn't he cute?!