Piggy on sabbatical

My time in France is nearly up. I've got two weeks with the little ones before boarding my plane back to the U.S. and A. Where I will promptly board another plane bound to South America. Lima, to be exact. Followed by Cusco, La Paz, San Pedro de Atacama, Arica, and Miami.

I'll skip over the logic (or lack thereof) I've exercised in taking yet another trip without job or a solid savings cushion to fall back on. To avoid major freak out, I'm attempting to follow Dave the Scot's "Two Rules of Life."

Rule number one: Never worry about the small things.
Rule number two: Everything in life is a small thing.

(As a sidenote, do you ever need help justifying a ludicrous trip to yourself? Use this foolproof affirmation: My prospective trip to [insert exotic destination here] is a once in a lifetime opportunity. For instance, my prospective trip to the Falkland Islands is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Or, my prospective trip to Greenland is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Say it out loud, and stress once in a lifetime! It works, trust me.)

The fact remains that, for better or for worse (and I'd venture to say for better), I will be Andes-bound on May 20th.

Here is a map.

The reason I've provided said map is twofold. First, and don't be offended, because I know that South American geography isn't an emphatic component of American education. Second, because this is a special map. Can you find Peru and Bolivia? Sweet. Can you see what color they are? Correct! Yellow! And not as in sunny or hot. As in fever, the yellow kind.

Traveling to Andean regions requires immunization against a slew of deadly diseases. These include Hepatitis A and B, Tetanus, Typhoid, and Yellow Fever. As of yesterday, I was missing three: Hep A, Typhoid, and Yellow Fever. I probably could have waited to get my shots, but French medicine being what it is (socialized and awesome), I opted to surrender my naked shoulders to French nurses and get them all in Saint-Etienne.

Yellow Fever is only provided at the Hospital. I had to call and make a rendez-vous with the Service des Maladies Tropicales (Tropical Diseases). Fairly simple and straightforward. I booked an appointment and showed up as planned. And aside from the somewhat terrifying nature of being in a French public hospital, specifically, in the Department of Tropical Diseases, where the waiting rooms are papered with fliers about Bird Flu and Dengue and Malaria, my first shot went off without a hitch.

Hepatitis A and Typhoid, on the other hand, are done at the Centre de Vaccinations (Vaccination Center). Or so I was led to believe. I had called before to make sure, since there is some still incomprehensible rule about getting a Yellow Fever shot the same day as your other shots (otherwise you have to stagger it?), and I was assured by an amiable voice that the Centre de Vaccinations was the place to go.

So I showed up after lunch, chock full of Yellow Fever and eggplant and goat cheese pizza from Chez Franco. I walked into the waiting room filled with parents and their sullen children watching educational cartoons on a wall-mounted TV.

Je peux vous aider?

Can I help you? I was asked by a smiling woman.

Yes, I replied, I'm here for my Hep A and Typhoid vaccines.

Smiling woman: Vous les avez acheter? (Did you buy them?)

Me: Non, j'ai appelé il y a quelque semaines, et on m'a dit de venir aujourd'hui. (No, I called a few weeks ago and was told to come in today.)

No longer smiling woman: Comment ça? Attendez un instant, madame. Je vais vous faire parler avec ma collègue. (How's that? Please wait a moment, ma'am. I'm going to have you speak with my colleague.)

Fine, I thought. I have to pay for them first, apparently.

Minutes later, I was in the front office speaking with la collègue.

Me: Alors, je suis içi pour les vaccins contre l'hépatite A et la typhoïde. (So, I'm here for the vaccines against Hep A and Typhoid.)

La collègue: Mais vous ne les avez pas acheter? (But you haven't bought them.)

Me (beginning to get pissed off): Non, mais je peux les acheter maintenant! (No, but I can buy them now!)

La collègue (pausing): ... Mais il faut les A-CHE-TER. (But you have to BUY THEM.)

Me (officially pissed off, FUCK this lady is such a condescending asshole): Et bien, je peux les A-CHE-TER MAINTENANT. (Yes okay, I can BUY THEM RIGHT NOW.)

Okay, so as it turns out, I'm the asshole. The asshole who failed to process the subtle difference between acheter and payer (buy and pay). Because in France, you have to buy your vaccines at a pharmacy. And then bring them to a Vaccination Center. And have someone do the shooting up for you.

It's a depressing moment indeed when you realize that even though you've lived in a country for over six months and spoken the language and feel integrated and confident about your ability to navigate the local culture, you can fall so miserably short of basic comprehension. At moments like these I feel like I should be narrating a cautionary children's story about a big overgrown dummy (i.e. ME). See Katie. See Katie insert foot in mouth.

At any rate, I had plenty of time to go buy my Hep A and Typhoid vaccine at a nearby pharmacy (I wonder what would happen if I asked for a vaccine at an American pharmacy?) before closing time at the Vaccination Center. So I did. And then I returned, apologetic, contrite. And I thanked the staff. Profusely.

Note: I'm taking a break from blogging until I come back from my South America trip. Check back for updates on new travels in June!

The Lisbon Sugar High

When I told Mathilde I was going to Lisbon to run the half-marathon, she looked at me, incredulous, and said the following:

"Qu'est-ce que t'es originale comme fille."

What an original girl you are.

I told her it wasn't my idea. Another American assistant had proposed the idea to me back in November. Notwithstanding the fact that I'd just returned from the city of azulejos after Toussaint holiday, I agreed to run with her. The Lisbon half-marathon is allegedly one of the fastest 13.1 mile-courses out there and boasts a huge level of participation (30,000 runners to be precise). For me, what really cinched the deal was reading about the crossing-of-the-bridge: the race begins and runs over the Ponte 25 de Avril (25th of April bridge), Lisbon's shout out to the Golden Gate Bridge. I decided I wanted to run across that bridge.

So I went back to Lisbon.

This time, I stayed at the Lisbon Lounge Hostel, quite possibly the best hostel ever. Located in the Baixa neighborhood, it occupies an old four story building that has been extensively renovated. And by renovated, I mean it has clean and polished hardwood floors, private and public bathrooms with spotless white tiles and automatic air freshners, wooden cabinets for each guest (they lock!), plush bedding, and Ikea-furnished lounges on each floor. Also, a daily Happy Hour featuring 50-cent beers, free breakfast and wi-fi, and a live-in chef who prepares a three-course dinner every night for the bargain price of 8 euros. I'm sorry for the plug, but this hostel has earned it.

I arrived on a Friday afternoon and dove immediately between the sheets of my bunk for a nap. On waking, I showered, freshened up, and stepped outside to take in the neighboring pedestrian streets before sunset.

I didn't get very far before being assaulted. By window display after window display of pastries.


I'm not sure how I could have missed this my first time in Lisbon. Perhaps my mind actively blocked the pastries out as a means of protecting me against my will. I focused, instead, on the varieties of fish: bacalhau (codfish), linguado (sole), salmonete (red mullet), peixe espada (swordfish), savel (shad), eiroz (eel), or sardinha (sardine).

This time around, though, there was no escape.

I had heard about the insatiable Portuguese sweet tooth. This is a country where you can find at least two hundred different types of pastries. Where customers walk into pastry shops and enjoy fast, counterside service, much like a bar (only instead of pounding a pint, they pound a pastel de nata). Where the pastry shops open at 7 AM and close at 2 AM the next morning.

However, I had not heard of the pastry displayed below. A special, Easter pastry that is prepared in the weeks leading up to Easter.


No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Evidently, you don't have to go outside to hunt for Easter eggs in Portugal. You can find them in your bread.

The Folar de Pascoa originated in the convents and monasteries of 18th-century Portugal (along with most pastries and other sugary Portuguese treats, curiously enough; hence, awesome pastry names like toucinho do céu - heaven's lard, or barriga de freiras - nun's belly). The Folar wields strong symbolism: it's often associated with Jesus' sharing of bread at the last supper. The eggs you see baked into it are actually hard boiled. They are meant to symbolize rebirth.

As I oggled the Folars and their sugary neighbors, I forgot to consider my environment. To notice if I, myself, was being oggled, and to watch where I was going. And that is how I walked straight and hard into a fellow and his group of friends on the street.

It being a latin country, the fellow and his friends felt it necessary to take advantage of my misstep and goad me for a bit. Although it took me a few seconds to process. I was still on the pastries. And to be perfectly honest, although I can understand Portuguese quite well and speak it at a mediocre level, Portuguese Portuguese sounds more like an unfamiliar Slavic language than the sweet samba cadence of the Brazilian Portuguese to which I'm accustomed. It wasn't until the group closed in on me that I took full stock of my surroundings.

Me (in Spanish): Ay, disculpa! Mil disculpas! Apologies! A thousand apologies!
Fellow (in Portuguese): Menina bela! Tem que da-me um biejo. Lovely girl! You must give me a kiss.
Me: Ta bom, ta bom, disculpa! Okay, okay, I'm sorry!

After which I quickly kissed him on both cheeks, spun around, and walked onward.

Paolo, as the fellow's name turned out to be, wouldn't leave it at that. He walked after me and stopped me once more, and I lost track of the pastries. We spoke for a few minutes, him in Portuguese and me in Portuñol (a Portuguese-Spanish hybrid). He asked if I wanted him to show me the city the next day, and I said maybe. He told me about the magnificence of Portugal. I nodded and smiled. He asked what my favorite part of Portugal was. I smiled wider and replied:

"Os pastéis!"

The pastries.

Snapshots of Saint-Etienne: The crêperie that broke my heart

The perfect crêpe is an enigma.

The idea behind it is simple enough. A thin, light, delicate pancake made of wheat flour. Its name derives from the latin crispa, meaning "curled." The crêpe is a specialty of Bretagne, the northwestern French region reknown for other such gastronomic delights as cider and chouchen (a liquor made from wild honey). It's considered a national dish.

But take a closer look at the crêpe, and you'll discover the deception behind its apparent simplicity. It is more than a French pancake. It's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. It's 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons butter, and a pinch of salt. Or 2 cups flour, a pinch of salt, 3 eggs, 2 and 1/4 cups milk, and 1/4 cup butter. Or 2 cups flour, 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons rum, and 1 cup still mineral water (this last one courtesy of food goddess Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini).

The crêpe can be savory or sweet. If sweet, it's a crêpe sucrée. Of these there are endless varities: nutella crêpe, strawberry crêpe, crêpe à la crème de marron (a sweetened purée of chestnuts), crêpe with chocolate-coconut-banana, crêpe Suzette (prepared with orange peel and Grand Marnier, and lit on fire). My personal favorite remains the crêpe beurre-sucre, made with salted butter and sugar.

If it's savory, it's referred to as a galette and is typically made of buckwheat flour. Galettes, too, enjoy a wide array of possible fillings. Emmental cheese, Emmental and ham, steak and Emmental, chicken and Emmental, feta-tomato-and-spinach, egg-ham-and-spinach, egg-ham-and-Emmental. And so on. (Emmental is extremely popular in France; it is one of the top two most consumed cheeses in the country. The other is Camembert.)

There is even a kebab galette. A crêpe filled with kebab meat, tomato, lettuce, onions, harissa, and yogurt sauce. I was really excited about this when I first got to St. E. On one of our kebab outings, I remarked to Corinne that these kebab galettes reminded me of burritos. They come wrapped in tinfoil, which you peel back as you eat them in order to avoid them getting cold.

Those of you who know me well can see where I'm going with this.

Corinne immediately shot down my brilliant idea for "French burritos."

Me: See, you use the crêpe, but you fill it with, like, red beans, rice, and carne asada and stuff.
Her: ...
Me: Frex-Mex!
Her: Um, no.

And then, there's the matter of the crêperies. Which are ubiquitous in France. Conveniently located on street corners, charging no more than 2-3 euros for the most basic crêpes. But since there is no universal crêpe recipe, there is zero guarantee that the crêperie you happen upon, as you make your way to the movies or come back home from work, will be any good.

I've learned this lesson the hard way. Through trial and error, I found the best place to get a crêpe fix in St. E., just two blocks away from Place du Peuple (and a mere 10 minutes from my studio).


Since January, I've bought at least a crêpe a week at this little tin shack. And always the same one: a crêpe beurre-sucre. One euro and eighty centimes. Something about the batter kept me coming back. The crêpes managed to be soft and doughy while maintaining their lightness. I'm not a fan of crispy crêpes, nor do I enjoy heavy Hummer crêpes that you regret eating about halfway through. My perfect crêpe tastes rich and filling but leaves you feeling light enough to eat another. And then another. This crêperie delivered with admirable consistency. To such a degree that, to be perfectly honest, I've actually gone about three times a week in the past month.

Until just recently. When ownership of this crêperie changed hands. From a kindly brunette crêpe master to an equally kindly but woefully inept blond crêpe novice. Gone is the batter I've grown to depend on. And it isn't just me. Corinne, too, has been deeply affected by the loss. Between the two of us, we've sampled the other streetside crêperies, to no avail.

Corinne 5:34 PM: I just tried the last crepe place that i know of, not that great. what am i going to do!?

Somewhere, I read that you need to let the batter rest for a couple of hours before frying up the crêpes. Or maybe it's a different ratio of eggs-to-flour-to-milk. Or a lack of some secret ingredient.

The situation remains unchanged. And my belly remains brokenhearted.