French food rant after weekend in London

As I mentioned in my last post we were in London last weekend. Well, let me start by saying London is great. If you can put aside the crappy weather London has a ton of things to do. And for an American, it gives a taste of home because there are so many similarities between London and the states.

First, I enjoy living in France and there are a lot of great things to see and do but my main pet sometimes I miss the food diversity. Now you are thinking to yourself, France is supposed to have some of the best cuisine in the world. There is no doubt about that and I love the french food. But, the food is not diverse. You can get French food or more French food. If you want something international I suggest going to another country because the options are few and the quality is suspect. For example, if you want good sushi, Indian, Chinese, Mexican or Italian, haha, good luck.

I love to eat sandwiches but every sandwich shop here in France has the same 6-8 types of sandwiches either served on baguette or panini. There is no exploration. Why, I don't understand. I would love to see just once a sandwich with some avocado on it.

I miss Starbucks. I don't personally love Starbucks but I love the concept. I can choose between a regular coffee, an espresso, mocha, etc.. and then I can choose the size. On top of that the Starbucks may be located in a Barns & Nobles so I can sit with my big regular coffee and read a book for an hour. The French love coffee but for some reason they only want a small espresso which lasts all of 2 minutes.

London offers all these things. Quality Indian, Asian, Italian food, and great sandwiches. You notice I don't mention the english food here. Overall, I can't complain since last weekend we flew to London for 45 euros round trip. Valerie is unaware at the moment but we will be doing this more often so I can get a small taste of home.

The night before our trip to London

Last weekend we took a quick trip over to London. Valerie found some cheap flights on EasyJet that were only 40 euros/person. So we figured why not go over on Saturday morning and return on Sunday night. Short but fun. Valerie had never experienced a pub in London so she was really excited about going to one.

Well it turns out that we were invited to a dinner on Friday night before our trip to London. Our plan was too leave early before midnight and not drink too much so we would be ready for our trip in the morning. Well, this is easier said than done when you go to have dinner at a friend’s place.

When we arrived we started with a beer and then came another beer. Ok, two beers isn’t bad but with dinner I drank two glasses of wine. This is usually not a problem either but after dinner I had to follow-up with a whiskey and then another which I immediately made my way to the sink to dump out since I was already feeling a bit over the top. Ok, it sounds like a lot but the real problem came with the fondue. The fondue was made with a whole bottle of wine which is rather unusual since normally it calls for only about 1 glass and I ate a ton of fondue. Going back to my college years when I could drink almost a twelve pack of beer and be ok the next morning, I thought to myself I can handle this.

We left around midnight. On the way back, which thank god only requires taking the metro, I was loaded. I hadn’t been that loaded in years. When we returned home Valerie immediately passed out. Me, I laid in bed spinning and then in the bathroom getting rid of dinner.

The next morning, we woke up at 8am to go to the airport. Of course I woke up with a tremendous hangover. All I wanted to do was stay in bed but we had to go. To make matters worse Valerie was driving and we were late so the whole way to the airport I felt like I was going to throw up and let me tell you taking an airplane hung over is no treat either.

The whole day in London I felt just miserable and we were walking non stop around the city to see the sites and shop. Of course, Valerie didn’t feel perfect either but she felt better than me. She still wanted to experience a pub. By around 6pm I was feeling better so we went to a pub and drank about half a beer. After the pub we went to have some Indian food and I was even feeling hungry again. We had a big taster plate and a glass of wine each. About half-way through the meal I started feeling nausea again. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the spicy food, I am not sure but towards 10pm I was done. I told Valerie there is no way I am going to walk into another pub tonight so we went back to the hotel and I slept. By Sunday I was back to my normal self. But never again will we go to a dinner party before taking a trip.

Snowboarding in Chamonix

Well, I finally got too experience one of my snowboarding/skiing dreams, “Snowboarding in the Alps”. Actually we went last year but we only had time for one day and the conditions were horrible. It was snowing so hard you couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of you. With no time to react, every time a bump appeared in front of me I would launch off the top and fall face first down the mountain. Needless to say I was very sore the next day.

This year was totally different. We spent the weekend in Chamonix at one of Valerie’s friend’s chalet. Chamonix is about 30 minutes from Valerie’s father’s home. So we spent the first night at her fathers which is located in the valley below Mt Blanc. In fact the weather over the weekend reminded me a lot of Sacramento. There was absolutely no sun in the valley due to fog. However, 20 minutes up the mountain the sky was blue, sunny and the snow was abundant.

It just so happens during that particular weekend there was a promotion at the station we went to offering woman a free lift ticket. I have never seen a deal like that before and it covered the whole weekend. I believe salomon was hosting it otherwise I can’t imagine how the ski resort could survive losing that kind of money. Anyway it always seems to be the women never the men. It just so happened that there was four of us total; me and 3 girls (oh la la).

Not forgetting the mountains. When you travel up the chair lifts in any of the resorts around Chamonix the view is magnificent. You see Mt Blanc, the mer de glace (glacier), and about hundred other white cap mountains that seem to stretch miles or kilometers as the Europeans would say. It is truly inspirational. Normally you would also have a beautiful view of the valley but unfortunately, it was covered in fog that day.

Ok, I think I am a pretty good boarder but the whole day I was trying to keep up with these 3 girls on skies who were tearing down the mountain. Not only that they were trying to get me to go on black diamond runs that have bumps about waist high. This is not an easy task for a snowboarder. I personally like boarding in the bumps but when they look more like a wall in front of you I tend to find myself on my ass more than my board.

Midway through the first day I was already feeling dead-tired and ready for the lunch break. I must say there is nothing like a hot wine to help you relax at lunch. Sitting in a lounge chair with a sandwich in one hand and a hot wine in the other staring at some of the most beautiful mountains in the world is really living. In the US we would spend most of our lunches at Le Chamois at Squaw Valley drinking beer and eating pizza which still ranks as one of my favorite ski breaks however, there really is no view. Maybe Le Chamois foreshadowed my future.

Anyway, after a day of skiing it was time to experience the nightlife of Chamonix. There is no shortage of nightlife in this town and most of it speaks English. It is like a second home for the English. Life is good when your currency is stronger than the rest of the world.

The town is alive at night. We ended up starting with a bit of champagne and having a not so traditional after-ski dinner of crepes (normally you eat fondue or raclette) but since the owners of the restaurant were giving us free appetizers we felt obligated. After, we went to the bars. There are a lot of good bars so we tried to go to as many as possible. After 4 we realized that was all we could handle. Luckily the chalet we were staying at was within walking distance.