Vacation vs. Sabbatical

We are not on vacation. We are on sabbatical.

Perhaps because we're not academics, people can't grasp the fact that we're taking nearly three months off to live in a foreign country without any agenda. They keep talking about our "vacation." Call me a stickler, but I sort of cringe when I hear vacation, or maybe it's just that my notion of vacation implies escapism. Don't get me wrong, vacations are important and I'll be the first one to go to a warm beach and sit for a week with nothing more than a bikini, tent and good book. But coming to Paris wasn't to vacate. In fact, I think we'll need to take a vacation when we return home from Paris. No, I consider our time in Paris a sabbatical. This is an opportunity to hit the pause and reset buttons and learn new and different ways of living. Some of what we learn we'll hopefully be able to incorporate into our lives back in the states, and others, although appropriate while here in France (the two hour lunch with wine) will most likely, and sadly, be left behind.

While here we are still working, the boys are still in school, and we have to grocery shop and manage the little affairs of life just as we would back home. The beauty and the appeal of travel is that we are doing them differently. Take for instance recycling glass. Wine is consumed in ample amounts here, so you can imagine the amount of glass recycling that occurs. Now, we can hear when the glass recycling truck rumbles down our street, but can I find the glass recycling receptacle for our apartment anywhere? No! We have four co-mingling recycling bins in our courtyard, but no receptacles for trash or glass. I know that people are disposing of these items in our building but I have no idea how or where. At the end of our street is a communal glass recycling bin, but I think those are meant more for the people who just picnicked in the park and knocked back two bottles of wine, not for the inhabitants of the apartments to recycle their daily glass. Same thing with the garbage, where do I put that. Any time I hear what sounds like a large truck on our street I peer out the window to see if it is a garbage truck. I noticed a few people in our building putting their bag of garbage just outside their front door, but I wasn't sure what that really meant. On Monday afternoon when I saw the garbage truck making its way down our street I quickly ran down our five flights of stairs to hand our bag of garbage to the driver. When I got to the entry way of our building there was a man who had a few other bags of garbage and was bringing them to the street. Did he work in the building and plan his day to take away the tenants garbage at a certain day/hour? Unfortunately, with my very limited French I couldn't ask him, so I smiled and he kindly took my garbage bag from me. And so it goes here in Paris. The little things that we so unconsciously do at home consume a lot of our time and attention here. I don't mind, it's just what goes along with living in a foreign country and not speaking its language.

Shopping for food is another activity that we spend a lot of time doing. But so does everyone else. It's a way of life here. You buy what you need for a day, maybe two and you do it regularly. It is a true joy. Perhaps it's the quality of the food, or maybe it's the simple ritual of thinking about what you are about to prepare or eat. All I know is that I look forward to walking down Rue Cler daily to buy our food and bread. I cannot begin to describe the freshness and flavors! Tomatoes taste like tomatoes, the lettuce is so sweet it's as if someone sprinkled sugar on the leaves, and the cheese--oh the cheese! Jim and I laughed when an American woman walked past one of the produce stands and loudly exclaimed, "Those tomatoes look good, but I wonder how they taste." Jim and I could barely contain ourselves. In the states our produce looks decent but is devoid of flavor (excepting what you can buy at farmer's markets, of course.) We are so used to eating flavorless food that is trucked hundreds, if not thousands, of miles that we no longer know what fresh and local looks or tastes like. To make up for this, we then drown our food in salt and other "spices" or dressings. Suffice it to say that a lot of value and consideration is given to where the food is sourced and how it tastes here, and for that I am grateful.

Carbohydrates. We are eating a lot of them. Granted, we eat a lot of carbs at home in the form of bagels, but here we're consuming our carbs in the form of baguettes and other rustic breads. Baguettes are a way of life here and you often see people of all ages and demographics carrying one to two baguettes. They're either poking out of backpacks or are nestled against the body with one's arm. There are no less than five boulangeries near our apartment and they each produce bread that is slightly different in crumb and texture. We haven't settled on a favorite yet, it's sort of hard to, as they are all equally good in their own way. We are scheduled to spend an hour in a bakery next week learning about that particular baker's technique. I cannot wait!

Merde, I hear the glass truck. Time to go and dispose of our empty wine bottles...