La Famille

The next day, I was more lucid. So I can tell you details. I'll start out with how lovely Baptiste's home and his family is. When we arrived, his mother and sister were there to greet us (his dad works in Paris during the week and commutes home on the weekends) and it was just a really warm, really bilingual welcome. Baptiste's sister, Marie, is this gorgeous sixteen year old (who looks older than me. Damn) with hair I would trade with mine in a heartbeat. Baptiste's mom, Francoise, is someone a person can fall in love with within minutes of meeting her. Just watching her talk is really fascinating, coz has crazy curly hair and really beautiful brown eyes that her kids inherited. Unfortunately for Baptiste's dad, Raphael, she must have really strong genes from her parents (they're from Malta, which explains why Baptiste and his siblings don't actually look very French, with their dark hair and eyes), because I only catch Baptiste and Hadrien's (his younger brother who's nineteen, I think) resemblance to him in the rare photo. 

Meeting Baptiste's family is always an experience. France wasn't the first time I met them. I met Hadrien briefly when he visited Baptiste for Christmas in the Philippines in 2007 but didn't get the chance to talk to him very long. His parents and Marie came over in March or April 2007 to visit Boracay and Palawan and while they were in Manila, I met up with them several times. The strange this is, I clicked with his family but his dad speaks very heavily accented English, Marie just a little, and his mom none at all. Everything was either translated through Baptiste or in sign language but somehow, we were able to carry conversations all throughout my stay there. 

What are they like in not so brief descriptions? Well, I'll start with his dad, who came over Friday night (? I can't actually remember.). His dad is the typical dad. The first time I met them, I thought it was really funny how certain stereotypes transcend different cultures. Like from what I gauged from Baptiste and Marie's reactions to his jokes, he is the typical corny father you're occasionally embarassed to be seen around. So I thought it was hilarious, of course. He reminds me a lot of my dad. The nicest thing about it is that he took the time to talk to me about French politics, the economy, architecture, things he thought I'd be interested in. 

His mom, Francoise, was just lovely and I'm a big fan. I don't know if it's a coincidence or one reason why I like her so much but we share the same birthday, May 12. She's a talented artist, from the little I know of art and one day I hope to own one of her paintings. In fact, I was able to attend one of her exhibitions, where she displayed some gorgeous paintings, sculptures and installations made of wire, and coral from the Philippines. The coral installations were actually really interesting because she embedded corals of heart shapes into honeycombds. Baptiste though it was weird, I thought it was mega-interesting. Her lineage makes for a very interesting woman who is a study to watch and is blessed at being one of the rare people who can make all eyes turn to her when she's speaking. She also has a great, really musical speaking voice, and by profession is a music therapist. She cooks amazingly, too.

Hadrien is Baptiste's really handsome younger brother. If you don't believe me, then let me tell you, I've seen lotsa good-looking people in my life (in movies. haha.) and he is literally the handsomest guy ever. After Baptiste, of course. (I'm not just saying that coz he'll kill me but personal preference). Objectively speaking, of course. I haven't talked to him much, but I can tell he's the complete opposite of Baptiste. Baptiste is really outgoing and gregarious, and Hadrien is pretty quiet.

Marie is the only girl and I feel so sorry for her because I can tell the two have picked on her often. But she's great and nice, and tells me about her life, which I appreciate. she also practies her French on me, which is good because I need to learn it for sure. Right now, she feels like the younger sister I never had and I feel really protective of her. Which is a feat considering she towers over me.

I basically really love Baptiste's family.

Kebabs

It's really sad that my next entry is about food again (but get used to it. I'm a foodie), but I was just so tired the first day, the afternoon was just about kicking back and trying to sort out my bags, while Baptiste did last minute errands. By the time we were both done, it was dinner. He took me to his kebab place, one of the many we would have. Kebabs are everywhere. And I don't blame the French for liking it, coz for 3.50euros, they come huge, with a ton of fries, and a drink. Not bad for a meal. 

And it had our puny shawarmas beat. They're roughly the size of my face, with so much meat to make an obese carnivore happy and the fries? oh, I feel like there's a reason they're called French Fries. More often than not, they aren't the skinny kind. They're the huge fat ones that are perfectly salted and just heaven with ketchup. Best fries ever.

I'd tell you more about my first day, except honestly, it's just one hazy day full of food. I was just jetlagged to the gills. I'm not a good traveler on my own.

Dejeuner

I arrived first thing in the morning in France which would be around lunchtime at home. But since I had been traveling the whole night and apparently, by the ripe old age of twenty-one, you get creakier and more cramped in long flight plane rides so it gets harder to sleep (it doesn't help that anticipation and excitement gets you too jazzed to sleep), the first thing I did was to take a nap. A nap where I apparently snored. I'd be embarrassed but, well, I'm not. I was exhausted! Hauling luggage roughly your size is enough to make you curse the dickens out of a holy man. No offense.

So of course I woke up, feeling like hunger and the sweetest guy in the world decides to take me to a restaurant to kick of french cuisine the right way. Unfortunately, I was a little too overwhelmed looking around and breathing french air and seeing french things (which is quite different from breathing philippine air and seeing philippine things. trust me. you're in paris? you're in movieland.), that I didn't catch the name of the restaurant. 

So I ordered le welsh, upon Baptiste's recommendation. It was yummy and heart-burny, a combination of fromage, jambon, oeuf et pain. and, oh, biere. I'm just showing off. It sounds better to say I was eating cheese, ham, egg and bread. and, oh, beer. Yes, there was beer in that dish. So it was all oozy and so good, with the slight taste of boozy. Believe me, I recommend it. Unfortunately, it also felt like you were going to keel over from richness. I would totally understand if the highest percentage of gout sufferers lived in france.

Baptiste had the day's special, I think, which was beef and pasta in this really great cream sauce. Oh yeah, this French restaurant also had condiments with names. Weird, childish fun.

Baptiste gave me a crash course on french dining. One, the concept of takeaway? weird! never do! which to my tiny asian stomach was kind of like the starving children of africa were going to starve even more. The servings were huge! I don't think I was ever able to finish a meal (except if you were in a fancy restaurant, which meant smaller servings for higher prices. Which restaurateur God meant to say that fine dining prices matches small artistic looking meals that you feel slightly abashed to attempt eating? In Abbi world, big prices means big food. True dat).

Second, on top of the ginormous food sizes and the richness of the food, there are stages of dining. First, you have salad. Then you have the appetizers. Then the entree. Then the dessert. Then the bread. Then the coffee and tea. Skipping ahead to the end of my trip, when Baptiste and I gained ten pounds and pork bellies as a result of his mother's fine cooking, kebabs, restaurants, pastries I just had to try... well, suffice it to say, I ate real well. 

Third, don't mix courses. I learned this the hard way when Baptiste cooked for me and the salad he made was so good, I kept going for seconds and thirds, while eating my main dish. Which I got a stern lecture and serious eyeballing, but more on that in another entry.

Fourth, well, there's a reason why Europeans never eat out all the time. Because the prices are cuh-razy!!! Geez louise, a dish costs maybe, optimistically, six euros to topping off at closer to twenty euros? And if you order a fixed menu, you can maybe pay thirty euros per person.

Anyway, recap. Food is many, rich, comes in an order, and pricey. And damn it was delicious. 

ze Teh-Jeh-Veh

The TGV. What can I say about the TGV except it’s fast, it’s wonderful, and it can cross a country in, like, 3 hours. I will endorse the TGV for free. And if you go first class? Ooooh, you get a plug for your laptop and more leg room. It was actually really funny because I wanted to take pictures of the French countryside, hearing so much about how pretty the countryside was.

EXCEPT, it went by so fast, all my pictures was blurry. So I gave up, and settled into the really relaxing train. And, in all the trains we took, I fell asleep on Baptiste’s lap within ten minutes of getting on.

A Coca-Cola costs 3 euros, by the way. P180! Extortion. Just because of the monopoly.

P.S. I super appreciate that Baptiste's Dad was able to wangle us first class seats coz of his frequent flier miles!

homecoming

So who wins the best boyfriend award? Baptiste, from day one of my trip!!! Do you know how he greeted me at the airport? Well, technically, not the airport, but the TGV station.

We-ell, first off, after what felt like the longest, agonizingly slow, nerve wracking flight in the world, we finally landed in the Charles de Gaulle aeroport at 6a.m. There wasn’t anything bad about it, like turbulence, but after a little more than 10 months of not seeing Baptiste, combined with feeling like I was folded in half for about twelve hours, I was more than ready to get off the flight.

So we get off and with the backpack that Baptiste christened as my turtle bag (and I don’t blame him. I DID look like a turtle) and my other ginormous bag, I head to immigration. It was a zoo. It was a huge room with a line that did not seem to shorten. While all the other European Union citizens breezed through with their identity cards (those bitches), everyone else joined the same agonizingly slow line. And the weird thing was, I wasn’t really annoyed by the line. I’m sure 8 out of 10 people in the world, or some such statistic, wants to see the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or the Arc du Triomphe. And in a weird way, it was kinda nice, knowing I was in Paris and in the other side of the airport, was Baptiste.

After I actually heard someone say “I never thought I’d get here!” as he got to the passport control booth, I had my own turn and I grabbed my bags, checked my Iphone and panicked because it was 7pm and our train was at 8 and I had NO IDEA where the TGV was. Plus I was terrified that what happened in the movie Taken would happen to me. What if someone had already spotted me? What if I had given myself away as coming from the Philippines alone? What if someone thought I looked 13 and innocent? My DAD could never whoopass like Liam Neeson!

I plopped my overweight luggage onto a cart, crossed my fingers that I was reading the right signs and headed off to the Gare SNCF. After about a mile of huffing away, I got to the Gare SNCF station from the 2^nd floor and mentally cursed Baptiste for making me walk all the way to the train station. I estimate that I was hauling 40kgs of stuff and gifts with me. I weigh about 45 kgs. Love will make you carry heavy things.

I went down the escalator to the main floor, thinking I had to meet Baptiste by the screen board… except there were screen boards everywhere! I stopped by the side of the escalator, look down to make sure all my bags are there, and when I look up, my gorgeous, amazing hunky boyfriend is walking towards me with a bouquet of roses. Trust Baptiste to buy roses, bring it to Paris just so he could greet me with it, before we traveled back. Those had to be the most well-traveled roses.

And of course, the first thing I have to say, after the hugging and the kissing, I have to go, “I’m hungry.”

And Baptiste pulls out 3 pain au chocolats in a paper bag.

Isn’t he wonderful?

 

condom vending machines spell trouble

italy (and probably the rest of europe) is pretty sensual and sexual. so it's no biggie for them to have condom vending machines. which for me, is pretty practical. it's a sign that says "hello, please don't have random sex without protection", it eases embarrassment so that cashiers (i.e. real human beings) don't have to ring it up for you in front of an audience of nosy, judgmental people, plus if you wanna have sex in public, easy to obtain, right?

well, me being from the boondocks and from a fairly conservative country, i wanted to take a picture of the vending machine in montecatini.

oh god, mortification.

just as i pressed the shutter button, this really cute italian guy pops up and says"yeah! that's cool, isn't it?" well, i forget the words but the gist of it was he was approving and hitting on me at the same time. which would have been flattering because he was cute.

except we were in front of a condom vending machine. and hitting on someone in front of one is extremely dubious and makes you think that yes, he's after ONE thing and i'll give you three guesses what. and my parents were across the street.

so yes. it was mortifying. i literally turned redder than anything.

another side note. there's something to respect about italians. yes, they are probably the Catholic country in the world (namely because the Vatican is there) but i think they accept divorce. their way of thinking is that their bottom line? loyalty. they'd prefer that you separate rather than cheat, on your spouse and family.

which is exactly what i think. you have to respect that.

the familiar is ignored

there must be a quote out there talking about how the most familiar things become ordinary and unnoticeable.

well, for italy, it was like beauty was ignored. or they're just so used to having the most incredible painting, the most graceful sculptures, the most vivid frescoes on every street, alley, corner, building that they don't need to see it anymore.

how can they live like that???

that's spoken with envy, not derision, by the way. if i lived in italy, i can't imagine how many cameras i'd wear out, memory i'd consume, money i'd spend on for film and pictures. i couldn't possibly ever get used to seeing a fountain and just seeing a fountain, not the art on it.

part of me was open-mouthed over the art, and the other was amazed that the italians were just passing it by. i held up traffic, looking at the stuff on the walls. they just breezed by. next to it, were spray-painted graffiti, people peeing on the side of the road.

it was a clash of modernity with antiquity.

but no matter how ignored it is, the fact that it's there will forever blow the minds of people. we just need one second to take a look at it.