Les dimanches

Les dimanches (layz dee-mahn-sh: Sundays), I discovered today, is the time of the week where the entire country of France falls fast asleep.  Shops, even in the cities, are closed for the most part, expect for the necessary bread purchase in the morning at the local boulangerie (boo-lahn-jehr-ee: baker's).  This isn't because the French necessarily feel the need to commit themselves to God, Church, and Country.  Oh no, quite the opposite.  You may still have one or two churchgoers from the olden days, but the rest of le pays (lay py-eez: country) rolls out of bed at 10 in the morning, spending the rest of the time lounging around in their slippers, cutting tomatoes and preparing their hunger for 1:00, when lunch is served.

My own very first traditional Sunday spent in France was in the hills of Voiron, a suburb of Grenoble.  Claudie, an English teacher at the lycée (leez-eh: high school) invited me to share lunch with her, her English husband, and her four French sons.

The whole experience was lovely, even though I struggled to understand the slang spewing out of her sons' mouths, feeling like a fool every time Claudie had to translate for me.  And of course there was the inevitable faux pas (foh pah: misstep) of my gaping mouth as Claudie brought out the main dish: curried chicken.  I silently cursed myself for forgetting to mention my vegetarianism, secretly hoping that those large white round blobs simmered in curry sauce was just the French version of tofu.

As I quickly debated with my conscious over whether to eat or not to eat, I decided to bite the bullet and go with the flow.  After all, I hoped to be invited back to her house someday.  I, as politely as I thought possible, asked for the smallest piece of chicken breast and said a silent prayer that I wouldn't spend the next two days hanging over the toilet with the presumed sickness that haunts all végétariens when they decide to swallow their morals and their pride with a meat dish.  The verdict?  Not bad.  Tasted like chicken.  And I'm still alive to write about it.

In all, the meal was delicious and lasted a good hour and a half, followed by a stroll around a nearby lake as Claudie, her husband, and I compared differences between cultures.  Claudie informed me that this Sunday ritual of leisurely meals and sacrificed chickens is currently a hot political debate in France.  Apparently the government is pushing for a more Anglo-Saxon Sunday.  But government be damned: the French, for now, have made it clear that le dimanche is a religion in and of itself.