L.O.V.E. Love

Lol jokes we’ll have none of that soppy stuff – robboblog 2011 is all Man. And it is indeed reasonable to ask how a blog that has already used ‘lol’ and ‘love’ could be so manly, to which I say that I am so comfortable with this blog that nothing could make me uneasy. Poetry. Drinking Straws. Baroque music. Pink polo shirts. Bring it on.

As a French major, a lesser man would have chosen to study literature, cinema or history. However this semester I find myself appreciating the nuances of French cuisine in the form of lectures and tutorials. The relationship between French wine and their cuisine is the first essay subject I have ever been excited to begin writing. My inspiration for this area of study has been drawn from the summer I spent overseas, in a charming French village called Narbonne. Whilst Paris, like any major city in the world, has adopted a rigorous city-culture, Narbonne manages to stick to its French roots. Any community that takes two hours off work everyday to return home, eat a two-course meal complete with cheese and wine (only local wine – foreign wine is considered piss) and then return to work for the afternoon slightly inebriated, is a community with which I can whole-heartedly relate. The daily habits that most westernised countries ignore – eating, drinking, social interaction – receive much greater emphasis. Work and school are structured around those habits, not the other way around. Similarly in Barcelona, just on the other side of the Spanish border, is the afternoon siesta an integral part of day-to-day living. Shops shut, work stops, streets grow eerie, as an entire city succumb to the fatigue of clubbing until six in the morning.

In short, the midday cheese and wine and the afternoon siesta are both great traditions that I have begun to adopt, and only time can tell if they will catch on.

Quote of the week (translated loosely from French): “God punishes us with appetite, and rewards us with pleasure”.