How can I be more "French"?

Whenever we went to France as a kid I would beg my mum for every flavour of apericube. Except those rank tomato articles which belong in the bin.

In Spain I favoured in a jar banderillos.

I am the queen of prepackaged snacks and I have the (monster munch branded) tshirt.

If you're a sailor, motor into an anchorage at 5 knots to the spot you want, chuck out your anchor and 40 metres of chain, ignore the position of any other boats and the fact that you're on the ferry track, hop in your dinghy and go straight ashore. Be bemused when all the boats around you have moved when you get back.

There are two new flavours of croustilles - tomate et mozzarella, and parika, and they are so delicious. I have to make sure I'm not the only one eating them when I open a bag, or I'd eat the lot.

And yes, Myosotisbleu, I agree with you re the French bashing. All the tired and stupid old clichés have made an appearance, smelly, hairy, cowards, etc. I wish people would work from real information rather than just crap information.

Oh, and another thing, while I'm ranting here, I wish people wouldn't characterise all of Paris by the Avenue Montaigne, 6e/7e/8e arrdt, Neuilly people. Actually not that much of Paris is the all-black-wearing, coffee drinking, hyper-thin cliché. Most of us aren't at all.

Yes strange those are the peanut crisps! Casino or Super-U's own brand are yummy too.

And those bacon-flavoured bugle things at your same link are another of my favourites!

each and

merry

I am just loving this thread, anyone recommend at good blogs/websites to help me get my fix until I go in August? Am spending a fortune on French magazines . . .

Foreigners love such road art and will stand gazing at it, becoming confused or irate when it is crossed by cars.

If you come across a kind of stripy black and white painted arrangement spanning the road from pavement to pavement ignore it - probably some kind of art installation.

This has reminded me of my cousin who went to stay with a family when she was 12. She was dreadfully homesick and cried and cried until the mother told her to bend over thd bed and shoved a paracetamol up her bum! She stopped crying after that. Still keeps Intouch with the family to this day.

Heading to France in less than two weeks and cannot wait. Adore driving through the whole of France to get to the south. They know how to signpost a place.
My long-suffering DH would tell you that I tend to bang on about moving to France after a glass or two of 'rouja' and I'm never quite joking.

Surely it's just envy... Plus there are a good number of things That make little sense viewed from an English standpoint, like the pharmaceutical industry.
But the French just love to take potshots back, like our penchant (see what I did there) for boiled food.
Vive la difference! :)

Myo, French-bashing is as old as the Norman invasion, as is Anglais-bashing in France!

Both nationalities take unwarranted pride in our cynicism and over-estimate our talent for satire

Is it me or French bashing is really becoming a British National Sport? It's sad indeed because I used to worship British culture and -supposedly?-openmindedness as opposed to my fellowmen. However, since I've moved here I've sometimes got the uncomfortable feeling that some people (and incidently some media) are obsessed with French and I don't get the whole point of it, specially the whole patronizing tone when discussing issues in France.

I also happen to have an English sister-in-law that I just adore, being really close to her. She's been living in France for 25 years now and yes, sometimes she may have found and still find things difficult there but she netherveless considers France as her second country.

Also, it seems there's here some mixed-up between feelings towards specific in-law and French in general. No one can tell if he/she will get on better with an English or wathever nationality MIL.

Has anyone mentioned soirees? They're fun.

our bins are emptied everyday - Unimaginable! Where is this hygienic paradise?

MamanOfThree - packed lunches (not a picnic lunch, a packed lunch) most definitely exist at my DD's school in Paris.

crisps that look like Wotsits but are peanut-flavoured

Croustilles?

Also re the popularity of grated carrot, it is important that you don't grate it yourself but buy it ready-grated at a hugely inflated price from a traiteur.

Just to qualify the rubbish thing, our bins are emptied everyday and our street is hosed down every morning and the cleaning operation after the market has to be seen to be believed but this municipal efficiency seems to make people more inclined chuck stuff on the pavement in the first place. Drives me mad - and don't get me started on the graffiti.

Give your children much, much more independence. Continuously berate your ridiculous daughter-in-law because she will not let the 3 yr petit-fils play out unsupervised in the village, and insists on knowing where her 8 yr old son actually is since she left him in your bloody care, and is less than content with the aforementioned Gallic shrug as a response to her heated questions.

Maybe this is just Southern France, but insist on wrapping babies in shawls and hats and lots of clothing, even though it is 25C because they will catch a cold

As mentioned, eat and drink anything you want, but ruthlessly monitor portion control.

If you are a women (in the South of France, especially), never ever get drunk, ever. Faux pas doesn't even begin to cover it.

Believe that family is more important than anything in the world.

Cultivate grumpiness, but underneath that exterior, be quite the softy.

Shout, exclaim, wave your hands about and seem as though you are engaging in heated discourse, but actually be asking if someone could pass the salt.

I may or may not be drawing on years of dealing with DP's French family.

Homeopathy nonsense isn't 'medicine', though, and the only reason why you can get it freely at any French pharmacy is that it's nothing but sugar pills.