Seafood Sagas

As a newbie to the world of seafood consumption I have been stumbling a bit lately.

Mussels Mania:

I took myself out to dinner to celebrate the end of my wwoof experience and being back on the road. As I was in Montpellier I decided that seafood would be lovely. As usual the waitress came to take my order too early so I had to make a quick decision. She didn't speak any English. On the menu was a section "Moules & Frites"- I knew that frites are fries so the question is what is Moule? There were three options: Moules Maritime, Moules Fromage, and Moules something else. I didn't know what Moules was but I was sure that Moules Maritime involved something of the ocean and I went for it.

To my surprise... Moules turns out to be Mussels. Duh. And not a few mussels... a huge boat of mussels and fries. I was a little self conscious and felt that people were staring at me as I dove into this massive plate of mussels. I've eaten Mussels only 2 or 3 times and always when part of another dish like seafood pasta or risotta (Bonnie masterpieces). As I did when I ate the mussels with pasta... I carefully and dilligently forked out each little piece of mussel. It was a little difficult... but I made it through. As I was almost finished two other couples sitting near me ordered mussels. I was happy to see that they each ordered their own massive boat but I soon realized that the reason they were all staring at me was probably because I looked like an idiot trying to fork out my mussels when they just slobber them up with their hands. Whoops.

Shrimp Scandal:

Today I took myself out to lunch. As I am being frugal and self-catering most of my meals I am not really trying local cuisine that much because I want to save money. But alas I gave in and as I'm in Nice... I had to get seafood. So I ordered "Shrimp Basket." I figured that would be safe... not much you can do to shrimp to screw it up. First off... there was no basket involved. The shrimp were on ice and yeah there's not much you can do to screw up the shrimp especially if you don't do anything to them! Their heads were on them as well as their legs and everything! Again... wtf? I really didn't know what to do because I've only ever seen shrimp prepared without the heads and all that jazz. I managed to eat them after lots of struggles...but wow... another shock... another embaressing eating episode and a lot of shrimp head and shell mess.

Other than my interesting food interactions lately, everything is going fabulously. I have been in Nice for 3 days and I love love love it! It's beautiful, it's warm and it's the Mediterranean Sea.. what's not to love? I am pretty much just lounging on the beach and wandering around town everyday. Loving it. Met some awesome people at the hostel and last night we decided to go to Monaco to get a drink. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world.

Tomorrow I am going to Lyon and then over to Geneva, Switzerland!

Au revoir France!