"Oh Pardon"

Ughhh visited Strasbourg's (and Eastern France's one of two) "Subway" today (you know, the restaurant). It was weird going to a fast food joint where full grown men were working and talking kindly to the children on the other side of the counter rather than surly, pimply teenagers. You could tell that Subway was a fairly new concept though (the little girl asked her mom as they were wrapping up a tortilla, "C'est une crêpe maman?"), and the men behind the counter were taking their sweet time.

And they didn't cook the bacon. (That's me on the right being haunted by the bacon... hahaha but actually: a painting by Francis Bacon)

It looks like pre-cooked bacon. I mean... I really HOPE it's pre-cooked bacon. Because they just popped it into my sandwich rather than cooking it on those dinky little carton trays in the microwave... It was still mushy when I started eating the sub. So now I'm wondering if its half-cooked bacon, whether the mere suggestion to my stomach that I may have food poisoning is making it roil, or if the idea of getting food poisoning the day before we go to Paris (where you have to pay 50 centimes every time you want to use the washroom - if you can find one that is) is stressing me out so much that I'm giving myself indigestion.

Ah well. We'll know by tomorrow won't we? Food poisoning twice in a matter of six months....never had this in my life before coming to France damn it. I THOUGHT THEY INVENTED HAUT CUISINE?!?! Bastards keep poisoning me.

Anyway the title of this blog was actually because I think I might be one of the most apologetic tourists EVER. Even as I was boiling with resigned rage at the thought of being food poisoned, as I imagined myself going back the next day to yell at them, all I pictured in my head was of myself apologizing but telling them that they really should cook the bacon first. It's the same with everything. People rudely bump into me at the super market without saying a word, and I find myself saying sorry, even though I was the one they shouldered aside. Sometimes I cringe when I hear other exchange students talking with french people if they don't apologize for bothering them or thank them profusely, because of this weird sense of overcompensation.

Is it a Canadian thing, that we're too P.C or too polite, that we're apologetic for even being in a country not our own? Or is it France? Are they so haughty on the outside that while you break through to their friendliness you feel unwanted and guilty for making them put up with you?