I'll take the subway

Man, I love sandwiches. I know that there's nothing profound about that, but I really do love a good sandwich. Club, toasted, open-faced: I like 'em all. We've been in France for three years now, and I have yet to get into the habit of eating a sit-down cooked meal at lunch. Most days I prefer to grab a sandwich at a local shop and eat at my desk or on a bench outside, weather permitting. It's not the most social thing I could do, but I don't work here to make friends (and for the record, I haven't).

You might think that the French make mean sandwiches, but then you'd be wrong and still smell vaguely like gym socks. It's one of the great mysteries of the world when you think about it: how can a nation that is so well-reputed for making bread, condiments, cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables and meats be so terrible at making sandwiches? It's like they spent all their time and effort preparing the perfect ingredients, only to call it a day when it came down to slicing the damn things and slapping them all together. It's borderline criminal how they prepare their sandwiches. Ask for a ham sandwich and you're likely to get half a baguette with a couple of slices of ham inside. No lettuce, tomato, cheese, mayo or mustard. Just ham and bread. They're so damn...literal.

Fortunately, a Subway sandwich shop opened up not too far from our apartment. Sure, their bread tastes like a used sponge, their ingredients are sub-par and the decor will give you an epileptic seizure, but at least at Subway I can get my sandwich with as many olives, onions, cucumber slices and slices of bacon as I want. Digesting it, of course, is another matter.