I was up in Charleston, SC last weekend - an absolutely charming city brimming with energy and life - visiting my friend Will. We kept busy from Friday through Sunday, touring the town, finding good spots to eat, and reveling in the Southern city's rich American history.
One of the ways we did that was by taking a ferry tour out to Fort Sumter, the manmade fort where the first shot of the Civil War was fired.
Will and I boarded the ferry, and I settled in to enjoy the sea breeze and listen to the corny recorded tour guide for the half hour boat ride.
But it wasn't long before something else caught my attention. Actually, it was some*one*. The dark-haired stranger with the brown Diesel-type shoes, the expensive worn-in jeans, the green wool-lined coat... and the aviator sunglasses.
He was decidedly *not* a Southern boy, and I was struck by the suspicion that he was not American at all.
Once we arrived at Fort Sumter, and the Chris Farley-esque tour guide gave his schpeel for fully half of the time we had to explore the amazing brick structure, at least 40% of my mindshare was occupied by this beautiful stranger.
So, the tour ends. We get back on the boat for the half-hour ferry ride back. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn't have the guts.
But since I could have sworn that he was looking at me several times during the tour - even, perhaps, staring - I was encouraged that it wouldn't be such a bad move after all.
With about 10 minutes left to go on the boat ride, I gave myself a pep talk using all kinds of phrases like, "You only have one shot", "What do you have to lose?" "If you don't say something, you'll regret it later" - etc.
And it worked. I told Will there was a cute guy "up there" and I was gonna go talk to him.
So I did.
It turned out I was right - he wasn't American. He's from France, and his friend next to him from Ireland. They're going to law school in North Carolina, and were visiting Charleston for the weekend. As we chatted, they said they were probably going to visit Savannah that night and leave the next day.
Score.
Since I live in Savannah, and I was also driving back that evening, I put out the "tour guide" bait - "If you guys want a tour guide..." They gladly took it.
So, we had a dinner date that night.
They got in late, so we ended up hanging out at a scrubby bar till 1 a.m.
I'm not a bar person, but we ignored the strange drunks and the men with roaming hands dancing with inebriated women as much as possible... and... just planted ourselves at a table and enjoyed good conversation, so-so bar food - and yes, even some good (if deafening) music from the bar musician.
We had such a good time, in fact, that I was invited back for an encore the next day. So we also hung out Monday, from morning till about 3 p.m. - at which time they wanted to get started on the long drive home with sufficient daylight left.
So, that's the long prelude to my eating tips today. And based on my experiences with these guys, here are your...
Food & Fitness Lessons From a Frenchman
1. Eating crap is a diversion, not a lifestyle
Gregoire, or Greg, wasn't like American guys when it came to food. Sure, he ate his share of Burger King on the road, and went for the Confederate Sandwich at the bar - a fried-chicken-on-bread concoction that would make most fitness fanatics cringe. But it wasn't a *lifestyle* - it was a diversion. That's key.
He talked about how if he kept eating like that every day, he would soon become "very big!" And while he doesn't love eating vegetables, he eats them because they're good for his health and for
He had eaten too much fast food and drank too much that weekend, and he needed to "pure my blood", he said.
"Like detoxify?" I asked, "You know that word?"
His face lit up. "Detoxify! Yes, exactly. I need to detoxify. Eat vegetables and drinks lots of water all week."
2. Commercial areas filled with fast food restaurants are tacky, and not any place to spend a lot of your time
Colm (pro: column), the Irish guy, related Greg's reaction to Myrtle Beach, SC, whose streets are apparently lacking in landscaping and natural beauty, and are instead a concrete mass plastered with gas stations and fast food restaurants. He thought it was, basically, gross.
Colm taught him the word "tacky" to describe the scene. A town dead to natural beauty, and replaced by gasoline-and-grease spewing joints on every street, is no place to spend your time. It's tacky.
3. Restaurant and fast-food portion sizes are NOT single servings - so don't eat them like they are
When I boxed up half my cafe lunch to take home, Greg looked amused and said, "I have never seen anyone do that before."
In France, he said, if you asked a waiter to box something up, he'd probably look at you impatiently and say, "Did you bring a box?"
You either eat what's on your plate or leave it. In America, the portions are so supersized that it's nearly impossible to eat what's on your plate. In France, "portion distortion" isn't rampant, so it's actually possible to eat most or all of your meal - without getting sick or popping any buttons.
4. Walk. As. Much. As. Possible.
Downtown Savannah is very pedestrian friendly, so on Monday we enjoyed walking up and down and all around as they absorbed the city's sights and sounds.
These boys weren't afraid to walk. They're used to it. And in fact, the non-walking American lifestyle has come as a shock to them in many ways.
For example, take their experience of catching a cab Friday night in Charleston before heading to a bar. They wanted to eat something before arriving, so the cabbie brought them through a fast food drive through, and they ate their meal in the car.
This was obviously not uncommon, as a previous passenger had left his used cup in one of the cupholders - cupholders provided especially for riders.
In France and Ireland, this is unheard of. Not only is eating in a cab a big no-no, but grabbing a meal on the go isn't an option either - not on the cab driver's time.
The guys were happy to get out and walk around on a nice day like they're used to doing back home. The European sacrifice of "convenience" is replaced by a much better reward: normal bodyweight and good cardiovascular health.
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These are perhaps common sense lessons - but comparing the cultural quirks of the U.S., France, and Ireland as seen from the perspective of the countries' offspring was a fun and fascinating experience.
And more often than not, common sense is the most reliable, and most profound, kind of sense we can cultivate.
And two final lessons from my fabulous weekend experience:
1. Foreign guys are coolest.
2. If you feel the urge to do something, but you're scared to do it - DO IT ANYWAY.
In the words of Coldplay, "If you never try, you'll never know."
