Things I've learned thus far from living in a furnished efficiency that I might not have appreciated otherwise (somewhat dark photo showing kitchen on left with toilet room behind the dividing wall, tub and sink through door on right):

1) it is nice when the toilet is not separated from the rest of the bathroom, forcing you to walk all the way around the room to go from the pot to the sink.

2) butter is not a seasoning. While one of my favorite things in life is a grilled cheese on rye, it turns out that butter (particularly the unsalted variety) is just a carrier for the other flavors and allows the bread to crisp properly on the outside. Even a grilled cheese can be improved by the addition of dried garlic chips, which would count as a proper seasoning. But potatoes sauteed in butter, for example, just isn't all that. I've been avoiding buying a lot of foodstuffs so that I don't have to haul it to the new place, but when you think about it a head of garlic, some salt and some olive oil don't really constitute a huge investment in terms of weight. Plus we could probably finish the garlic before moving. And maybe the salt, too. (Full disclosure: I impulse-bought a basil plant the first time I went to the store--an extremely wise investment it turns out.)

3) there's not a lot you can do with 1.5 working burners and a microwave, yet some of our neighbors seem to be here for the long haul. The people next to us have a clothes line, some pot hangers with geraniums in them, and a very large satellite dish on their balcony. How can they stand it?? First, judging by their conversation they're probably Russian spies (cuisine not that great, so they probably microwave a lot and don't care). Second, as with many urban areas, eating out seems to be much more prevalent than it is elsewhere. Third, if in addition to sending secret messages they can pick up better TV on their dish than is available on the cable provided by the hotel then they probably aren't forced to find other things to do, such as attempting to cook good food.

4) I'm probably that greedy American capitalist pig everyone's always talking about. While generally speaking I try to only buy things that I know I can use, try to eat in season and locally, and be responsible about my purchases, the lack of beverage options is hurting. Whereas usually I have a couple bottles of wine, beer, various liquors and liqueurs, filtered water, carbonated water, tap water, orange juice, coffee, and perhaps some soda or kool aid or whatnot available to me at any given time, in addition to an almost infinite variety of tea, here I have tap water, refrigerated tap water, OJ, one wine and/or beer, coffee, orange pekoe tea, and scotch. Somehow this is seriously inadequate, verging on criminal. I look forward to the arrival of my tea collection so I can have a tall glass of mango iced tea, slightly sweetened, using the kind C. & M. brought me back from the islands. Or a gigantic pot of colonille vanilla, with a second steep available upon request.

It will be obvious to the casual reader that most of these observations are food-related.

-s

A lot of the apartments here advertise that they have American kitchens ("cuisine americaine equipee"). I never knew what it meant other than that the kitchen actually came with appliances, which isn't always the case here. I asked a guy at work about it the other day. He said he didn't know what it meant, but I should know since I'm an American. I said, "Where I come from we just call the kitchens." He then suggested that maybe it meant "American sitcom kitchen"--one that's open to the other room so there can be banter between the mother cooking away while he father sits and reads the paper.

We're moving on May 20, so all will be set right then.

-Jack