gift indigestion

Nearly two years ago, (wow, has it really been two years?) I wrote a blog about the food in France. In it, I complained about the quality of the whole wheat bread there. Fast forward to now, what I wouldn't give for a slice of that "delicious" bread. I love toast. Most mornings, my breakfast is toast (in a perfect world it is toast with Crunchy Smart Balance peanut butter and raisins or a banana). It is quick. It is warm. It goes great with coffee. Whole wheat bread does not exist here. My options are thick sliced Wonder Bread quality white bread, normal size slices of Wonder Bread quality white bread, and potato bread, which I am pretty sure is just Wonder Bread with a little bit of yellow dye in it. Along those same lines, I also can't find brown rice, whole wheat pasta, or cereal with whole grains of any kind. The huge decrease in whole grains, combined with the white rice I eat every day for lunch, has left me feeling not great. A lot of days after lunch I look about 4 months pregnant.

And then there are the gifts. Koreans love giving gifts. Sometimes the gifts are in the form of stickers, pictures, or little erasers. However, most of the time, the gifts are food, specifically junk food. I don't really know the proper etiquette for refusing a gift, so I don't. And the barrage of gifts keeps coming. Don't get me wrong, I love junk food as much as the next person (probably more honestly), but it is excessive. If I am able to throw it out, sometimes I do. But I don't know how the Koreans I work with would feel about that, so more often than not, I am unable to throw it away. This week alone I was given 3 iced latte/mocha type drinks, ice cream 3 times, cake (twice) a donut, various pieces of candy and chocolates, and half a piece of corn (ok, not junk food), all in 5 days. Not at all shocking that I felt miserable last night. My stomach hurt. I felt like my teeth were rotting out. I never wanted to eat anything sugary again. Now I am going out to buy more lettuce. This weekend will be a two day detox before returning to school Monday morning, and starting it all over again.

Unrelated note, a coworker who lives in my building asked me if I would take care of her dog this weekend. I agreed, because she told me she would give me a key to her apartment and I could just keep the dog there. I love dogs. I really really really love dogs. But I don't want one. And when it comes to inside pets, I am a cat person. They are cleaner, less smelly, they don't jump up on my bed and lick my face, they are calmer, all around lower maintenance. I don't want a dog inside, especially in my tiny apartment. So imagine my surprise when at 8 am, I was woken up by my doorbell. She was standing there with her dog. She told me her apartment was too messy and she didn't want me to see it. So she just figured the dog could stay in my apartment while she was away. Umm...what? I doth protest. I was not awake and too shocked to do anything besides stand there. It is monsoon season. The dog had just been for a walk, and was soaking wet from the rain and dirty from the nasty Seoul sidewalks. First order of business, jump on my bed. Second order of business, jump on my pillow. Gross.

Tomorrow evening's to do list: 1. Wash all my bedding.