I was in Charleston, South Carolina last weekend, an absolutely lovely city, full of energy and life, visiting my friend Will. We stayed busy Friday through Sunday, touring the city, finding great places to eat, and reveling in the southern city’s rich American history.

One of the ways we did this was by taking a ferry ride to Fort Sumter, the man-made 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 cheesy recorded tour guide during the half-hour boat ride.

But it wasn’t long before something else caught my attention. Actually, it was someone*one*. The dark-haired stranger in the brown Diesel shoes, the expensive faded jeans, the green fleece-lined coat…and the aviator sunglasses.

He was definitely *not* a southern boy, and I had a suspicion that he wasn’t an American at all.

Once we got to Fort Sumter, and tour guide Chris Farley-esque gave his schpeel for half the time we had to explore the incredible brick structure, at least 40% of my mind was occupied by this beautiful stranger.

Then the tour ends. We return to the boat for the half hour ferry ride. 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 course, even, perhaps, staring at me, it encouraged me to think that it wouldn’t be such a bad move after all.

With about 10 minutes left until the boat ride, I encouraged myself using all kinds of phrases like, “You only get one chance,” “What do you have to lose?” “If you don’t say something, you will regret it later” – etc.

And it worked. I told Will that there was a cute boy “up there” and that I was going to go talk to him.

So I did.

It turned out that he was right: he was not an American. He is from France, and his friend with him from Ireland. They go to law school in North Carolina and visited Charleston over the weekend. As we chatted, they said that they would probably visit Savannah that night and leave the next day.

Score.

Since I live in Savannah, and was also driving back that night, I pulled the “tour guide” bait – “If you want a tour guide…” They gladly took it.

So, we had a dinner date that night.

They were late so we ended up hanging out in a seedy bar until 1 am

I’m not a bar person, but we ignored the drunken strangers and wandering-handed men dancing with drunken women as much as possible…and…just sat at a table and enjoyed a good conversation, more or less except at the bar. food, and yes, even good (if deafening) music from the musician in the bar.

We had such a good time, in fact, that they invited me to an encore the next day. So we also hung out on Monday, from morning until around 3pm, by which time they wanted to start the long drive home with plenty of daylight.

So that’s the long prelude to my eating tips for today. And based on my experiences with these guys, here are their…

Food and fitness lessons from a Frenchman

1. Eating junk is fun, not a lifestyle.

Gregoire, or Greg, was not like Americans when it came to food. Sure, he ate his share of Burger King on the way, and he went for the Confederate Sandwich at the bar, a bun-fried-chicken concoction that would make most fitness fanatics cringe. But it wasn’t a *lifestyle*, it was a distraction. That is the key.

He talked about how if he kept eating like this every day, he would soon become “very big”. And although he doesn’t like to eat vegetables, he eats them because they are good for his health and for
He had eaten too much fast food and drunk too much that weekend, and needed to “purify my blood,” he said.

“How to detox?” I asked him, “Do you know that word?”

His face is read. “Detox! Yes, exactly. I need to detox. Eat vegetables and drink lots of water all week.”

2. Shopping areas filled with fast food restaurants are tacky and not a place to spend a lot of time.

Colm (pro:column), the Irish boy, recounted Greg’s reaction to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, whose streets seem devoid of scenery and natural beauty, instead a mass of concrete covered with gas stations and restaurants of fast food. He thought he was basically gross.

Colm taught him the word “sticky” to describe the scene. A city killed by natural beauty, and replaced by joints spitting gasoline and grease on every street, is not a place to spend time. It’s sticky

3. Restaurant and fast food portion sizes are NOT individual servings, so don’t eat them as if they were

When I packed up half of my coffee lunch to take home, Greg looked amused and said, “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”

In France, he said, if you ask a waiter to pack something, he’ll probably look at you impatiently and say, “Did you bring a box?”

Either you eat what’s on your plate or you leave it. In America, portions are so large 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 food, without getting sick or popping any buttons.

4. Walk. As much. As possible.

Downtown Savannah is very pedestrian friendly so Monday we enjoyed walking back and forth while soaking up the sights and sounds of the city.

These guys weren’t afraid to walk. They’re used to it. And indeed, the non-walking American lifestyle has surprised them in many ways.

For example, take your experience of hailing a cab on a Friday night in Charleston before heading to a bar. They wanted to eat something before they arrived, so the taxi driver took them through a fast food service and they ate in the car.

This was obviously not uncommon, as a previous passenger had left his used cup in one of the cup holders, cup holders provided especially for passengers.

In France and Ireland, this is unheard of. Eating in a taxi is not only a big no-no, but having a meal on the go is also not an option, not in taxi driver time.

The boys were happy to go out and walk on a nice day like they used to do at home. The European sacrifice of “comfort” is replaced by a much better reward: normal body weight and good cardiovascular health.

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These are perhaps common sense lessons, but comparing the cultural quirks of the US, France, and Ireland seen from the perspective of the countries’ offspring was a fun and fascinating experience.

And most of the time, common sense is the deepest and most reliable kind of sense we can cultivate.

And two final lessons from my fabulous weekend experience:

1. Foreign guys are the coolest.

2. If you feel the need to do something, but are afraid to do it, DO IT ANYWAY.

In Coldplay’s words, “if you never try, you’ll never know.”