I've been here for almost three weeks and so much has happened! I'm still adjusting to school, the schedule is very, very different than the U.S. but I think I'm begining to understand it all. Well, maybe. Mostly I just follow everybody else around and try not to get lost. I've already done that once and I had to ask the janitor, but, of course, it was really hard to communicate, so we had to go to the office to figure out the room number and then they had to escort me to the room. Just a liiiitle embarrasing. Hopefully I won't have to do that again.
So a few things about school:
Unlike in America, I have a different schedule everyday. There's even certain classes I have only on Week A but not Week B. Usually I begin at 8:20, other times I don't start until 9 or 10. Every other Tuesday (the whole week A and B thingy), I don't start until the gloriously late time of 12:15. I usually finish at about 4:00 or 5:00 except on Wednesdays which are half days. Very confusing. I actually like all the variety, even if it means that I'll probably never memorize my shedule.
Most of my teachers are very nice and the kids are really good about letting me copy notes. My little french-english dictionary is pretty helpful, though it makes me realize how much vocabulary I need to learn. I already failed one french test because I spent the entire class period just trying to translate the text. I'm not even sure what the the questions were. Oh well, c'est la vie!
There are so many little things that are different here that I decided to make a list of some of the things I've noticed. Some things might be specific to my school/town/family, but here it is:
1. Instead of stoplights they have roundabouts everywhere.
2. The keyboards are slightly different. I have to shift for numbers and periods and the A, Q, Z, and W are switched around. Also the M is to the left of the L, not by the N.
3. They drink a lot less milk here. I've had about as much milk in two weeks as I do in one day in the U.S.
4. I've only been to couple of houses, but I've yet to see carpet.
5. The toilets are seperate from the bathrooms.
6. The butter comes in really big blocks.
7. Most people buy fresh baguettes every day and they are soooo goooood.
8. Everybody asks if we eat a lot of hamburgers in America. I never know quite how to answer this.
9. They also think its really cool that I have my drivers license and can drive.
10. At school the teachers do not have their own rooms. They move rooms each period like the students. As a result, all the rooms are very bare, no posters or papers or anything.
11. There are also no clocks in the classrooms, which drives me nuts.
12. The students' notes are very, very neat. A lot of them use rulers to underline things, fountain pens, and white out.
13. There aren't any drinking fountains, gosh dang it.
14. They do actually do la bise here (the kisses on the cheeks), which I think is pretty cool.
15. Everybody has a pencil pouch, including all the guys.
16. When you walk into a store or a boutique, you have to say "Bonjour" to whoever's there.
17. Nobody brings a cold lunch to school.
18. You can leave school whenever you want, which is nice because you sometimes have long breaks during the day.
19. The McDonalds here are nicer as far as the area, but the food tastes the same (to me at least).
20. Most things come in smaller sizes, from McFlurries to shampoo.
21. People walk places way more often here than in the U.S., which I really enjoy.
22. The cars are generally smaller.
23. Way more kids smoke here. During breaks at school, everybody goes outside to smoke, which was really surprising to me. I'd say maybe 60% of the students smoke.
24. It's easy for them to buy cigarettes because the stores don't ask for ID.
25. The tax is included in the price, so if a Pain au Chocolat costs one euro, it really costs one euro.
26. I really love Pain au Chocolats.
27. They watch a lot of american shows with the voices dubbed over, which sounds pretty funny sometimes because the voices are totally different.
There you go, 27 things about France! There are plenty more, but I think thats enough for now :)
Au revoir,
Lauren