First Month in France

I’ve been in France for pretty much exactly a month now, and I still have a hard time believing I’m here.  Every once in a while, I have a moment where I realize exactly how far from home I am, and it hits me: “Holy shit, I live in France now.”  This happens somewhat often - like every night when I realize that the make-up remover towels I bought here smell different than the ones from CVS, or when I go to the supermarket and have a hard time differentiating between laundry detergent and fabric softener, or when I walk down the street, or down the hallway at school, or into the kitchen in my building, and not a single person is speaking English.  Still, the thought that I live here hasn’t really sunk in.  The fact that I’m getting paid to live here is particularly hard to believe.  I feel infinitely lucky to have an opportunity like this one, and I have been enjoying myself more than I can express in a blog post.  That said, every day is something of a challenge, and it can be exhausting to live in another language.  A month into my experience here, I find myself feeling the first twinges of homesickness.  Maybe “homesick” isn’t exactly the right word…the fact that I miss my friends and family goes without saying, and I’m also missing the comfort and familiarity of certain other things, too; but “homesick” has a particularly negative connotation, I think, and I don’t think that fits my situation.  I don’t feel negative in the least.  On the contrary, I am content to be here.  I often feel quite in my element despite being quite outside my comfort zone.  I’ve also been away from home for far longer than this before, and so these feelings are not exactly new.  There are some things, though, that I will be glad to return to when I’m home for Christmas.  More specifically:

-       Ice cubes

-       Jeopardy (whatever, I’m a nerd and I love trivia)

-       My Blackberry

-       Netflix

-       The District of Columbia (I began missing DC as soon as I left in August, so this one really doesn’t have much to do with me being here – especially since going home no longer means going to DC – but I miss it nonetheless)

-       Big-ass cups of American coffee (they call it coffee, but what they drink here is really espresso)

-       Temperatures in Fahrenheit (In Celsius, 30 degrees means it’s really hot.  Wtf?!)

-       Oatmeal (my favorite breakfast/snack/comfort food, and completely impossible to find in this country)

These are all actually pretty minor things (except for the friends and family part, but modern technology means I can keep in pretty close contact) and for that I am grateful.  I love home, but I am also loving Bordeaux.  I guess the thing about loving more than one place is that wherever you are, you’re always missing somewhere else.  And I love a lot of places.  I try to put it out of my mind so that I can truly enjoy the time I have here, and I have been.  This is a beautiful city (the park I go running in has PALM TREES) and I am meeting wonderful people from all over the United States, France, and the world.  I am lucky to have places I miss while I am here, and I feel luckier still knowing I love it here enough that one day, Bordeaux will be the city I am missing.