Everything in France is Different

When I studied abroad in Paris two years ago, my program director advised us all to remind ourselves each morning that, “Everything in France is different.”  At first I thought it was sort of stupid advice, but eventually I came around to realizing that it’s sort of brilliant.  It’s important to remind yourself every day that it’s okay to feel a little out of sorts sometimes.  Because really, life in France is quite different.  I mean, obviously.  But what I’m saying is, living in France means that my daily life has changed quite a bit, and my habits have changed as well.  Living in France means that I usually have 3-4 kinds of cheese in my fridge and 2-3 kinds of bread on my shelf at any given time.  Living in France means that nearly 50% of my salary goes directly to rent.  It also means that I qualify for welfare and eventually will receive checks from the French government to alleviate the pressure of paying rent in a European city on a teaching assistant’s salary.  Living in France means that I have to think long and hard about verb conjugations before launching into a story or asking a question.  It means that I no longer inherently understand how to work a stovetop or oven, for they have different (read: confusing) buttons and temperatures in Celsius.  Living in France means that sometimes I second-guess myself on even the most basic things, like a train schedule or what kind of yogurt I’m buying. It means I can buy a decent bottle of wine for approximately the same price as a case of bottled water.  It means I get to talk to and become friends with people who have had completely different experiences than the ones I have had in the United States.  It means some days I get home entirely exhausted, cursing my students in not one, but two languages.  It means sometimes I ache for my Blackberry with the same longing I imagine of someone who is missing a limb.  It means pain au chocolat for breakfast on the weekends.  It means a massive drain on my savings account.  It means every time I laugh I am conscious of how American I am.  Living in France means I get to do something exciting and new and fun.  I recently read a book called Anthropology of an American Girl, which seemed fitting since I too am an American girl, though in actual fact I spent most of the book trying to decide whether or not I should even keep reading.  There was one passage, though, that I thought really aptly described the feeling I got when I first got to France.  Since I could certainly not describe such a feeling any better, here it is in the words of author Hilary Thayer Hamann: “I remember feeling sort of tired, sort of electric and free…like there was nothing in the world that could possibly bind me.  Like I belonged nowhere and everywhere.”  Tired and electric and free – living in France is just like that.