So long, Farewell...

Well, we've reached the end.  Somehow, amidst all the smelly cheese, strange men, cultural barriers, and embarrassing moments, three and a half months came and went.  Thanks for joining me on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

This is it though.  I'm home.

For me this means that there are no more security checkpoints, no more French boys to avoid, no more weird showers, no more public transportation, no more sleeping in hostels, no more "regular" beaches,  definitely no more nude beaches, and no more embarrassing moments...every time I open my mouth.

For you this means that you'll just have to ask me if you want to hear the dozens of other embarrassing stories I have.  I hope to talk to you soon!

Now that I'm back, I'm reminded of the most important thing I learned this semester:  I'm not stupid.  I'm American.  And it is GOOD to be home.

Au revoir!

The Doorbell Killer

(Special thanks goes out to co-author and star of this blog, Heidi.)

In our first hostel in Italy, each shower had its own cord hanging from some sort of button.  Because the lights were on a timer, I assumed the button was just another light switch since they looked about the same.  My sister once asked me about it and told me she had thought it was to turn on a fan.  We thought it wouldn’t matter so we never bothered to find out what it was for.  Unfortunately, our ignorance would prove to be problematic for us later on…

In the second town, my sister and I had the luxury of staying in a private apartment. After taking the first shower, Heidi noted that the bathroom had been unusually steamy and suggested that I try turning on the “fan.”

“That’s a great idea!  I’ll try pulling it once to see if the bathroom is just as steamy,” I planned out with my sister.

Just a few minutes into my shower, I decide it’s time to put our hypothesis to the test and I give the cord a swift tug.  Nothing happens.

Meanwhile, Heidi is enjoying Italian television and tending to her sunburned feet when, all of a sudden, the doorbell rings. 

Thankfully, our mother had spent the past three weeks forwarding emails about the dangers of Italy.  Answering doors in foreign countries?  Definitely not a good idea.

Being the intelligent woman that she is, Heidi freezes in her bed and hopes the Doorbell Killer will think nobody is home.

Meanwhile, back in the shower, I realize the steam is really starting to build up so I do the only thing I can: I pull on the cord two quick times.  Nothing happens.

Back in the room, just as Heidi has regained use of her limbs, the Doorbell Killer rings again.  Twice.

Back in the bathroom, thinking I had pulled the chord too quickly the other times, I give it one long yank.  Nothing happens. 

Heidi hears the Doorbell Killer ring again, this time demanding his admittance into our loft.

Now at the end of my shower, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the dreaded post-shower mirror fog, I tug on the cord in a morse-code pattern, hoping to unlock the secret fan password.  Nothing happens.

Heidi, realizing the danger she is in, panics as the Doorbell Killer feverishly pushes the buzzer.

“Kate.  Katie.  Kate, “ I hear being whispered after I turn off the shower.

“WHAT?” I call back with a tone reserved only for my sisters.

“Someone keeps ringing the doorbell.  It happened four times while you were in the shower,” Heidi tells me.

“Ok, well I’m gonna go ahead and dry off now,” I answer, nonchalant about our impending murders.

“Hurry up,” Heidi begs me in a whisper.  Little did she know my company would not shield her from the mysterious Doorbell Killer but rather would bring her face-to-face with the murderer herself.

At this point, you might be asking yourself any number of these questions:

Who would be visiting you in Italy?

What made you think a visitor must be a murderer?

When would a killer ever ring a doorbell?

Where did you get the idea that fans were so hard to turn on?

Why is the doorbell in your shower?

The answer to all of these is simply that I don’t know.  At the time, it made sense.  In fact, it wasn’t until the next night when I took my shower and the Doorbell Killer returned that Heidi and I realized I was the Doorbell Killer.

Muriel

For our upcoming Easter break, I will be spending two weeks in Italy with my sister.

Or so I thought.

Because I knew I’d be doing a good bit of traveling by train while in Italy, I purchased a railpass to use for the trip.  My sister had set up all of our hostel reservations and our itinerary so all I had to do was get there.   Literally, my only responsibility was getting to Rome.

Now, I’ve done enough traveling to know that there’s no need to make train reservations.  There are trains constantly going places and all the trains I’ve ever been on have had plenty of empty seats.  So when my friends told me they were going to the train station two weeks before their departure to reserve tickets, I wasn’t concerned.

And then they came back.

“Muriel said we can’t go,” they told me.  

First of all, who is Muriel?  Why is she telling you this?  And go where?  To Italy?  Of course you can go to Italy.  There are like five different trains a day.

“Muriel from the train station.  We finally got her to understand what we wanted to do and she looked it up and said we couldn’t get on any of the trains.  They’re all booked.  We’re just going in May but I don’t know what you’re going to do.”

Oh.  No.  I have to get to Italy.  I guess I could find a flight but they’re probably all booked.  My mom has already sent me at least a dozen emails about how dangerous Italy can be.  I can’t leave my sister there alone!  She’s only 26!

The next day, I prepared myself for disappointing news as I gathered my railpass and a few other papers.  As I waited in line, I squinted to read the nametag of the woman working: Muriel.  Great.  I’m going to end up talking to her and she’s not even going to understand my French and she’s going to tell me the same news.  

But then, I saw another employee returning from her break.  Maybe I would get to talk to her.  She would just have to open her window before Muriel finished talking to her current customer.  I watched the new girl as she painstakingly straightened her papers and turned on her computer. 

Hurry up!  I’m gonna get stuck with Muriel!

She fixed her nametag and applied chapstick as I watched Muriel’s customer hand her some money.

“Open your window!!!” my eyes yelled at her while I continued to smile at the new girl.

Then, she slowly switched her sign to “Open” and called me to the window.  I ran up to her window, just in case Muriel tried to stop me, and explained to the new girl what I needed, all the while preparing myself for the inevitable bad news.  How would I explain to her in French that I had to go to Italy because my sister would be there alone and would get pick-pocketed unless I went?  (You see, while everyone working at McDonald’s refuses to speak anything but English with me, it never fails that every time I have to do something important the person doesn’t speak any English.) 

I’ve got it!  She might not be able to understand my French but I do know a universal language:  Crying Teenage American Girl.  CTAG has had impressive results in Europe, including getting me through Spanish customs…the opposite direction.  Spain should probably look into their security measures.

“Ok which train would you like?” the woman asked me in French.  In less than five minutes I had my tickets in my hand without shedding a tear.

“That’s it?” I asked her with a big smile on my face.

Laughing, she shooed me away from her window.

The next day my friends went back to the train station to get their tickets…unsuccessfully.  Like she’d said before, all the trains to Italy were booked.  

I just wanted some rice...

All I wanted was some white rice.  I didn’t even want anything special.  I didn’t want anything else in it.  Just white rice.  As we walked around London’s Chinatown, Megan and I picked out a lovely place to eat so that I could get white rice.

After looking at the menu, I decided I should order something else with white rice so the waiter wouldn't think it was a strange order.  When he came to ask us what we wanted, I ordered some noodles and white rice.

“So you want them both?  Two orders?” he said as he judged me.

“Yes,” I answered him, a bit embarrassed that he would call me out on that and flattered that he thought I wouldn't be able to eat that much.  That's sweet of you.  Really.  But just bring me the rice anyway.  They are both sides.  I'm not even trying to have two full meals…and even if I wanted two meals, one is just plain rice! 

“OK.  And for you?” he asked Megan, still hesitant about my order.

As Megan ordered a dish of chicken, a side of rice, and an order of spring rolls, I waited for the waiter to judge the quantity of food she ordered.  Instead, the young man looked at me, took his pen, and crossed something off on his notepad.

“You don’t need the rice,” he said to me.

This, of course, was not the first time I’ve been faced with the stereotype that Americans (or even that I) eat too much while I’ve been abroad.  And while I can agree with that sometimes, I still don’t even think this was one of those cases.  It was rice and noodles!  Rice.  And.  Noodles.  Megan got to have chicken and a whole order of spring rolls and rice without even being questioned.  Why did she get to have all of that food and I could only have noodles? 

As I looked at him, slightly offended, I laughed and told him that he could bring the rice anyway.  Really, I’m the one paying for it.  I don’t know why you care.  Bring me some rice, buddy.

With a very serious face, the waiter answered me, “No.  You can have it at the end if you need it.” 

When my “meal” finally came, I pushed aside Megan’s three plates to make room for my plate of noodles.  Determined I would show him I should have been allowed to get the rice, I finished my meal and waited for him to ask me if I’d like my rice now.

Instead, he brought us the check.

In an act of defiance, I marched across the street and ordered two big pastries .

And now my pants are too small.  I hope you're happy now, waiter.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

When I previewed the picture I had just taken, I told Megan we would have to retake it.

“Why?” she asked me, obviously not happy to have to pose for yet another of my pictures.

 “Well for starters,” I tried to explain to her, “there’s a naked woman on the beach down there.”

For Megan’s birthday we had decided to go to a beach not far from our campus.  After a short hike on a beautiful path through the woods we came to an opening right at the beach.  We were sure "our" beach had to be very close, since our directions had taken us right to this spot.  Assuming that the picture-ruining woman was simply on the nude part of the beach, we decided we were probably supposed to walk through the nude beach to get to the regular beach.

After some convincing and a few moments to get over the shock of it all, I had Megan courageously lead us through the beach.  As I watched each step she took, careful not to see anything but her feet in front of me, I was hopeful that we would soon reach a spot where I could perhaps look around and enjoy the beach instead of Megan's feet.  When I saw her feet stop moving, I somehow knew that we hadn’t walked far enough to be out of the nude beach.

“We’re trapped.  There’s nothing on the other side of that rock.  We have to stay here,” she told me.

Perfect.  All I'm trying to do is go somewhere with clothed people and now we can't even do that.  Trying not to make the situation more awkward than a nude beach is to begin with, we decided we could just stay there and mind our own business.  After finding two rocks to use as blinders and wedging ourselves far out of view of anything, I realized the nude beach wasn’t so bad.  But I also figured it wouldn't hurt anything to pretend to be asleep the whole time I was there...you know, just in case.

“Do you know what this beach is?” we heard a man ask us, the only clothed people on the beach, about an hour later.

Wanting to seem like we weren’t just some Americans who had somehow stumbled upon a nude beach, Megan simply told him we did.  (I’m not sure what he was expecting us to say at this point.  Oh, this is a nude beach?  I hadn’t noticed that everyone around me wasn’t wearing clothes but now that you mention it... )

“So, umm, your clothes…Why?” he tried to ask us.

Now, I’ve never been asked this question before so I had no good answer as to why I was wearing clothes.  “I don’t know…because that’s what I do every day?  I get up and put on clothes,” was the best I could come up with.  Luckily I was “asleep” and left Megan to answer it.

Megan, understanding that he was actually asking us if we would be partaking in the -uhhh- culture, told him, “Not today,” and laughed as if we were simply not in the mood to be naked in the middle of a beach. 

Right, Megan.  Not today.

March? Let's hit the beach!

Sometimes, no matter how many times people may tell you about something, you can just never be prepared for the situation.

This is how I feel about the beaches here…

As we passed by her, Megan and I struggled not to giggle.  I know, I know.   I am 21 years old.  I should be more mature than this.  I just can’t help it.  I laugh when I feel uncomfortable.  And right now, I was feeling really uncomfortable. I’ve just never seen it happen before.  But that woman was just on the beach…in public…like it was no big deal.

“That was definitely her underwear, right?” I asked Megan just to verify that’s what I had just seen.

Appalled, Megan and I ranted about how offensive it was that someone would just be out on the beach in underwear and a shirt.  The woman, probably in her fifties, and her underwear, appearing to be just as old, just didn't care who might be passing by.  If she had been wearing the bottoms to a swimsuit it wouldn’t have been a problem.  Or even if she'd had on underwear that resembled a swimsuit I maybe could have understood.  This, however, was simply inappropriate for a public beach.

(I really never expected what would happen next.  If I had, we would have sat somewhere else.  We could have walked down the beach a little more.  Or we could have positioned ourselves around the big rock.  But we didn’t think it could get worse.)

As the sun came out, Megan and I smiled as we thought about how we were spending the day at the beach…in March!  Our lives were so wonderful.  We had a nice blanket to sit on, books to read, music to listen to, and cookies to share.  Life simply could not be any better.

And that’s when it happened.

It only took seconds for us to change our I-can’t-believe-she’s-in-underwear attitude to an I’m-so-thankful-she’s-still-wearing-underwear attitude.  As we saw her shirt on the ground beside her, Megan and I realized that we certainly were not in America anymore.   

And this was a "regular" beach.  Check back for our next beach adventure!

Escargot (A Picture Guide)

Escargot in six easy steps.

Step 1: Be convinced by friends that it's a good idea to order snails.

Step 2: Observe the brightly-colored substance.

(various methods are acceptable for Step 2)

Step 4: Decide you'd rather not test the flavor.

Step 3: Test the flavor.

Step 5: Realize you just ate a snail!!!

              

Step 6: Then realize it just tasted like garlic butter.

The Five Food-Ordering Techniques

A girl’s gotta eat.  And that means a girl’s gotta order food.  Unfortunately, I have yet to find a method that isn’t embarrassing.  Depending on the country, the cashier, and the restaurant, I use any one of my five techniques for ordering food. 

1) Try saying it in the local language. 

This is obviously the ideal choice.  About 80% of the time I even get the food I want.  It is most successful when the other person speaks English.  Usually I’ll order in French and they just repeat my order back in English.  I used to wonder how they always knew I wasn’t a native speaker but then once I accidentally introduced myself to the cashier instead of ordering.  I think that probably gave it away.

When it goes bad: Once the cashier and I tried it all in French and somehow my chocolate muffin became an M&M McFlurry... without M&Ms. 

2)  Asking what things are.

Particularly effective at la pâtisserie, asking what something is, listening to the description, then agreeing to it is another technique I often use.  In my mind I’m tricking them into thinking I speak their language as I smile and nod while they list the ingredients. 

When it goes bad:  When I don’t actually know what they’re saying, sometimes I just agree to it anyway.  Once I thought I was getting some sort of sweet cheesecake and ended up with flan.

3)  “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Since I strategically place myself behind one of my friends, I often let them struggle through ordering and take notes.  If the person working is particularly unfriendly I usually walk up to them pretending to be as French as possible and just tell them I’ll have “the same”. 

When it goes bad:  On one of our first days here I forgot how to say “the same.”  I figured I’d just use a similar word so all I said was “too.”  They laughed at me.

4)  Use any language.

Spain was really the only place we’ve had major trouble communicating because we kept going to places where they didn’t speak English.  To order, we would just use any language and hope one of the words is similar to a language they speak.

When it goes bad:  While that method is effective for many words, “cheese” is one of the words where this will not work…and we really liked the cheese sandwiches.

5)  Point, nod, smile and take whatever they bring out.

In Spain I often used this technique.  Usually the server understood it to be the universal sign for I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing-here-and-I'm-sorry-you-got-stuck-waiting-on-me-today.-I-hope-this-isn't-too-awkward-for-you and probably made fun of me to my face but what do I care?  I’m just a dumb American.

When it goes bad:  We wanted grilled chicken sandwiches once and the man tried to give us microwaved ham and cheese.  When we finally got him to understand what we wanted he came back and told us they were out of chicken but we would be having “white beef.”  

My First Time in a Police Station

(We get through rough times by laughing at them...you can laugh at them too!  All the other parts of our trip went really well so don't feel bad for us.  We're in Europe!)

“Call your family and tell them how much fun you’re having!” mocked the calling card I found in my purse as we waited.

 After being pick-pocketed within minutes of our arrival in Madrid and walking in the cold to the police station, pepperspray in hand, “fun” wasn’t exactly the word I would use to describe what we were having.

“Well it’s shaped like a hot dog,” I heard Megan saying as she reported her stolen wallet.  "Yes.  A hot dog," she repeated, cringing at his reaction.

I'm not sure what the man on the other side of the phone was thinking at this point but I would imagine he thought he had heard her wrong.  Perhaps there was some translation he had missed.  Or maybe he was talking to a sweet eight-year-old girl who had lost her Monopoly money.

“It’s red and tan and yellow,” she said as she tried to describe it. I hoped she would talk about how the yellow was the mustard that was squiggled across the hot dog or how the hot dog looked up at her with a big smile on its face every time she used it but she said nothing more as she struggled to hold back laughter.

At this point, I imagine phone-man sitting at a desk somewhere, feet propped up on the desk, laughing as he tried to figure out how to make a stolen hot dog wallet sound like a real crime.  Three hours later we finally got to sign the report and leave the police station.  Apparently writing police reports in Spanish for hot dog wallets is as hard as you'd think.

Hoping they would have pity on us, we shivered out in the cold as we asked the police how to get back to our hostel.  It’s after midnight.  We’ve already been robbed.  We’re lost.  We’re cold.  We're hungry.  And the only word I know in Spanish is “arriba”.  Surely they will see this is not a good situation and give us a ride back.  That'd make sense, right?  I was convinced they wouldn't just send us off into the night like that.

Instead, the man pointed up the hill and gave us only one instruction: ¡Arriba!

LineNine and ¡Arriba!

I was wrong. 

All those times I thought I had no idea what people were saying to me because it was in French; I was wrong.  After spending almost a week in Spain, now I know what it means to have no idea what people are saying to me.

Thankfully, the Spanish know to keep their directions simple for us Americans.  Two particular instances come to mind:

1) LineNine

After landing in Madrid, we followed signs in the airport to a train.  We lost track of the arrows at one point and asked an airport employee where we needed to go.

“LineNine,” he informed us in hurried English.

Sounded simple enough.  As we headed towards LineNine we were faced with yet another problem: how do we get through the fare gate?

We knew enough to understand we needed a ticket to get through but the tickets we had just purchased didn’t work.  Luckily, we saw a man standing on the other side of the gate. 

“How do we get to the trains?” we asked him in slow English.

“LineNine,” he also responded.

Right, I see the large nine above the gate and the picture of a train…you know, the one that’s right over my head.

“How do we get through?” we asked him.

“LineNine,” he told us again.

No, that didn’t answer my question.  I see that you might think it’s funny because you’re already through but it’s significantly less funny being on the other side of the gate.

“Where can I buy a ticket?” we asked him, including a few motions in case he just hadn’t understood our question last time.

“LineNine,” he responded and then turned his back to us.

Thanks.  That really cleared up all my questions.

2) Arriba

In Barcelona, we decided to search for a post office.  When we got to the department store where the post office supposedly was, we saw a sign for it and a big arrow pointing up.

So up we went.

And up.

And up.

After taking the escalator up four times, we thought we had perhaps missed the post office.  We found a cashier and pointed to our postcards.

“Arriba,” she commanded us while pointing above her.  We had already arriba-ed, lady, but we'll try it a few more times.

So up we went--past the boys’ clothing, past the housewares, past the appliances… We had to be following her directions correctly, right?  She pointed up.  This was the only way up.  As we arrived at each floor, we looked around thinking surely we had arriba-ed enough.  After mutually agreeing the post office was not on that floor we would look at each other and yell, “¡Arriba!”

“¡Arriba!”

“¡Arriba!”

Nine floors later we arrived at our destination and decided we should never, ever doubt arriba again.

A Room for 12

“Megan,” I whispered at 7:30am to the bed below me, “I hate Madrid.”

AWHOOOOOGA

“What?” she whispered back, careful not to wake the homeless man beside her.

“I,” I waited for the alarm to sound again.

AWHOOOOOGA

“HATE,”

AWHOOOOOGA

“Madrid,” I finally finished.

AWHOOOOOGA

“Me too,” she responded as we laughed at our lives.

When I reserved our spots in a 12-bed, co-ed room, I imagined it would be a slightly more scandalous version of summer camp.  We could change our clothes in the bathroom and as long as they didn’t mind my risqué pajamas (sweatpants and a t-shirt), we would make a great cabin.  No big deal.

The first night of camp every cabin always makes a Cabin Covenant, addressing anticipated problems that might occur during the week.  Unfortunately, we forgot to make our Cabin Covenant in Madrid.  At camp, a typical Cabin Covenant looks something like this (complete with pink crayon and yellow construction paper):

     :) Have a good attitude

     :) Try everything once

     :) Respect each other

     :) Respect others’ belongings

     :) HAVE FUN!!!

If we had made a Madrid Cabin Covenant, it would have needed to look more like this:

     Alarm clocks must be turned off immediately and definitely not 30 minutes later

     Do not turn the overhead lights on when you come back at 2:00am

     Excuse yourself from the room for all bodily noises

     Shower when you start smelling bad

     Do not hang your underwear all over the room

So a hostel isn’t really like camp.  That, of course, is no reason to hate a city.  Lucky for you, I'll soon be posting about some of our other Spain experiences (including three hours with the policia) so that maybe you'll understand our temporary hatred of Madrid.

No need to worry...

The lack of posts is not because I have suddenly figured out Europe.  I've been traveling through Spain and will be finishing my trip with a little stint in Paris.  Check back in a week or so to begin reading about all the embarrassing things that happen while I travel!

GUIDE TO PICKING UP AMERICAN GIRLS: WHAT NOT TO DO

Dear boys all over France,

You’re right.  My friends here are all sweet, fun, beautiful, kind, and American.  I can see how you would be interested in getting to know them.  For your convenience I have provided you with a short list of actions (based off real experiences) so that perhaps you can stop wasting your time.

Scenario 1: Group of American girls talking together on bus

Do NOT leave your spot to grab your English-speaking friend from the back of the bus to eavesdrop on our conversation.  We are not, in fact, talking about how much we wish you would butt into our conversation and his plethora of English catch-phrases will neither impress us nor make up for your creepy staring.

Result: We will laugh at you as you desperately wave at us after exiting the bus.

Thinking about trying to talk to us in French instead of getting your friend?

Alternative Result: “This boy is trying to talk to me in French and I don’t have any idea what he’s saying.”  This will also lead to us laughing with her and continuing to pretend you’re not there.

Scenario 2: Group of American girls…just about anywhere

Do NOT stare.  Really.  That’s quite rude.  It is particularly creepy to stare when the other person is asleep.  “When I wake up from a nap on the train, my eyes should not be locked with yours.”

Result: We will avoid looking in that direction for the remainder of the ride.

Scenario 3: Group of American girls sitting silently, trying to get you to stop staring

Do NOT try to get me to help you hit on my best friend.  A statement such as “Your friend is so beautiful.  What is his name?” is both offensive and a waste of time. 

Result: I will tell you in perfect English that I don’t speak English and hope you get the hint.

Scenario 4: Beautiful, curly-haired American girl lives next to your friend

Do NOT, under any circumstances, think that it is cute (or even acceptable) to create a photoshopped image of her using pictures off Facebook.  You may call yourself an artist but I will always refer to you as her creeper.

Result:  I will email photoshopped image to all of my favorite people in the U.S. and set it as my computer background.  She will never answer her door again.

Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, I hope it has provided you with some useful information.  If you are thinking that perhaps you will try one of the listed techniques because you think you can perform it better, you can't.  Please take this as a warning.

You're welcome,

Katie

Service with a Smile :)

I’m an American.  I’ve been raised in a shopping environment that tells me I’m always right while they serve me with a smile.  I am entitled to unnecessary smalltalk as I stand at the checkout counter "I am doing well today, thank you.  Yes, I do hope the rain stops before this weekend and, no, I can’t believe how cold it’s been lately.  I think I found everything ok today." and I expect to always be considered a "valued customer."

“Maybe they are just too busy to smalltalk at the checkout counter,” I rationalize with myself as I attempt to bag my items.  Who can make smalltalk when there’s food flying down the checkout line like that? 

The cashier doesn’t slow down as I am left with a test of my spatial reasoning abilities.  I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to fit my potatoes in this bag and now my bananas are here but I’ve still got to put a box of yogurt somewhere.  Maybe if I move the ham here it will give the carrots a place to go.  As I pull the apples back out of my bag, I look up to see the rest of my food being to pile up at the end of the conveyor belt.

I can’t fall behind on my bagging.  It’s a sort of test to see if I can make it in France and I’m not about to fail.

Now it’s almost time to pay.  Do I finish bagging first?  Do I stop bagging and dig out my wallet?  Why don’t I remember what the person in front of me did?

Really, it’s quite stressful.  The worst part is the pressure that the cashiers add because of their facial expressions.  I know my bag is an overflowing mess right now.  Can’t you just have a good laugh about it with me?

No.  They can’t.  Instead, they just stare, unintentionally sending a message of impatience. 

Tell me, please, how I am expected to quickly bag my groceries when someone is looking at me like this man. 

When it comes time to pay, I often just grab a bill that looks like it will be more than enough for whatever I purchased.  In a place with eight different coins, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to pay with exact change.  One of the other girls here often pays with exact change, if you consider her holding her hands out full of change and having the cashier pick through what is needed as “paying with exact change.”

Finally, they hand me a receipt and sometimes I receive some type of small sticker.  I don't always get one.  I never know when I will get one.  And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it...but you better believe I thank that cashier every time I get one, pretending like I know exactly where I'll put it. 

Hello, Doctor!

(This post is about my recent injury I experienced trying to make dinner.  I waited until it healed to post about this so there is no need for you to be concerned...unless you want to be concerned about my cooking abilities.  And that, my friends, would be quite a valid concern.)

As I sat there in silence, I realized I probably could have planned this out better.

Words I thought to look up in my brick-sized “pocket” dictionary:

To cut, thumb

Words I knew from all those years of French class:

Last night, I, my

As I prepared for my first encounter with a doctor in France, I reviewed which tense I should use.  It happened in the past.  It happened once.  Got it.

I proudly walk into the health center on campus and say to the secretary, “Last night, I cut my thumb.”

Perfect.  She understands and tells me to sit down and a doctor will see me in two minutes.  I have a good feeling about this encounter.

In retrospect, I suppose the giant wad of paper towels and masking tape surrounding my thumb could have worked just as well for communicating my injury and my “research” could have included more useful phrases, including any or all of the following:

“Yes, that is also a cut.  Please stop scrubbing it.”

“Why aren’t you wearing any gloves when you’re dealing with my open wound?”

"Talking louder but just as fast is not helping me understand any better."

“Could I please see your medical degree?”

Needless to say, my experience seeing the doctor was about as emotionally painful as my bread-cutting injury was physically painful.  I’m still not sure what her instructions were to me.  I know she told me it could possibly get infected.  And she showed me some type of antibiotic I suppose she wanted me to put on it.  Oh, and she told me not to have it near water.

Or maybe it was that I was supposed to drink a lot of water.

Class

As we heard the alarm go off, the five of us looked at each other with panicked expressions. 

Nobody else had any reaction.  At all.

There we were, waiting outside of our classroom, siren blaring, and all the people around us just continued their conversations.

Is it a fire?  Is this just a drill?  Is it not even the fire alarm?  Why isn’t anyone else moving?  Should we be evacuating?  Do I smell smoke?  Where’s the nearest exit?

Now, I’m new to this country and all but we just ignore alarms?  I would have expected someone else to at least acknowledge the fact that there was an alarm going off.  Nothing.  Not even a slight cringe as the sirens rang in our ears.

Some days I feel like I’m on a hidden camera show.  I think they just tell everyone else to have zero reaction to things just to see what the dumb American will do next.  Things like this happen all the time.

Today we were doing a worksheet in class and the lights went out.

So there we are, sitting in a dark classroom, doing a worksheet.  Nobody even says anything.  It’s sprinkling outside.  It wasn’t even an explainable power outage.  I would have expected some wise guy in the back to at least say we had to leave class early.  

Nope.  Nothing.

On another day we got to one of our classes ten minutes early.  We pick seats far enough from the front that the professor won’t notice us.  As we wait for all of the other students to arrive, we talk about how excited we are to see what this class will be like but how we're nervous the professor will call on us.  

Nobody else came. 

Not even the professor.

Grocery Shopping

There is only one thing I can do reasonably well here without having communication problems: shopping.

And even that has presented a number of difficulties for us.

For example, the first time we went to Netto, a grocery store similar to ALDI, we took a swamp-path that brought us out behind the building.  On one of my later Netto experiences I saw a rat running around there if that gives you any sort of picture of what this “grocery store” is like. As we walked to the front doors, we saw a sign telling us not to use those doors.  We continued heading toward the big glass doors and started walking in.  Seeing the check-out lines, we realized we were at the exit and embarrassingly walked back out of the building.  We walked further, searching for the entrance but found only the end of the building.

A building with people in it but no entrance.  People are leaving but nobody can come in?  Sounds similar to Man Island!

(As it turns out, that was the entrance.  We ended up just playing it cool outside until a woman walked in.  Then we casually ran up behind her and inconspicuously stalked her as she passed the check-out lines to enter the store.  It was real slick.  I’m sure nobody could tell we had no idea what we were doing.  The key to studying abroad is just blending it.  I've definitely got that mastered...)

We walked the aisles, French-English dictionary in hand, until we started finding things.  Walking down an aisle toward the back of the store we found escargot.  Of course!  We’re in France!  What’s more French than escargot?

As the girls scrutinized the container of shell-less snails on the shelf, I started flipping through my dictionary.  I couldn't believe escargot would be sold in the supermarket…and unrefrigerated!?  It made sense for a country that doesn’t refrigerate milk or eggs but I was still shocked and excited that we had found escargot in France!  And on one of our very first adventures!  We really had France all figured out!

As I turned to the word in my dictionary, I laughed at our fascination of water chestnuts.

And that’s about how things usually go here.

Man Island

I know a place that has children but no mothers.  It has grandparents but no women.  

Although it sounds like a riddle, it is actually a real place.  It's something we affectionately call "Man Island."

Man Island is beautiful.  It has tranquil beaches, a beautiful port, and picturesque landscapes.  Around every corner is another grassy area, each paired with its own matching set of father and child playing soccer with the family pet.  Kayakers run back and forth across the warm, soft sand as they prepare to enter the water.  The old people all gather together and laugh the day away as they play a game similar to Bocce Ball.

In the summer months, when all the little shops are open, this place would have everything except one crucial element: women.

We didn’t notice anything strange when we got there.  Dad running in the grass with his children?  Heart-warming.  Grandfather playing on the beach with his grandson?  Precious.

At first, we laughed as we heard Grandpa tell his 4 year-old, French-speaking grandson something like, “Learn English.  Learn English.  They speak English.  Learn English.”

As we continued walking, though, we began to feel like everyone noticed us everywhere we went.  I realize that a group of seven loud, English-speaking women have a tendency to stand out just about anywhere in France but this experience was different from all our other adventures.  It seemed like everywhere we turned we ran into more creepy old men trying to talk to us.  But we never saw women.

At first, this experience is a little intriguing.  I mean really, where are all the women? 

When realizing there really is a shortage of women, one begins to wonder why.  I don’t really see any downside to living within walking distance of a beach.  Sit in the sun all day while the kids play in the water?  Sounds great to me.

There is an abundance of happy children on Man Island.  Obviously there are women somewhere. 

Or were women.

This sounds more like a horror movie than a real place.  I've already got my tagline ready for when it becomes a Lifetime Original Movie:

It’s a place where the children always laugh, the sun always shines, and the blue water always sparkles.  Once she saw it, she thought she’d never want to leave.  Little did she know she never would leave.  Man Island: it’s the perfect island…for a band of serial killers.

I have plans to return to Man Island in March to see an acrobatic group.  If you notice a sudden lack of posts around that time, please alert the authorities.  Thank you in advance.

...I think that was probably our bus!

On our recent trip to Nice we decided to get up early in order to catch an 8am train.  We checked the bus schedule and found a bus that came at 7:15am.  Although this was early, we decided this would be our bus and we walk outside, finding it colder than we had expected.

“We’ll only be outside for a few minutes to catch the bus,” I said to a group of girls still half asleep.  “It’ll be 10:00am by the time we get to Nice.  We don’t need to go back to get jackets.”

That plan would have worked out well..if we had caught our bus.

After shivering for a few minutes in the cool morning wind, we finally see our bus coming.  At last!  This bus represented warmth, comfort, and hope.  As we gather our belongings, I look up in time only to see the end of hope zooming past my face. 

“Maybe we just thought that was our bus.  Are you sure it had the right numbers on it?” I asked, trying to convince myself this hadn’t just happened.

“Yep.  That was it.  And I didn’t look up when the next one comes.”

As we huddled for warmth, I heard the sound of a bus.  Of course, buses come this way every few minutes.  No need to be discouraged!  As I look up I do not see a bus.  Instead, I see a large garbage truck with a word on it that looks much too similar to “assassinator” for me even consider getting on. 

I guess when I say, "Buses come this way every few minutes," what I really mean is something more like, "Buses come this way every few minutes except when I desperately would like to be on one.  Then they don't come for another thirty minutes."  

While reflecting on how our lives came to this point, we couldn’t help but wonder why the bus didn’t stop.  We decided we must have needed to wave down the bus so the driver would know to stop.  I’ve never really seen a French person do this but just about anything seems like a good idea after standing at a bus-stop for over half an hour on a Saturday morning without a jacket.

When we finally see a bus head toward us we decide it’s our chance to test out our theory.  I lost all my dignity after I realized I don't even know how to shower the right way here.  I've sure got nothing to lose at this point and I'm convinced hypothermia is about to set in.  When the bus approaches our group of cold, sleepy girls, we flap our arms at the driver just long enough for him (and everyone else on the bus) to see.  He opens his doors to us as a sort of prize for figuring out just one more of the secrets the French try to hide from us.

I still don’t know if this is really what’s supposed to happen but it worked once so I’m going to keep doing it.  Sorry if I embarrass you, America!

Why is there egg on my pizza?

Being the Americans that we are, it took us less than two weeks to be craving pizza.  Luckily we saw a place down the road that looked promising.  Pizza Pal sounded like it would have all the greasy American pizza we could ever want.

When we got to the restaurant we saw that we were not eating at Pizza Pal, as we had thought, but Pizza Paï, and this was definitely not an American pizza place.

I saw things on that menu that I couldn’t believe.  Not being overly confident in my vocabulary, I double-checked with our Belgian friend.  Yep, they really were putting egg on the pizza.  Right in the center.  And no pepperoni.  Anywhere.

(For a picky eater, studying abroad can sometimes be a traumatic experience.  As much as I want to have an open mind, I just can’t have an open stomach.  No thank you, olive bread, I’ll just let the French people eat you.)

As we were all deciding what we wanted, we began to mentally create our list of how many and what kind of pizzas we would need for the table.  Upon hearing this, our Belgian friend looked at us like we were crazy.

“Why would you want more than one pizza?” she asked.

“There are six of us!  You expect us to share one pizza?!” my brain screamed before she finished her statement.  Now, I know French people don’t eat like Americans do but come on!  This is just ridiculous.  I’d be getting approximately three-quarters of a slice of pizza if we only ordered one pizza!

“The pizza is only for one person.  It’s only this big,” she said as she drew an imaginary circle the size of an ordinary plate.

I can’t even begin to describe how many times our Belgian friend has come to our rescue.  Today she saved us from the inevitable disappointment of a pizza shortage, last week it was from steak cooked rare, and earlier still it was from a crazy man telling us about taxes.

After we ordered six individual-sized pizzas, some of our table decided to venture to the salad bar.  It’s not really called that here but I’m still going to call it that because it’s the only thing I would have eaten from it.  In addition to some bread and various pasta-type side dishes, the salad bar also had some type of ham spread (which we found out too late that you’re supposed to put ON the bread instead of eating it by itself). 

As the girls pushed around the food on their plates, not really wanting to finish any of it, we began wondering why our pizza was taking so long.  We had been there for almost an hour and I can’t imagine a pizza could take that long to cook, even with an egg on it.  Now I know why they include the tip in the bill at France: their service is so slow.  

Well it turns out they don't have bad service.  They were waiting for us to finish our salads.  In France, they don’t want you to feel rushed by piling all your food in front of you at once.  So, as long as we were playing with our food out of boredom, the waitress would not give us our pizza.  Lesson learned...although I still wonder if my parents secretly arranged this experience so I would FINALLY stop playing with my food.

I'm not stupid. I'm American.

(This post is dedicated to Heidi because it's her birthday.  And birthday cards are hard to find here!)

Recently I took a trip to southern West Virginia.  And I do mean southern West Virginia…complete with missing teeth, run-down homes, camouflage clothing, and accents so strong it took us a few minutes to decipher a cheer at a high school basketball game.  It took a lot of work but we finally figured it out:  Defense!

West Virginia could almost be its own country.  I mean, really, you wouldn't use any of those attributes to describe most of our country…unless you’re French.  They apparently visited the Independent Country of West Virginia when they stereotyped America.

You’d be surprised the things they call “American” here…and most of it isn’t good.  In fact, most of the time it involves a food with enough calories to keep you alive for days.  For example, there’s a sandwich here that involves piling chicken nuggets and fries on bread, topped with dressing.  Want to know what it’s called?  The American Sandwich.  Or I could tell you about The American Dessert I’ve seen served at a nearby restaurant.  It’s basically a large brownie served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And two other flavors of ice cream. And a piece of pie.  Covered in hot fudge.

So maybe Americans do eat a lot.  I’ll give them that.  I have yet to see more than a handful of people in this country that would even fall onto the high end of a “normal weight” BMI.  This, however, does not mean all of us are walking around in circles, wearing our camouflage jacket, carrying a Big Mac in one hand and a pie in the other, and talking about how y'all need to be a-fixin them there tires.

One day we saw a sign for an “American” clothing store.  Interested, we look inside to see racks of camouflage clothing and flannels.  Now I am a huge advocate for flannel but really, that's not what you actually wear in America.  I mean, I do.  But I’ve never seen people other than me wear it unless they were trying to dress up as cowboys or farmers.

Also, English is all over the place here…but don’t you dare try to pronounce it like you do in America. I’ve also had some bad experiences with ordering food with English names.  It seems like it’d be easy to order a milkshake.  However, when we ordered it the girl looked at us like we were dumb.  It’s written on your menu like that.  So I’m going to say it how I normally would.  My accent can’t possibly be that bad.  However, when it takes the help of two other employees to decipher your order from the English word, “milkshake,” to the French word, “milkshake,” you realize your accent really is worse than you thought.  And it's not what they would think of as any sort of intellectual accent.

I’ve also had battles with the school here just to get into classes.  After some misunderstandings due to differences between educational systems, I left the office of the Technology Department to the laughter of the secretaries.  Excuse me for thinking your semester would start at the same time as all my other classes.  But I’m not stupid.  I’m American.

Which is more-or-less the same thing here.

Who is that model?

I’ve never really met a celebrity before.  I mean, one time I ate dinner with John and Annie Glenn but that’s about the most “famous” person I’ve ever met.  So, when we saw a swarm of people around some French man with hair straight from Jersey Shore, I wanted to investigate further...

Actually, our whole adventure started when we happened upon a big charity event in Nice.  We saw a group of dancing German people and decided the day could only get better from there.  When we heard music coming from a large tent a little further down the road, we realized they had a rapper there for the event.

And that’s how I met Kanye West. 

Just kidding.

Ok well really we only thought there was a rapper.  When we got to the tent we saw a stage filled with elderly couples doing some type of waltzing.  Let’s pretend it was a rapper though so it sounds a little cooler.

Growing tired of the waltzes, Lauren and Claire decided to go get some cotton candy and then check out the rest of Nice.  On their journey they encounter a French man who playfully pretends to eat some of the cotton candy.  They smile at him but decide to keep the cotton candy for themselves.  Who did he think he was anyway?  You can’t just go around pretending to eat cotton candy…even in France.  Not cool.  Maybe if you hadn’t spent so much on hair gel you could afford your own cotton candy.

As the rest of us walk around at the charity event, we see a crowd of people form around a man.  Thinking it was a street magician, we make our way to the crowd.  After asking the crowd of teenage girls who this person was, we found out he was just some model that the girls wanted to meet.  Ehh, I’m not impressed.  There are thousands of “models” in the world and I doubt a festival that featured the elderly waltzing around on stage would really have anyone too special.  Just for fun we snap a picture of the model.

Later on we “bragged” to Lauren and Claire about how they had missed meeting a model but that they shouldn’t feel bad because we got a picture.  As we show them the picture they laugh, not because of his popped collar, gelled hair, and terrifying facial expression, but because it was Cotton Candy Stealer.  Still though, did he really expect us to know who he was?

Turns out, he is kinda what you’d call a big deal.  Ranked number one on a list of top male models and working for Chanel, H&M, and Dior, Baptiste Giabiconi is probably someone with whom you wouldn’t mind sharing your cotton candy.  However, he is also someone who could afford to buy his own cotton candy.  Maybe next time, Baptiste.

Bon Appétit!

I’m lucky that I even know what kind of cheese I like at Subway.  Really, I couldn’t tell you much more than that about cheese.

When I got to France, however, I thought I needed to learn my stuff.  “Learn by doing” is the motto of studying abroad apparently so I just picked up the first cheese I saw and decided I would start with that.

As I sat in my room, bread and cheese sitting in front of me, I felt like I really had figured out this whole France thing…and then I opened the cheese.

I know how to handle my Kraft 100% Parmesan Grated Cheese Product.  Sargento Fancy Shredded Four Cheese Mexican Cheese?  Easy.  I’ve got Land O’Lakes Sliced White American Cheese down to a tee.  I even know how to slice my own Kraft Velveeta (probably-not-technically-even-considered-a-cheese) Cheese.  When I saw the fluffy white top of my French cheese though, I realized I was in way over my head.

In fact, if I had to describe the smell, I’d compare it to the one time I left my soccer bag in the car during pre-season in 85+ degree weather.  I quickly put the lid back on the container and started some research on Camembert Cheese.  Surely I had just gotten some expired cheese.

“A delicate aroma” is how one website described the smell.  Funny.  Not quite what I would have used.

I suppose I should have felt better knowing my cheese wasn’t spoiled.  It’s supposed to look like it has white mold growing all over it and smell like shin guards in need of some serious Febreze.  Great.  Still feeling a little anxious, I asked a real French person about it.  He said it’s good cheese but to open it in the bathroom because it can be messy.  Nothing about this situation looked promising.

In all honesty, I didn’t mind the taste of the cheese itself.  I did, however, mind the foot smell that occurred every time I opened my refrigerator after that.  My most recent cheese purchase was “Cheeseburger Cheese” (aka American Cheese).  Looks like I’ll need some time before I become a cheese connoisseur.

In other news, I am becoming an expert in the many uses of Nutella.