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.  

Waking Up with Old Men

Call me old-fashioned but it is not often I wake up with a strange man in my room.  


(If you actually know me, you know the first sentence should be something more like this: 
I never wake up with any man in my room.
However, for the sake of being interesting and mysterious I'll leave it how it is.)

That was 100% true of my life...until today.

This morning was not like any other morning of my life.  I take full responsibility for the events that unfolded this morning.  Had I been out of bed before 10:00am like those people who contribute to society, none of this would not have happened.

At approximately 10:09am this morning I heard the distant sounds of keys unlocking a door.  Thinking my neighbor was returning, I go back to some much-needed beauty rest.  Before I can even close my eyes, I hear knocking as a door opens and I realize this is not my neighbor returning to his room, but someone entering my room.  At this point, I had no time to prepare for my surprise visitor; this person was about to see me in all my early-morning beauty.

Now, it doesn't often take me too much time to get ready.  Give me a few minutes to brush my hair, brush my teeth, and throw on something reasonably decent and I can be ready to go.  (My mother and I often disagree on the definition of "reasonably decent".  Sweatshirts from the 1970's?  I'd say that's not only decent but cool.  She would disagree.)

Today, however, my mother and I would both agree that what I had on was not reasonably decent.  In fact, it wasn't even reasonable.  Surprise Visitor had not given me any time to get ready and, quite frankly, I was not about to let this old French man see what I sleep in... so I had to resort to the timeless trick of pretending to still be asleep.  Luckily I had mastered this trick in the days of my youth.  I've been preparing for this moment for ages.  This was the big test.

As I heard him step into my room, I casually look up at him from my bed and roll over.

"Good," I hear him mumble in French, which I am sure was not in any way a comment on my appearance.  He steps into my bathroom, moves something, then leaves while announcing that he's leaving the door unlocked.


If you're waiting to hear why this strange man was in my room this morning, you are not waiting alone.  I still don't know.

It's a good thing I've played charades before...

Life here is a combination of never-ending pop quizzes and one very long game of charades.  It’s like when you think you know all the material for a test because it looks familiar but on the actual test you have no idea what it really means.  A typical conversation for us goes something like this:

The five of us think, plan, and practice asking a question.

We flawlessly execute the well-rehearsed phrase.

Cashier/Secretary/Student looks at us like we’re stupid.

We ask it again, this time with hand-gestures for emphasis.

They look to another French person with them and figure out what we’re asking.  After twenty awkward seconds they somehow magically understand and “correct” whatever we said…saying the same words we thought we were saying.

They respond really fast.

We stand there for a minute, trying to comprehend what they just said.  Was that a question?  Should I just nod my head and smile?  Are these directions for something?  Does Hannah know what’s going on?  Then it’s time for us to fess up by saying something in French about how we don’t speak much French.

They say in English, “Oh, you speak English?  Why didn’t you say so?!”

Note:  I’m not sure how they always know that we speak English (and not German or Spanish or some other language).  I’m still trying to figure that out.  Yesterday we went to a cute little restaurant on the port.  All we said was “Bonjour!” and the man asked if we spoke English.  (Also, this was in the afternoon so it’s not like we used the wrong greeting.  See “Bonjour!” post for more information.)

Avoiding French Boys: Soccer Ball to the Gut

(The last in a series)
At this point, I'm sure you've all given up hope that this blog will ever give you practical information.  I'm going to highly suggest you read this one post before you give up on me.  So maybe speaking English didn't work for you.  And probably the stand-really-still method wasn't overly successful for you.  Give me one more chance.  I promise this one will get the message across.

3) Soccer Ball to the Gut

Example: On a typical 50°F day, the five of us decide we would like to tour our new campus.  As we begin climbing the hill to our dorm, we see a group of boys traveling down the hill with a soccer ball.  They "accidentally" kick the ball to us at the bottom of the hill and we kindly kick it back.  Their leader, thinking that we must be interested (and not realizing we were just stopping the ball from rolling all the way down the hill), kicks it back a second time.  This time, we give it back to him and keep walking.  We helped them twice but now they're on their own.

And then they pushed their luck.  They did it a third time.

Now, maybe what happened next was an accident.  Really, we are nice girls.  Or maybe it was just a lack of athletic ability.  I'm not sure exactly how it happened but, being just a few steps away from the boys, we returned the ball to their leader...by means of kicking it right into his gut.

And that was the last time anyone has tried to pass us a soccer ball here.

Avoiding French Boys: Don't Move

(2 in a series of 3)

Think back to the last time a professor asked a question that you absolutely did not want to answer.  What did you do? 

Chances are, you probably sat as still as possible.  His eyes will catch even the slightest movement so it is necessary that you not move.  Eventually he sees some poor freshman in the back row reach up to scratch an itch and BAM! Itchy Freshman is stuck answering the question as the rest of you enjoy your freedom of movement again.

Well, the same thing can work to avoid boys in France.

2) Don’t move. 

Example: On our first weekend here, we met up with a group to go into town.  As we were introducing ourselves to one of the French natives, we went to shake hands with him.  The French boy politely reached out his hand but reminded us they don’t do that in France, instead they “faire la bise”.

Now, I’m all for making new friends.  Really.  I know it’s quite rude not to introduce myself.  However at this point I had just gotten out of bed about ten minutes beforehand, I hadn’t showered (It’s too hard!...see ‘Showers’ post for more info), and I was still sick.  The very last thing I wanted to be doing was kissing some stranger.

Anyhow, we shyly make a joke about how we don’t know how to do that yet.  He teaches the first girl in our group how they do it and she performs it perfectly.  That figures.  Secretly everyone always wants the first person to fail because then there are really low standards for everyone else.  Now she had invalidated the “Oh everyone messes it up first time” statement that would inevitably be coming as soon as I tried it. It looks easy…but what if I can’t do it?  I’m sure not going next.  There is a high probability I’ll mess it up somehow and I’m not ready for that.

Instead, I pull the stand-really-still-until-he-stops-looking-at-me-or-until-someone-else-messes-up method.  Literally, I froze as soon as they finished.  No more speaking.  No more coughing.  No more moving.  If I’m really, really still, he’ll forget I’m there and Itchy Freshman will get stuck going next.

Unfortunately, the rest of the girls pulled that same method.  Looking back, we probably should have communicated better so that one of us was pulling the stand-really-still method, one the turn-around-and-pretend-to-look-in-my-purse-for-something method, and one the I’m-not-making-eye-contact-with-you method.  Unfortunately, now we’re left with four girls standing frozen in the lobby, one very confused French boy, and nobody to be Itchy Freshman.  I wait for one of the other girls to take one for the team but today we all wanted to sit the bench.  After another minute or so of frozen silence, everyone involved pretends like it didn’t happen and continues on with the conversation.

Success.