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.