Lost in Translation: Similarities and Differences of Living Halfway Around the World

I have been living in Montpellier for two weeks now (wow – it feels so good to say that!) and one of the most frequent questions I’m asked is what France is like compared to the U.S. I knew that living in a different country for five months was going to be a huge change, but there are a surprising number of things that I was not expecting.

Orchids are my favorite flower, and they were super cheap at IKEA so I got one for my room. Other than that it isn’t really relevant to this post. 🙂

Similarities:

It’s really difficult for me to list what is similar between the U.S. and France since there are so many differences, and the differences are what stand out the most. The biggest, and most obvious, similarity I’ve found is that people are people – they just speak a different language and are used to different customs. Out of everyone I have met so far, the overwhelming majority have been remarkably friendly and nice. Of course, I have met a few people who are rude simply because I’m an American, but everyone else sure makes up for it! I haven’t spent any time in Paris yet (that’s coming up!), but the French joke that there are two parts to France: Paris, and everywhere else. I’ve been told by several French people that all the rude people I haven’t met all live in Paris (and so that is why Paris is “separate” from the rest of France) – and I can think of a few places in the U.S. that also follow this example. 😉

Differences:

Driving. Almost all the cars are stick shifts and almost no one can drive them. After watching multiple cars roll backwards at least a couple feet at intersections before their drivers manage to start moving forward, I have decided that I will not be driving around here anytime in the near future.

Roundabouts. I had been warned before I left that the French love roundabouts, but I didn’t realize just how many there were! Big ones, little ones, some with two lanes, some with many lanes, some with traffic lights, some with routes for buses through the center – roundabouts are very popular here. Once again, I’m glad I’m not driving.

Parking. When it comes to parking your car, anywhere is fair game as long as it is not blocking an entire road. Sidewalks, opposite sides of the street (so facing the wrong way essentially), stairs, hill banks – if a car can fit there, there is a car parked there. This is one place where Smart cars actually have a practical use.

Sidewalk? You meant parking space, right?

Supermarkets. Our first major grocery shopping outing took place at this large grocery store called Géant Casino. Don’t be fooled – Casino here is a brand of food. The store itself is pretty much like a Walmart, only with better dressed people and a lot more food. At first glance it looks like a grocery store, but when you look closer at the shelves there are so many differences. Different types of food, different brands, and a limited vocabulary of food makes it really fun to grocery shop. Besides a very large selection of bread, meat, and cheese, the French also have about 4,000 kinds of yoghurt. (Ok, maybe not that much…but it’s still an extremely large selection.) Talk about an information overload for our brains!

The appliances. Everything here it seems is on a timer, especially when it concerns water. Both my shower and sink are on timers that only last for about 20 seconds. My sink, in particular, has a handle that when pushed down all the way shoots out a jet of water that effectively soaks me and the surrounding bathroom. I forget about this at least once a day, resulting in at least one soaked body part/article of clothing. It’s quite a feature – I’m thinking of having one installed in my next home.

The paper. Paper – especially college-ruled paper – is universal, right? Apparently not. College-ruled paper does not exist in France, and instead we get to use paper that has so many lines on it you can get a headache from it if you stare too long. Plus, the paper here is larger than paper in the U.S. so it doesn’t fit into any of my folders. My parents laughed when I told them I wanted them to send me normal notebook paper in one of my packages. I bought notebooks for school, but this is one thing I may never become used to (which, I guess in the scheme of things is not that bad).

Lines, so many lines!

Money. I have a love/hate relationship with the Euro system. On one hand I absolutely love the paper money – each bill value is a different size and color. On the other hand, there are so many different coins. They have coins from 1 Euro cent up to 2 Euros, and it makes for a lot of change if you buy things with cash. Like the paper money, all the coins are different sizes and different patterns which makes them easy to tell apart. Each coin also comes with this magical feature of losing this distinction when you are standing in line at checkout digging through your purse to try and find the change you need.

Coins…Coins everywhere…

Organization. Organization? What organization? I’m starting to think that any and all words related to “organized” do not exist in the French language. Absolutely no one knows everything that’s going on, and no one seems inclined to try and figure it out either. At times it nearly drives me insane, since I am extremely organized. It is the most frustrating at the university, which I expected to be much more efficient. Oh well, c’est le français! (That’s the French!) as several people have explained to me.

Lunch breaks. The French are very serious about their lunch breaks. The lunch “hour” is usually around 2 hours, and it is a sacred time where absolutely nothing is open and it is absolutely never cut short. If you want to do anything, plan it either during the morning or the late afternoon.

While there are a lot of differences, I am still really enjoying France! With exception of the organization problem (which is frustrating), I find most of the other differences to just be funny. I love discovering different things about this culture. It took me less than a week to realize that I’m an ignorant American – as much as I’ve tried not to be – but I’m also working hard to try to fix that!

À la prochaine! (Until next time!)

28 Jan This entry was published on January 28, 2015 at 3:07 PM. It’s filed under Study Abroad 2015 and tagged France. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.