You know you're in France when...

• You can buy a baguette on every corner.  
• Nothing is open on Sundays except the Boulangeries who sell baguettes.
• Cheese that is blue, green, black, brown, or even fuzzy is considered particularly good.  
• There is no ice in drinks...ever.
• 75% of the men you encounter are wearing man-purses (a.k.a. "man-sac," "murse.")
• You are a girl sitting a bar drinking a pint of beer and the group of guys next to you are drinking hot chocolates.
• Techno music is bumping from the speakers at most bars/clubs.
• "Tik Tok" and "I Gotta Feeling" are played on repeat. 
• You find a large cathedral in every town you visit.
• A shoes saleswoman tells you your feet are too big and she cannot help you.
• People stare at you funny when you exercise.  
• You can only get really really small cups of coffee.
• You have to watch your step at all times in order to prevent encountering dog poop mines.
• Wine really is cheaper than water.
• A beer is the same price as a Coca-Cola (sometimes cheaper!)
• The boys urinal and girls toilets are in the same bathroom!
• Dogs accompany their masters in restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping malls.
• You try to speak French and people speak English back to you.  Ouch.
• People cannot drink a beer straight--they will put peach or grenadine syrup in it called a "Demi-pêche" or a "Monaco"
• Mojitos are offered at almost every bar
• You can sit at a restaurant for 4 hours and no one will kick you out.
• It is considered pretty good service if you actually get water at a restaurant without asking.
• There is a large section at the grocery store dedicated solely to NUTELLA.  On the other hand, there is usually only 1-2 jars of peanut butter.
• Stores are closed between noon and 2pm...sometimes even restaurants!
• People iron their sheets...and jeans.

To be continued...

August in France

"juillet:" July
"août:" August
"congés:" time-off
"vacances:" vacation

France is an interesting place to be in during the month of August, and by "interesting" I mean slightly boring and very quiet. Unlike us perhaps work-a-holic Americans, the French take their vacation time very seriously. One might observe that the French may have a better "work-life" balance as opposed to Americans, a full-time work week being capped at 35 hours and a 5-week vacation allowance per year. On the other hand, they pay a lot of taxes for this. (Socialism?). Anywho, August is nationally recognized as holiday time in France, where almost everybody takes all or part of their 5 week vacation time all at once. While great for everyone taking vacation, not so great for the American interns who do not get to take an August holiday (that's me!).

This past week there were 5 interns and my boss in the office. It was a bit quiet. Also, our factory closes for all of August therefore there is no production during this month. This is obviously planned for in advance, as it happens every year. While I do not mind so much working in the quiet office, it does bode problems for me if I need to ask someone a question (and they are off on the beach somewhere!).

The really annoying part about staying in France in August is that everything else closes for vacation. Normally, in the U.S., if you work in a retail store for example, the employees will stagger their time off so that there is always someone available to work. Here, not so much. Stores, bars, restaurants just plain close for the month of August. Even my boulangerie (bakery) is closed for a whole month! I cannot get the good bread! You'd think that being an American and rarely eating baguettes at home would not affect me, however, after being here so long I have picked up the French habit of bread being a necessity and now it is TORTURE not to have it. We can buy some cheap bread from the supermarket but its just not the SAME!

I await the end of August where life comes back to normal in Clermont-Ferrand. For now, I suppose I should try to appreciate the quiet.

Uncomfortable or Uninformed?

La politique: politics
La guerre: war

As I have been in Europe for over 7 months, I have had a chance to interact with a lot of different people, from different nationalities, different races, different religions. One thing is almost always for sure is that because I am American, everyone wants to discuss the tough stuff. That is, the stuff that I normally avoid discussion about; politics, Bush, Obama, the war. Now, I can understand what America is an easy target. We are the richest, most powerful country (right now)…and this is not me bragging about my country, these are the facts. It is always easy to criticize the top. But dang, I really feel like when I get this criticism or “discussion” about what is going on in America, and especially with respect to the war, I am supposed to defend the country—its as many of the people (especially the French) are asking me to defend the government’s decisions. I’m just Michelle Majerle, 23 year old from Kansas; I am not the President, Congress, the 300 million-person population of America…

The French specifically love to discuss politics. It’s not a taboo subject, on the contrary, a subject you are likely to broach upon first meeting someone. For example, on my second day of work at my internship, I had to drive 2 hours to our factory with my boss, and in that conversation he asked me what I thought about Bush, Obama, the war, healthcare; what my family thought about all of the above, and if I thought America was protectionist. OK buddy, we just met. And then there is one of the other interns at work who enjoys pestering me everyday with questions like “Is Iraq going to be the 51st state?” Politics is just not personal information here, as in the U.S. I think in the U.S. we do not discuss these subjects so in depth for fear of offending people. Maybe we’re too sensitive? Perhaps it’s a good thing to be more open about it; all the questioning has made me realize just how little I know about U.S. politics and the war we find ourselves in. So is it that I feel uncomfortable discussing my person political views, or am I just plain uninformed?

As I start to think about it more, this whole fiasco with the building of a mosque in New York at Ground Zero comes to mind. Apparently everyone is getting all fired up about it, with such comments like, “We cannot let them win!” Who is them? Have I been gone so long that the “War on Terror” has now become the “War on Islam?” A mosque is like a church, a temple; a building where people go to pray. A mosque has nothing to do with “terrorists.” I may not know everything about the political environment, but I do know that these people are more uninformed than I am.

Customer Service? I don't think so.

Today's French experience:

Last Saturday, I bought two ethernet cables to use in our apartment (since we finally got internet after only 7 short months!). We ended up being able to set up the WiFi, so the cables were not necessary. As the packaging was undisturbed, I had the receipt in tact, and it had only been 3 days since I purchased the products, I assumed the return process would be quick and simple. The ideas "quick" and "simple" do not exist alone in France, let alone conjointly, so I am not sure what I was thinking!

I walked down to the "mall" which holds the store FNAC, a general equivalent to what we know as Best Buy at home. I walk in, looking for your typical customer service desk that handles returns. I approach a counter that ressembles what I know to be a customer service desk, but when I explained to the employee that I wanted to return the items, he told me he does not handle that at his counter. He pointed me to the security guard up front, and told me to tell them I needed to return something, and they would write me a ticket. OK. So I go to the front of the store and the security guard writes me a ticket with my name and the product information on it. THEN, she tells me to take it to a salesperson on the floor. OK. So I go up to a salesperson on the floor and tell him I am trying to return something. He determines that these cables are not in his department and refers me to another salesperson. I wait for a few minutes until this other salesperson returns, and tell her I would like to return something, and she types some stuff into her computer and prints off another ticket. Then she proceeds to tell me that I need to take the ticket to the cashier counter. OK. The cashier counter has a long zig-zag line, kind of like the lines you wait in at amusement parks to go on the really cool rollarcoasters. That's annoying.

As I was waiting in line I pondered striking up a conversation with the young guy in front me who was buying some vampire romance/horror flick--looked like a French "Twilight" if you ask me. Then I saw the man-sac and I just stayed quiet. The French aren't really keen on talking to strangers anyway.

Finally, I got to the register and received my 27.63 euro credit. It only took talking to 5 employees to get!