My Journey To France

After spending two weeks in France, living and breathing the life of a local in the southern city of Montpellier, all of us nine students can definitely tell you that things are, to say the least, a little bit different here. While we expected to encounter cultural differences and surprises, it was no doubt that some of the things we have learned here are interesting and even funny:

Les Toilettes et La Salle de Bains

While it might seem a funny thing to discuss, after each of us passed our first night with our host families, one of the first things we discussed when we got to school in the morning was the bathrooms.  In America, we have an all-in-one package – the toilet, the sink, and the shower are almost always all in the same room. That very fact is something we all accept and do not think much of simply because it is normal. Well, this is possibly one of the first instances which made us exchange students realize that what is “normal” in America does not translate to “normal” in France. In France, the toilet is normally in one room, les toilettes, while the sink and shower are in another, la salle de bains. The fact that both are in the house means that we certainly have the facilities to survive, but in exchanging our stories we did all find that the separation of the toilet and sink made for some awkward moments. Unsure of whether or not it would be normal for me to walk down the hall to the salle de bains and wash my hands after using les toilettes, I spent my first few days trying to be stealthy and go unnoticed, but eventually I realized that I would have to just continue as I normally do and dismiss it as nothing more than a cultural difference.

Driving in France

As most of us have just received our licenses or are at least working towards obtaining them, we are keenly aware of driving with all the rules and safety precautions freshly pounded into our brains; we are all familiar with the proper following distance, the correct speeds, and the proper driving etiquette. Even after just one thirty minute drive home from the airport, I realized that if I were to follow all of the American safety precautions, rules, and laws for driving, I would not be able to get as far as down the street. In France, all of the driving seems much more chaotic; the roads are so tiny that it nearly feels as if you are going to either fall of the road or hit the car next to you. No one waits for anyone either – I could barely keep my laughter in as we sped past a neighbor, cutting him off, but waving with big smiles at the same time.

L’école

If there is one word I could use to describe school, or école, in France, it would definitely be long, closely followed by drawn-out. In France, school begins at 8 a.m., similar to schools in America; however, it ends much later in the afternoon, occasionally as late as 5:30. A nine-and-a-half-hour long school day can indisputably be classified as long, especially in the United States where our school days range from six to seven hours. While such an extensive school day is long, I would classify school in France as drawn-out as well since it is more regular for students to have free blocks and because the lunch is much longer. At Lycée La Merci, lunch lasts an hour-and-a-half, over twice as long as our 40 minute lunch at Presentation. Between that and other seemingly unnecessary time-consuming activities, such as being bused over to an alternative location for gym class, it seemed as if the long school day could have been condensed if they moved at a faster pace.

.  . . And Volcanoes

It was definitely appropriate that many of the experiences we had on our exchange were unexpected, but something no one could have factored into our plans and anticipations was a volcano. Never did we think that a volcano of all things could factor into our experience. On Wednesday, April 14, flights began to be cancelled due to the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Even then we were unaware that such a bizarre occurrence would affect our exchange trip. It wasn’t until Thursday night, the night before our originally planned departure, that the news came through. Right after my host, Priscillia, encouraged me to order whatever I wanted since this was my last night in France, I learned that that statement would most likely be proven false. Because of the volcano, ash was spread throughout the air and our flight from Paris to San Francisco was cancelled for safety reasons. With clean laundry running out, a need to get homework finished at home and a desire to have time to find a prom dress, many of us started worrying. Still, on Thursday night, things still seemed manageable. It was not until the next day when I found out that 23 airports in France were closed that it could be quite a while before I got home. Even now, as I write this article, I am sitting in my host family’s house with my flight postponed indefinitely, wondering if I will even be back when our newspaper goes to print. Just as no one could have anticipated the volcano erupting and the creating biggest flight disruption in years, I guess we will just have to wait and see.