time for a break

I think I’m suffering from culture shock. During my last daylong visit with my French friend, we spoke only French. When we visited with a couple of French friends one evening, we spoke only French. And my American friend back home, former expat Tim, said that about every three months we need to get “out of culture”. The last out-of-culture experience was way back in January, so I was feeling due.

Paul was out of town so I spent the day with my American friend who has lived here for 3 years and hasn’t learned French and doesn’t intend to start learning anytime soon. We went shopping, had a swedish lunch at IKEA, and then went back to her place and watched CNN and the BBC and Euronews in English. Then we went out that night with a bunch of American friends for drinks and then to a restaurant for dinner.

We met a new American couple who had just moved here about a month ago. That prompted a discussion about all the struggles each of us has had during our adjustment to the French language and culture. We all had great stories to tell but I think the prize goes to a young man from California who moved to a small town in France with his French wife. He had bought Christmas gifts for his daughters, each a jewelry box, but when he got home and checked them carefully, he discovered that the craftsmanship on one of them was really poor. He decided to return it. But as we all do, he put it off because having to go to a store and explain the situation and deal with all of the unknowns is really difficult.

So this young man finally worked up the courage to return the box. When he got to the store and repeated his much-practiced monologue, he was promptly told that he had waited too late to return it. He only had so many days during which he could return something. He was very frustrated and without thinking, the only thing that he could manage to say was, “well, it’s shit” (en francais, of course) The lady in the store quickly agreed and refunded his money. Small victories!