Amusing Differences
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2006
1
8
15
Trip End
Dec 16, 2006
Cannes,
France
Friday, October 13, 2006
*Decimals and commas--they mean the opposite of each other here, so at the fromagerie that piece of cheese costs 2,50.
*The way they count on their hands--they always start with the thumb, so Gille my cooking class teacher holds out his thumb to demonstrate we have to put 1 egg in the dough. And in class my teacher uses her thumb all the time. I kept thinking she was giving us the thumbs-up sign, but then I realized she was using it to say things like, in the first part of the homework, you do this.
*Another counting issue--the way they count floors of a building
01 making crepes
. This one really drives me crazy because it makes no sense. My room number here is 207, but I'm on the third floor....so the first floor is the "ground floor," then it goes up from there.*The way they tell time--with a 24 hour clock. It's taken me forever to remember that 15:25 is not 5:25 like it sorta looks, but rather 3:25. I mean, I guess it gets rid of the need for the whole am/pm thing, but I always have to think extra when someone says meet me for dinner at 18:30.
*Along those same lines is the way they do dates--the day comes first, then the month. Let me tell you this can get confusing when a food package says it expired on 4/11/06, until you realize that really means November 4th and hey, that's a month away still.
We were definitely discussing that last one in class the other day, and my teacher went around asking everyone their birthdays so we could practice saying the date "right." Well when she heard me say "le premier novembre" which is how they say November first, she excitedly informed me we don't have class that day. Apparently my birthday--which is also All Saints' Day--is a national holiday in France! I couldn't have asked for a better present.
Another difference that led to a huge discussion in class is driving age. Almost everyone knows the drinking age is different, as in there pretty much isn't one in Europe. But when us Americans were talking about learning to drive at age 15 and getting our licenses at 16, the Swiss' teeth fell out
02 Darcy masters the flip
. They could not believe that anyone could be responsible or mature enough to drive at that age. As they started rattling off in French, they said that at the bare minimum you're allowed to start driving at 18 in Switzerland, but most start later. We kept telling them how much better their public transportation is though...there's not as great a need to learn to drive when you can hop on a metro, train, bus, etc much easier and more efficiently.I've also finally gotten used to the different taste of the tap water here, which is apparently safe to drink all over France. It tastes normal now, which is funny because in the beginning I could barely swallow, it was so thick and heavy. I'm definitely getting spoiled having a sink in my dorm room...when I get back to PLU it will be weird to have to walk down the hall.
In addition to drinking lots and lots of water since they don't believe in milk here, I've also become quite used to the taste of bread freshly sliced from a baguette. And for salad dressings, there is only olive oil and your choice of flavored vinegars (like balsamic, raspberry, walnut, etc), which I really like too. The cafeteria here is great...lots of simple but really good food.
French word du jour: lecher les vitrines, which is a great phrase I learned in class that means window-shopping, but literally it means to lick the windowpanes. Sometimes that could be true when I walk past boulangeries, the bread shops here.
ps, I just added some new photos. There is a photo album attached to each entry...all you do is click on "photo album" and then click on the pictures to make them bigger. Sorry if they don't get all that big, I don't have enough computer time to figure out why that happens :)
Comments
Hi Sweetie
I particularly loved reading this travelogue and seeing pictures of your cooking class. It was so much fun to learn the little differences in everyday living there in France.
Love, Grammie