I've been in France for a little over a week now. Classes have not yet started, so the theme of this past week has been acclimation. Of course the biggest thing that I need to get used to is the language. I am pretty terrible at French (I know how to read it and I'm okay at speaking it, but I suck at understanding it) but I know that learning the language will take time. It will probably be a month or two before I can fully understand when people talk to me.
But there are other things that I have to grow accustomed to. The first being the money here. Of course the concept is the same and the bills are the same, what's different is the coins. They all look so similar! I have to look at them all to choose the one I want. At home, they are all different enough (and I've used them my whole life) that I can just reach in my wallet and pull what I want out. I feel bad for anyone that I have to pay because they have to wait for me to figure out what coins I'm trying to use! And, here they have coins, not bills, for ones and twos. It sounds a little silly, but its an adjustment.
Another distinction is the way that the university system works here. From what I understand, people choose their specialty and they stick to it for the entire time they are at university. Because of this, there is a set list of courses you take and when you take them. For example, I am a sociology major. When I went to a department meeting today, I received a booklet with all the sociology courses offered and when exactly they are taken. At my school, I can pick and choose courses from different departments and my degree requires that I take courses from other disciplines. In addition to the courses essentially being picked for you, the times and dates of the courses are not posted until the Friday before classes start. So, if some of the courses you want interfere with each other (they won't if you are a student here), you are out of luck and have to choose the most important. All of this is very different and pretty confusing for me.
A third, and the last that I'm going to talk about now, dissimilarity is the meals. Of course the food is different but that's not what I mean. In northern France (where I am), the main meal of the day is lunch. Makes sense, you want a smaller meal at night so that there is time to digest before bed. I am definitely not used to this. Dinner is always the big meal of the day. Often, I have small snacks throughout the day and my only 'real' meal is dinner. Here, though, most people get a two hour lunch break. The meal is slow and leisurely. There can even be courses. Dinner however, consists of something like a baguette, cheese, fruit, and maybe some type of meat.
Luckily, I have had this time to familiarize myself with the culture. Now to learn the language....
