GreenBoy

Today I successfully navigated an open market and this entry is going to take me twice as long as it should if I have to look at the keyboard because I’m writing this in the computer lab at the BU center and all of the computers have a French keyboard. Good thing Auntie Sandy invested so much time in making sure we knew how to type without looking at the keyboard; Timon and Pumba typing, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. Anyway, I’ve decided that the most economical way to Spence money here to would be spending it on Tuesday mornings when I can go to the open market on the street right behind my apartment building. I would never have even known about this market had not out host mother given us a sheet of paper regarding our home stay and where the Laundromats and markets and things are. SO here’s the thing about French open markets. Some venders are totally cool with you handling their stuff and touching everything and choosing your own but some aren’t so I spent the better part of an hour watching how people acted at each stall and just mimicking them, which went perfectly well, really. Only one potential problem was when I wanted six carrots (six) and the vender thought I said ten (dix) but the woman behind me understood what had happened and corrected him for me. I bought apples, pears, carrots and a leather jacket and then went into a small grocery store nearby to get the rest of the items on my list: eggs, milk, sliced bread, chicken (my friend is coming over and bringing the bread and the wine and we’re going to make stir fry!)

The French are very environmentally friendly, which is something I definitely expect, it just caught me off guard for some reason. I recently saw a youtube clip about 'GreenBoy' who is the French environmentally friendly do-gooder who cleans up cigarette butts and other trash that people just drop on the sidewalk. His insignia was a unicron though and I'm not really sure what that's trying to say...maybe we should all be pure like the unicorn? The French are also so economical that it is absolutely necessary that you bring your own bag to go food shopping because they will charge you 0,03€ for a regular old plastic bag or if you’re unlucky, 0,30€ for a reusable one. Our host mother gave us two reusable bags that I had previously forgotten but luckily both times I had only been buying bread or small amounts of food that I could carry in my hands. Today however, without my reusable bag I would have been completely stuck. Most of the French that I have seen shopping either at outdoor markets or at regular supermarkets have the sort of rolling carts that we in American usually associate with homeless people. For them however, it’s a way of life and it’s how they do their shopping. I don’t think I’ve seen one carriage at all in France and the baskets that you carry around with you in the store are smaller and more malleable so I’m sure they’re more economical to make, which honestly makes me wonder about the US. Is it just that we’re so obsessed with buying everything in bulk and stocking up for weeks at a time? I can guarantee that there are zero costco’s or sam’s clubs here. People do their food shopping once a week and they buy their bread daily, fresh from their favorite boulangerie.

There are some things that I don’t love about France (their tiny stoves and tiny garbage cans and the fact that I have to dispose of my glass in a special depository on the street a few blocks away. I don’t like that there are no Wal-Mart’s or targets and if they have equivalents here in France, they are nowhere near my house. Things are expensive here but there are definitely ways to get around here but I imagine that if you were a Parisian, you wouldn’t try to get around it, you would just buy the clothes or shoes or make up at full price. I don’t really know if the Parisians are bargain shoppers like we are in America or if they simply pay the sticker price and know that they are helping their own economy.  However, I can’t deny that the idea of going to the same market every Tuesday morning and the same bakery every morning doesn’t charm me in the same way that it charms every American in Paris. As they say here at BU, I’m still in the honeymoon phase but I don’t think that’s true. I know what Paris is and I don’t think I’m going to have any startling revelations about this city that will completely change my perspective. I like it here and it’s completely different from the US in every single way possible and most of its institutions wouldn’t even work in the US but I’ll be ready to come home in December. I came here to learn French and I am determined to put my heart and soul into accomplishing that goal. But I don’t want to become any more French than it takes for me to be treated alright in a café or to feel confident enough to bargain with venders at a flea market. I want to learn HOW to be French but not to actually be French. Miss and love you all.

AN:

The Italian has arrived. 

Also the dates on all of the previous posts are off. For example, the date of this post is September 7th and the first 6 days are the first six days I was here, Day 7, which I may or may not post, was versailles which was kind of just like a huge Newport Mansion. I mean it was really luxurious and rich but once you've seen one obnoxiously wealthy mansion, you've pretty much seen them all. Anyway, that night I went out for a drink (!!) with some of the girls in the internship program that I sat with on the way back from Versailles. The bars here are super cool and we listened to some live music downstairs in one of them. Apparently dance clubs are also very in and there's one especially for foreign students called Erasmus. I haven't been yet but it's definitely on my list of things to do.