Of Note

Here's a list of cultural differences you might run across when visiting France, at least in Compiegne although I'm sure the list applies elsewhere. These are just the items I can think of off the top of my head.

• On the way to and from wherever I'm walking, I like to play a little game called "dodge the poop." Every French person owns a dog, it seems, and the idea of pooper scoopers has yet to hit French shores.
• Clean air: it's a foreign concept. I calculate that I've lost at least five years of my life due to a nasty combination of cigarette smoke air and bad car emissions. My favorite is when I open my balcony doors to get a little coolness and freshness into my apartment only to have some neighbor's 7am or 7pm cigarette trail waft into my chambers. Somehow, it's not what I was looking for. I'm told the number of smokers in France is down, however, due to a general European movement to curb the habit. Really? Really? 'Cause if this is down, I'd hate to see up.
  
• Efficiency, not a cultural value. Whether it's architecture (the UTC campus for example or Charles de Gaulle airport), processes, bureaucracy, don't expect it. Ever. Ever.
• Almost every mixed salad I've had here contains mayonnaise. I know Americans use it a lot too, but they put it in weird salad combos--like corn, tomato, pasta, and crab sticks. Tastes good but just odd.
• What would you like for breakfast? Bread, bread, or more bread? If they eat anything at all with their bowl (they drink tea and coffee from a bowl; I do not recommend this without potholders!) of hot beverage, it's a variety of breads--croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette slathered with Nutella. Which brings me to the next subject...
• Bread. It really is true, and for an American oh so darling to observe. The French consume more baguettes than should be legal. At the lunch hour, a two hour daily establishment, everyone is carrying them home. At the school release hour, many moms and kids are picking them up. And around breakfast time, a plethora of folks run down to the boulangerie so their Nutella has company.
• I've been here before so I expected to return to it unchanged; but I am truly fascinated by the collective French inability to hit the toilet bowl. Too much information? Maybe, but it's like potty training never happened here, or a different philosophy--just get in the general vicinity of the bowl and it's a victory--was used.
• Professors could care less about your self-esteem. Although I myself am quite annoyed at the direction of American education in coddling children, adolescents, and older students, correcting students in front of the class is not in my repertoire of experiences. Thus, when my French professor starts handing out corrections to us all, I am taken aback. Good for the French acquisition, but leave your pride at the door.
• Guard your eyes. And I'm dead serious. There is no concept of magazines in black bags or X-rated anything. I've seen plenty of sidewalk advertisements that would render most Americans suffering a heart attack, including me. My simple suggestion--just stick to the newspaper rack.
• They eat fatty meat. Meat here is good, don't get me wrong, but when I eat it, I spend half my meal picking marbled fat out of it. I can't handle it but it seems the French like their cow to slither down more so than I.
  

I'm sure there's plenty more but those are the daily things that pop into my mind. As others surface, I'll keep you posted. I've written them in a negative light, I know, but France is a wonderful place to live, work, and serve, if you are interested. I don't mean to turn you off. But you really should know some of these things if you ever want to live or even visit here. This is my opinion anyway.