Adjustments

I've been in Europe for 2 1/2 weeks now, but the culture shock only really started this week, once I began living here, as opposed to traveling around. It's amazing the difference between being a traveler and being a foreigner trying to reestablish yourself in a new city. Particularly a city where most people don't speak your language. Strasbourg is different from Paris that way--while most people did grow up having learned some amount of English, they're not all guaranteed to speak English, or speak it well. It really is a French city, and people expect you to speak French.

For me, aside from the whole language barrier thing, the biggest issues with culture shock here have actually some of the smallest. One problem I've been having is smiling. Apparently, in France, you don't smile at strangers. Ever. It's not like in America how it's polite to smile and then look away if you make eye contact with a stranger. If you smile at someone it means you know them, or if you don't know them, it means you think they're cute. But smiling at people is pretty instinctive for me, and not something I can just turn off. I catch myself smiling at strangers all the time, then realizing that I probably just totally confused them. A friend of mine was actually followed around by a guy she accidentally smiled at on the tram after she got off. (She was fine, don't worry.) But hey, who knew? Smiling in France is a potentially dangerous act.

And then there's the bread. I have never eaten this much bread in my life. A traditional French breakfast? Coffee and a small baguette with butter or jam. Lunch? Your standard cheap lunch from a cafe is a sandwich, but not your typical American sandwich. Picture about a foot and a half of baguette, sliced open and filled with sandwich ingredients. And then dinner is often accompanied with guess what? More bread. And if you haven't had enough bread, there's usually a pastry somewhere in there to accompany a meal.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's all really good bread and really fresh and totally delicious. But it's almost all white bread. And if you know me, you know what a natural foods nut I am. I am just dying for some excellent whole grain breads. And I've seen them in some bakery windows, and they look great! But most things come on or with white bread. I think there is actually more whole grain breads around here than most parts of France because we are so close to Germany, which is basically the land of multigrain breads. They have more types of multigrain bread than I can count there. I just need to figure out how to get more of those. At this point, I think I would have to buy a giant loaf of whole grain bread if I want to eat some.

As I said, the trials and tribulations of adapting to living in France: a lack of smiling and an overabundance of delicious white bread.

Fist world problems? Maybe.

:)