There are still a lot of things that are overwhelming and confusing! But what have we learned?
A LOT!
Like...
- don't forget to bring a euro coin to the grocery store! In order to get a grocery cart, you have to put a euro into the cart (kind of like luggage carts at the airports) but you get your euro back when you return the cart to it's designated home. Mark loves this since one of the things he hates most is when carts are rolling all over the parking lot! The problem is if you don't have a euro... you can't buy many groceries!
- with your euro coin, don't forget your grocery bags! If you don't bring them, you'll be putting all of your groceries directly in your car. A lot of locals don't bring bags and instead, put all their groceries back into their cart after they've been scanned and then put them all in their car. What? I guess I'm clearly not "French" yet because I think I'd lose something under a seat by the time I got home and my car would smell like rotten cheese within a couple days!
- speaking of cheese, ALWAYS put cheese in zip loc bag or your fridge will smell so so terrible!
- roundabouts... we've mastered them.
this is the first photo I took on a walk the first day we were here...
- make sure to weigh and get a price sticker for your fruit and veggies in the produce section otherwise you'll get to the checkout and they can't scan it and you'll have a lot of angry people behind you while you sprint to the price machine.- don't let your car get dirty. People get OUT of their car to put it through an automatic car wash. I'm still trying to make sense of it.
- don't order steak - it's terrible. I know exactly what I want when I go home in May... a juicy, grilled, Iowa steak.
- the right-of-way has a whole new meaning. Driving has been fairly straight forward, but we are still trying to figure out the right-of-way rule. Almost everyone stops for anyone to the right of them at any uncontrolled intersection, including T intersections, but sometimes they don't stop... I'm still stopping at every corner! Mom always taught me, never trust another driver!
- when all else fails, use hand gestures! or just watch what others do and copy them!
- laundry takes forrreeevvvverrrr and dryers don't have exhausts to outside so it acts more like a dehumidifier for clothes. Seriously, you have to empty a container that fills with water after a load or two - it took me a long while to figure that out! I'm also still not sure we are putting the soap in the washing machine correctly?!?
- make sure to use the parking break! Mark learned this the hard way at lunch today when the car rolled into the street!
and this is from our first Sunday, after the market... where we wandered overwhelmed and confused!
We've come a long way - we usually buy our Sunday meals there now and are recognized by the fruit man!
- French people are NOT mean! A lot of friends from home have been asking if the French are mean? I think they feel just as bad that they can't help us that we feel we can't tell them what we want. English speaking Americans are pretty rare around here though so I think they just appreciate that we try to speak French.This is just a short list of things that came to mind today - there's definitely a lot more! But to be honest, I thought I'd be better (a lot better) with the language by now. I'm the only one to blame though - I really need to practice! If only I'd learned it when I was a kid... I'd be a pro after a month!
No comments:
Post a Comment