The Potato Bags :: Les Sacs en Fécule de Pomme de Terre

I'm sure I make too many comparisons here.  I'm always thinking about how things would be done in the USA.  I'm not complaining about France when I make the comparisons though, just noting how it's different, and usually better most of the time.

green apples here are really good

For example,  France seems to be way more green than the States.  From what I learned from Wikipedia, France has contributed about 1% to the world's CO2 emissions.  The States? 18%, and those numbers are from last year.

Cars are rarely used here, at least where I live.  I used to have to drive around 15 minutes to get to my friend's house.  Here, kids just walk to the town center.  It takes fewer than five minutes.  That's probably why there's way less obesity in France too, so it's better all around.

The French guy is missing the three foot long baguette

There are no cars at all in the high school parking lot.  In France, kids can get their driver's permit at 17, and their license at 18.  I'm sure that saving on fuel wasn't the intended goal of postponing the age, but it's a nice bonus.  Then again, I think my host parents told me that it's like 2000€ each month for driver's insurance for a teenager.

They still keep the lights on in the class room during the day.  It's the same in the USA, but I still don't understand it.  It'd be way better if teachers just let light in from the windows and turned the lights off.  May as well use the sun before it explodes and kills us all.

it'll still conveniently give us light while doing so

I haven't seen any automatically flushing toilets yet.  I don't like the heart attack I get every time they go off before warning, or how they waste water.  I think they're meant to keep people's hands clean, but people normally wash their hands afterwards anyways.  If they're trying to avoid germs, just develop a button that people can kick.  No one I know regularly eats with their shoes.

I had another caption, but what the f§!$ is the red hairball??

My host family recycles glass and plastic, but not paper.  Not at all.  Paper is put in a straw basket next to the fire place.  Today an entire magazine was used to make a fire.  And three logs.  And seven matches.  At least the petrol is safe in France, if not the trees.

Speaking of trees, as in not at all, my host mother told me that grocery bags are made from potatoes.  I think she said that, maybe she was saying that the plastic bags that hold potatoes are biodegradable.  Then again, I wouldn't really know, because she brings the reusable bags with her whenever we go to the supermarket.  Not because she wants to be earth friendly, but because you have to pay 0,03€ for each grocery bag you use.

I can buy 33 plastic bags with this!

It's really weird because plastic bags in the USA are free, but thinking about it, that's a lot of plastic bags for just one euro.  

I'm way more stingy about money here since I mentally convert everything into dollars.  One euro is $1.30, so I always add 30% to all the price tags I see.  Doesn't seem like too much, until you realize that a €30 sweater is $40.  Everything seems immediately more expensive.  

Converse here are 65€!  That's 84$!  Legit, one of the websites I read before I came to France said, "don't buy anything, it'll be there in the new country," IGNORE THAT.  First, find out if your new country is going to be expensive as crap (bad example), and then decide if you need to buy stuff before you leave for a YEAR in a country where shoes are 34$ more expensive.