Sneezing :: Eternuements

don't worry, I'm not about to say French people sneeze out of their eyes

In the USA, we have a bunch of things to say when someone sneezes.  People usually choose between God bless you, bless you, and gesundheit (for some reason we use a German word too).

how Americans secretly act inside the house

I suppose it's a bit...traditional, but my host family told what the French say after someone sneezes.  After the first sneeze, you'd say à tes/vos souhaits, depending on how formal you want to be.  After the second, you'd say à tes/vos amours, and the after the third, et qu'ils durent toujours.

Google tells me that all that means, "to your wishes, to your loves, and that they'll last forever", but in France it essentially means "bless you" - in the sense that they say it after people sneeze.

What I dislike, and I think that this is the first time I've disliked something here, is that they don't have boxes of tissues here.  I miss my French class in the United States, where everyone brought kleenex boxes for participation points.

not "bribing", per se...

No participation points for me here (evidentially, French people have more integrity than that).  I haven't seen any of those boxes in any of my classrooms here at all.  No, no, everyone has those little folded up tissues in the little packets instead.

That's not the problem.  My host family gave me a little packet after I started sneezing like mad because of my allergies.  Yay, I can now fit in with all the other French girls!!!

OMG, that kleenex totally came out of like, a box - that weirdo

I suppose any gaffe I make here is excused generally because I'm "American," and people are less likely to call me out on it, but I can't even tell when I'm doing something wrong.

It's always awkward to get up and go to the front of the class to go to the trash can, but I didn't think it'd actually be a problem to do so.  I guess that in France, where everyone is glued to their seats, trying to make an exact copy of the teacher's notes, getting up is inconceivable.  Maybe it was because I'd absentmindedly tuned the teacher out (French turns into a beautiful, flowing babble if I don't pay attention) and I stood up right when she was saying something important.

American light doesn't know when to turn off

The Wine :: Le Vin

I feel like YFU told me in a piece of paper that students in France were allowed to try wine for the "culture."  If not, I hope they never read this because I don't want to be shipped back to America yet.

At any rate, I wasn't binge drinking, and it was one time (my justifications).  One night, my host family had a bunch of dinner guests over and they offered to let me taste a bit of red wine.

Cost of French year = justified

I'd say they poured like 50 mL (look at me, using metric measurements), into a wine class.  Now, I tried to be all fancy and sipped it, like a lady.  

class

Do you remember that awful grape medicine that we had to take when we were sick with the cold or the flu or some other trivial disease that didn't require assaulting our taste buds?  I feel like now I know the cause of that terrible flavor.  Cold syrup companies are deliberately trying to get kids drunk so that we stop whining about having a fever, and - hey mommy, I can fly!

I tried to make the tiny bit of red wine last as long as I could, savoring enduring every drop, since I knew that I wasn't going to waste it by tossing it down in the drain just because I hated the taste.  I was still trying to find the reason why people can get jobs tasting wine.  


Eventually though, I just gulped it down like a shot since I got sick of it.  It burned as it went down my throat.  

them wine cows be fiery

Then my host parents just refilled my glass.  Olé! 

So You've Been Made a Co-Author?

"The Art of Co-Authoring For Labbits"

So, thanks to the wonders of the internet, even though I'm currently a few thousand miles away from the original starter of this blog (Aimee), I am now a co-author.  What co-authors do, I have no idea, but I assume I can just piddle away on here to my heart's content instead of leaving flimsy little comments. 

So, let the piddling begin!

Well, like Aimee, I am currently living abroad as an exchange student, except instead of living in France for a year, I am living in Japan for one semester.

What does one do as an exchange student in Japan, you ask?  Well, one does lots of things, like seeing temples, eating ramen, letting your host mom make all of your meals, 

One of these every morning, neatly packed and ready. Bento anyone?

wearing stereotypical school uniforms, riding trains, chasing down sweet potato trucks (but that's its own story)...that kind of stuff.

Of course, I had lots of expectations that matched these, but some of my other expectations have become quite unreachable, it seems.  

For example: learning Japanese.  I had this great wish to be nearly fluent by the time I went back to America, but I'm already in the third month of my exchange with only about 6 weeks left, and after studying Japanese for over a year before coming here, I can barely manage a few simple sentences.  Am I disappointed?  You bet, but sometimes, the situation just isn't ideal (My host family speaks quite a bit of English, my class has several returnees who have lived in America for several years and are practically fluent, and I have been placed in two advanced English classes for returnee students with American teachers--this means I speak English. A lot.)  But while I probably could've worked harder at learning it, I didn't, so there's much else I can do....at least my listening has improved quite a bit...

Another example of failed expectations: I wanted to lose some weight while I was here.  I was so looking forward to the famed healthy Japanese diet, and also shedding a few pounds.  But unless I actually make myself diet (which I have had to do) I stay about the same, or even gain a bit of weight.  Of course, I wasn't too happy about this, but what can I say?  They eat a lot of carbs here, and everything else is just sooo good!

Ramen museum ramen...what will I do when I go back to America??

At least that expectation didn't die.  The food here really is infinitely better than most American fare.  I've had ramen, udon, and soba that would make anyone never want to eat instant ramen again.  Not to mention all of the little cake and tart shops that are EVERYWHERE.  

this is just one of many...

There's probably at least 10 specialized sweet shops in every main train station, not to mention the ones that are just sprinkled about along the streets.  I think I am now made out of gyoza because I eat it so much, and as for sushi, well, when they serve it from a conveyor belt that pumps out endless sushi, there's only so much self-control I can maintain...

Well, I think I've piddled enough.  Maybe next time, I'll write about my host sister's and my adventure with the sweet potato truck.

Until next time!

Passion Fruit :: Fruit de la Passion

People are always asking me what French food is like, how is French food, are you eating gourmet food everyday?  It's such a small question, but the answer would take forever to type.  There are already books and cooking shows that take hours and days to get through, I don't think that my sentence-long answer suffices.

can't have physicists explain quantum mechanics in one sentence

Of course, I'm eating differently here.  I'm not going to eat the same, boring meals I had in the USA when in the country of haute cuisine.  I feel like my meals in the USA can be summarized by several things: white rice, fruit snacks, 2% milk, ham sandwiches, and microwaved eggs.

the only thing that changed for my dinners was the time

Not that my dad and I didn't try to cook, and I'm not saying that that was all that we ate (except I totally am).  Neither of us though, are as dedicated as my host family is to cooking.  Maybe my mom is, but she cooks Chinese food, and that's like comparing apples to oranges.

I can't generalize my meals here.  I eat something new every week, if not day, if not hour.  Yesterday, I tried the comb on the head of a rooster, and maybe that's something you'd expect more in Asian cuisine than European, but in any case of your presumptions, it was good.  Tasted like bacon.

wrong animal, cat

I hadn't known how I would commence (I couldn't remember if that's a word in English until I googled it, and apparently it's pompous) describing my meals in France, for I feel like each one has a story.

I suppose now I can start with my host family's fruit basket.  It actually changes with the seasons, since my host mother detests the fruit of the supermarket with a passion.  There's no problem buying bananas from another country if they're in season all year long in Costa Rica anyways, but buying peaches from France in winter is a big no-no since they "taste like pesticides and water."

She only buys fruit from one lady, who has this grand greenhouse and has been a friend of the family for ages.  In France, they're friends with store owners, and in turn, the store owners give them their best products, and deals.  

Simple fruit is going to be something I'm going to miss a lot, actually.  I didn't appreciate fruit before, when my mom hacked up apples and pears for me "because they're healthy," but in France, where I eat an apple or a clementine for dessert, fruit are so much less forced.

NO.SHUT.UP

Being new to the whole idea of eating fruit just because they can taste good, I have no idea when they're ripe or not.  Yeah, there's the whole "duh, fruit are ripe when they're done being green, and -" WRONG.  Everyone is familiar, I hope with green apples and green grapes, but there're green grapefruits, peppers, and figs that sufficiently prove my point that I understand nothing about fruit, other than the time I had to learn in Biology that they're plant ovaries.

I've been eating plant baby-makers???

My host sister is more of a pro than I am.  She'll just squeeze a fruit and be like, "ope, not ripe," and I'm just staring at her like "HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?"  So far I've just taken it to be that fruit are ripe when they're wrinkly.

I've learned how to eat fruit properly here.  I wasn't a savage before, but apparently there's a posh way to eat an apple with a knife and a fork.  It's good to know for the future, if I ever have a dinner with my boss or something, but I think that if that were ever to pass, I'd just decline eating a fruit at all.

wait...that's not right

Anyways, I now know how to eat grapefruits with spoons.  I don't, since using a knife is easier, but at least I know.  I learned what a passion fruit was, before it was just the weird perfume of my mom's shampoo, and the weird flavor of yogurt.  Pineapples are tolerable in other situations than as a pizza topping.  Bananas that are overly ripe can be set on fire with rum and coated with sugar.

perfect

The Songs :: Les Chansons

The nice thing about being able to speak another language is that it opens you to another world of music.  Lyrics in French are so much prettier, one because it's a language made for rhyming (unlike English, our language is all kinds of mixed up), and two because being able to understand songs in another language is wonderful.

C'est un nouveau monde

I mean, that's what I assume it's like, since I really don't understand French songs at all.  At least, not until I look up the French lyrics, then go to Google Translate, then read back and forth between the terrible English translation and the original.  By that point, the person who wanted to show me the song is awkwardly waiting around while I stare at my iTouch screen.

It's even worse when the Internet here is not working (because of some regional project where the government is changing all of the electrical cables), and the waiting time drags itself out even longer.

That memory is useless without WiFi

When the songs aren't sentimental at all, it's totally fine.  My host brother showed me a...crass, I suppose, French song that totally mocks the idea of a "French lover."  So far, the songs he's shown me make way more fun of the idea of dating than any song I've heard in the USA.

Then again, I wouldn't take what I hear in France as a good generalization, considering how the people that are showing me French songs, my host family, have more American music than I do on their iTunes account.

My iTunes account is remarkably outdated.  I decided that it was pathetic that French people know more about American classics and hit songs than I do, so I finally hooked up my iTouch to the computer a few weeks ago.

When I plugged in my iTouch, I got the whole bar at the top of iTunes that said it was going to take four hours.  Now, I was considerably worried about that, considering the sketchy internet.  My host brothers told me to not worry about it, that the estimated time changed all the time.

They were right.  After about seven times where it got cut, ranging between two to five hours, I got lucky, and the estimated time became only 15 minutes.  I got so excited, maybe I could finally stop hunching over the computer and squinting at the time estimation, praying for it to diminish.

maybe if I stare at it harder, it'll go faster

Nope, no dice.  With a couple minutes left to go, the internet cut off again and BAM six hours became the new estimation time.

completely acceptable behavior

At that point I just gave up and read a book.  At least those don't blank out whenever there's a problem with the printing industry.