So much to write about
Instant Culture Shock (Overcome)
France is like Anytown. Everything seems just normal enough to allow one to constantly walk into traps. France resembles the U.S. in that it is developed similarly, and you can recognize everything instantly... it just turns out that it all functions completely differently.
The stove is a perfect example. Every floor of our dorm has 2 kitchens with 2 stoves. About 80% of them don't work. Annie (the other girl from URI) and I were on a mission to make eggs. We finally found a kitchen which, judging by the tantalizing chicken with which one girl walked away, appeared to work. So I cracked my eggs into my frying pan and turned the nob to 6. After a few minutes, it became clear that it wasn't working, and decided that 6 must be the lowest. I turned it to 1. Several minutes later, my eggs are still a gelatinous form. There's another knob which functions as a timer, but we left it alone, because a timer is a timer and it doesn't have anything to do with turning the stove on. This is where the mistake was made. We discovered later that the timer is the key to everything. You turn the timer on, the stove turns on. The mistake was made in assuming that something familiar functioned the same way that we exect it to at home. When an egg timer is not just an egg timer, my friends, it is time to assume that you know nothing.
Some other examples of how things do not function the way you expect them to:
°Everyone is late except for the tram and the sous prefecture.
°Sometimes (or yesterday evening) the tram stops and makes everyone get out and walk the last 3-6 stops.
°Literally nothing is open on sundays. Maybe 3 bakeries in the whole district, the movie theater, and McDonalds. I even noted that one church was open Sat, but closed, Sun.
°Between 12:30 and roughly 2 or 3, everything including supermarkets will be closed
°
this will be continued later, as i have class in 5 minutes, and am not keen on being late. A plus!
France is like Anytown. Everything seems just normal enough to allow one to constantly walk into traps. France resembles the U.S. in that it is developed similarly, and you can recognize everything instantly... it just turns out that it all functions completely differently.
The stove is a perfect example. Every floor of our dorm has 2 kitchens with 2 stoves. About 80% of them don't work. Annie (the other girl from URI) and I were on a mission to make eggs. We finally found a kitchen which, judging by the tantalizing chicken with which one girl walked away, appeared to work. So I cracked my eggs into my frying pan and turned the nob to 6. After a few minutes, it became clear that it wasn't working, and decided that 6 must be the lowest. I turned it to 1. Several minutes later, my eggs are still a gelatinous form. There's another knob which functions as a timer, but we left it alone, because a timer is a timer and it doesn't have anything to do with turning the stove on. This is where the mistake was made. We discovered later that the timer is the key to everything. You turn the timer on, the stove turns on. The mistake was made in assuming that something familiar functioned the same way that we exect it to at home. When an egg timer is not just an egg timer, my friends, it is time to assume that you know nothing.
Some other examples of how things do not function the way you expect them to:
°Everyone is late except for the tram and the sous prefecture.
°Sometimes (or yesterday evening) the tram stops and makes everyone get out and walk the last 3-6 stops.
°Literally nothing is open on sundays. Maybe 3 bakeries in the whole district, the movie theater, and McDonalds. I even noted that one church was open Sat, but closed, Sun.
°Between 12:30 and roughly 2 or 3, everything including supermarkets will be closed
°
this will be continued later, as i have class in 5 minutes, and am not keen on being late. A plus!