Salut from Rennes!

Rennes, France

Salut from Rennes! The last few days have been some of the most interesting and challenging I think I have ever experienced – there is absolutely no denying that total cultural immersion is a totally overwhelming experience that pushes you light-years out of your comfort zone.

My host family (famille d’acceuil) is amazing. My host-parents are Philippe and Marie-Claude, and they are a lovely couple who have been in Rennes for many years. I have four host-siblings (two of which are home) – the ones here are Hadrien, who is twenty-one and attends l’Université de Nantes (majoring in Communications), and Valentin, who is ten, and is the most freaking precious child I’ve ever met. There’s also a dog named Cookie (a super-excitable white miniature terrier). My host fam is extremely generous and they really are everything that I could have hoped for! They live near the city center, a few minutes from the metro, so it really is pretty ideal.

The coursework is typical – lots of grammar review, plus some literature analysis. We’re reading a play called Rhinocéros, which (surprise) is about a rhinoceros. It’s super bizarre, with a lot of symbolism, false logic, and existentialist crises, interesting to read. We’ve done a lot of tourism around Rennes, and our little class of Americans was invited to a reception at the Mairie de Rennes (city hall), which was pretty cool (lots of speeches and hand-shaking). There will be two big excursions as part of the class: one to Caen, which was the city fought over during the Allied landing in Normandy in World War II, and the second to St. Malo, which is this classic coastal Breton city and is supposed to be super pretty.

NOW: a few little things I’ve learned from being abroad in a country where I thought I spoke the language, and from trying extremely hard to blend into a foreign culture of which I have no heritage:

1.      “Merci beaucoup” = thanks so much. “Merci, beau cul” = thanks, nice ass. I learned this lesson while trying to thank a waiter for bringing me a glass of wine. Oops.

2.      Ten-year-olds speak better French than me. It’s super embarrassing to have to ask a kid to repeat themselves slowly because you (a nineteen-year-old) don’t understand.

3.      French people wear only gray, dark gray, and black. My wardrobe has lots of bright blue, white, plaid, and stripes. I look like an American.

4.      French people don’t wear shorts. Half the stuff I brought is useless.

5.      NEVER USE CURRENCY EXCHANGE PLACES. THEY TAKE ALL OF YOUR MONEY.

6.      You get really, really used to asking people to repeat themselves. It’s probably the most useful phrase ever to memorize.

7.      Nodding and smiling and saying “really?” in French every forty-five seconds gets you pretty far in conversations.

8.      You really, truly, honestly become a good listener. In this type of game, letting other people do the talking is the fastest way to fit in. For me, this makes being abroad quite a growth experience ’cause y’all know how much I like talking and ranting. (Shoutout to Karthik because he knows best of all my 2:00 AM rants about literally everything. You should see me now haha.)

9.      People think Donald Trump is the funniest thing.

10.  It really is a whole new perspective. It’s incredibly humbling to be in a place where you can only painfully communicate, and where you depend upon the sympathy, understanding, and kindness of others to make your thoughts heard. It’s also mind-boggling to actually be in a place where so much of what you think of as “common knowledge” is replaced with something totally different, and you really are out of your league in almost everything you do. It makes you appreciate at least a fragment of what it’s like for immigrants and it softens your viewpoints on a huge number of situations.

Rennes, France; 26 May, 2016.