French women (don’t) get fat.

French women don’t get fat.
French people are all cultured, charming, and exquisitely dressed.
French men make the greatest lovers. They are sensual, intellectual sex gods.
French cuisine? Divine.
The French have no sense of time, they are more relaxed.
La vie en rose, la joie de vivre, la poésie et la beauté. The French have an art of living.

Many of the above are accepted as common truths about French people. Or at least, they are on the other side of the Atlantic in the States, where France is more of an abstract, quaint European country. Cobblestoned walkways. Delicate grannies walking tiny coiffed yorkshire terriers. Dark-eyed women in smart Chanel skirts. Debonair men cradling the ubiquitous cigarette between sullen lips.

This picture is France. But there is another France, one that not many people know about. The one where McDonald’s is always packed at midi, with high school students, college kids, and businessmen alike queueing up for un Big Mac for lunch. The one where free, public bathrooms outside of restaurants don’t exist. Where women over forty commit the fashion faux-pas of wearing cheetah-print tights under checkered miniskirts.

I will never forget the time when I was making an omelette in the common kitchen in my residence in Poitiers.

This was in 2009, when I was living in a dorm with many other students. A girl came into the kitchen, looked at my frying pan, and asked me in French, “What is that?”

Back in the USA

I can’t believe it’s all over. It’s been 2 months since I’ve returned to the United States, and I feel like my mindset is still in French mode. When I first returned home, all I could do was replay the final moments I had spent in Orléans- waking up on Provi’s air mattress well before sunrise and preparing to go to the train station with Cristina. The moments before that, saying goodbye to Mathieu, to Nadia, Suzanne, Alex, and the other foyer kids. The days before had been full of goodbyes- not just to people, but to my little studio flat, to the Saturday morning river market, to the Loire. When walking along the river banks about a week before I left, I came across two teachers who worked in schools where I taught. Both of them expressed interest in seeing me return to the schools to see the children before I left for the States, but since those last few days were so jam-packed with packing, saying goodbye to everyone else, and handling administrative work, it just wasn’t possible.

The other side of the teacher’s desk

I teach in two elementary schools. They are in the same little town, 20 minutes away from Orléans by bus. On Mondays and Fridays, I teach in MJ; on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach in LJ. Here are pictures of LJ: