Sometimes I smile inside when I notice little traces of my life in France that carried over to my life here. Like my life in France isn't completely done yet. Today when I put my shoes on (a pair I haven't worn much since being home but that I wore a lot in Europe... the ones that gave my feet some awesome tan lines), I could feel some sand inside. I'm almost sure it's from Holland. (I know that's not France...) And every time I use my chapstick from France, I am taken back to when I was in Europe traveling and used it every day there and thought each time about how it was different from the kind I use in the US. Things like this make me happy. It's like my life there still exists a little bit. It's not quite finished. It's like I've taken litle pieces of Europe home with me.
It seems like the more time I spend home, the more I realize how prevalent and practical my experiences abroad have been. I have four examples from just this past week.
1) I learned yesterday that one of the cashiers at our store is from South Africa, and she told me about another language spoken there that is similar to Dutch. Because of my time spent chez Ann, I can say I know a little bit about what Dutch is like, so it was a way for me to relate to that fact.
2) The other day some Canadians came through my line. It came up in conversation that I lived in France last year, so then they suddenly started speaking French to me. Seriously, Canada is so close, and it seems like more and more now in the store I'm seeing Canadian ID's coming through. I bet a lot of those people speak French.
3) Today I was reading Eat Pray Love. I know I know, a lot of people don't like it. But I got to a part where the author was listing off a bunch of important European cities. London, Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Brussels. And guess what? I've been to 'em all! That made me feel realy cool. It's cool to me that when reading, I could picture those cities in my head and knew what they were actually like. They're not just words on paper anymore. They're reality and memories.
4) Today this girl, who clearly had an accent but spoke English very well, went to swipe her credit card and said something along the lines of, "F***... I forgot my PIN" or something. I didn't react, but the man she was with told her, "Oh by the way, you have to watch your language here." She suddenly realized what she'd said and then apologized. I shrugged, laughed, and told her I didn't care and that I was used to it. And what I meant by that is that I totally get it. Exclamations like that in another language don't seem like a big deal because really, it's just a word. You kind of lose the strength of it when it's not in your first language. We laughed about it, and told her I can relate. So I asked her where she's from. Iceland! I can say I have a little bit of experience with Iceland. Hey, I spent time in the airport and a lot of time listeninc to Icelandic on the plane. :) I just like being able to relate to people more. Especially the people who come through and are speaking different languages together. Been there.
3 comments:
So then will you create a new blog for your rentréd franco-liéd experiences?
No, probably not. That's what friends are for. Perhaps, though, for some specific thing that comes up in life, but not just life in general.
I really like how you described your French life still being alive. It's like I've always felt like that when I got back from France, but just never knew how to form that feeling into words. I miss France now, and am gonna go listen to my French music.
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