Les Bisous

                                              Lycée Vincent D'Indy

I was taking a nice, long nap all curled up in my bed not long ago. I planned on sleeping for at least 2 hours since I had nothing else to do and was extremely tired. However, about an hour into my nap, I heard all these voices outside my door, and then someone started knocking and woke me up. Turns out, Charlotte had to use her (my current) bedroom for a math session with her tutor. Don't ask me why my occupied bedroom was the only place in the whole house where they absolutely had to work. I grudgingly, ungracefully fell out of bed and dragged myself from my shortened nap. It was not one of my best moments. However, now that I'm up, I thought I'd do something useful with my time and write an entry. And since I'm still not completely awake, forgive all of the incoherent sentences and errors that I'm sure will pop up sooner or later.

This week passed semi-normally. I drew in class, watched more shows on streaming, wandered around aimlessly, and ate a monstrous amount of food. Speaking of food, I finally got around to weighing myself for the first time since I've been in France. There was definitely a significant amount of weight gain that will remained unnamed. I tell you guys pretty much everything, but I've gotta keep some things to myself, right? Anyway, since for the past 5 years, I've stayed exactly the same weight, one would think this new number would upset me, but in actuality, right after I found out, I carried on as normal and ate another chocolate bar. I've just gotten too lazy to care. I'm sure it'll magically disappear in a matter of time; that's usually the way these things work...

There is another cultural difference that has significantly had an awkward impact on my life - Les Bisous. Here in Privas, people kiss each other on the cheek 3 times. In most other parts of France, you usually only kiss twice, but Southern France is a completely different story. You kiss people you just meet, you kiss your friends, adults, your family, your cat; you pretty much kiss everyone. It's kind of awkward traveling to other parts of France where they only kiss twice, because I always forget that it's different. You have no idea how many times I've gone in for another kiss and gotten rejected.

Another different type of kiss is the literal kiss on the cheek with friends and family. Usually you just kiss the air and touch cheeks. However, with people you know really well, you actually kiss them. I'm so not good at this. Usually someone approaches me and kisses my cheek, and I'll kiss them afterwards. However, I never know which side to kiss and I always end up knocking noses or something else completely mortifying. Two different times, I even came unbelievably close to accidentally kissing a friend and my host dad on the mouth. Les Bisous are going to be the end to me. I might as well crawl into a hole and die. My life would certainly be easier and much less embarrassing. Sometimes, I really miss America and its smile and wave greeting policy.

One other strange thing about France is that most of all the bathrooms are coed. I freaked out the first time I came out of a stall and saw some guys hanging around in the bathroom. When you come from a place like America, things like this never happen unless you made a mistake and walked into the wrong room. There was one day a few weeks back when I almost died because I thought I saw M. Saint Clair in the same bathroom as me, but thank God, it turned out to be someone else. On the bright side, at least they have stalls here.

Besides the bisous, my life here is practically normal. I got my first invite to hang out with friends (who are not exchange students) next weekend, so I see that as an accomplishment. It's also easier to talk to people now, and I've had some good conversations, so I see that as another accomplishment. So far, I've had a lot of accomplishments this week, and that is an accomplishment in itself! And - I have decided that when I finally learn the proper way to kiss, that will be my biggest, most prideful accomplishment to date. Until then, I'm just the awkward American who stumbles through "la vie et les bisous."