Serious time. I was feeling philosophical last night and was thinking about how things are different. I know, it’s weird: me thinking and being serious. But I was contemplating the values that we have as Americans versus the values of French culture. Things that we should value but we just take for granted. Little things that aren’t actually important in the scheme of things (although Hercules may have his values and priorities a bit mixed up …I think immortality should be way up there on things not to take for granted/things not to just give up for a girl
J).
As Americans, we don’t realize how lucky we have it. Yes, I realize I’m still in a first world country with healthy, running water and plenty of food, so I’m not exactly living the hard life. But there are still so many little things that I never thought about before that I don’t get here. For example, how many people have run out of some “necessity” at 11:00 on Sunday night and run across the street to the nearest Walmart? How many people have ordered a pizza at 2:00 in the morning? Good thing you live in America, where people are willing to work ridiculous hours and stay open all day and night. There aren’t 24 hour stores in France. The “Walmart” closes for lunch and dinner. Restaurants close after the dinner hour is over. If you want a pizza at 2:00 in the morning, you had better buy it early and then re-heat it, because otherwise you won’t find one.
Americans are attached to their computers, their iPhones, and the internet in general. I went to get a pizza across the street from the university, and the man who owned the pizzeria came out and talked to me for a while after learning that I was American. He remarked that Americans work all the time. Even during their meal breaks they’re still working on their laptops, iPads, iPhones…whatever the latest technology is that allows them to continue with their work. They never take time for themselves. Here, people aren’t afraid to take an hour or more for lunch. Everything except restaurants closes for the lunch hour. Everything. So if you plan on running to “Walmart” to grab a bite for lunch, you’re out of luck. If you run into an office at 11:59, you will be asked to return at 2:00. And the French actually take a break when they eat. Their laptops and cell phones aren’t like extra appendages that they can’t live without. They simply enjoy themselves and their meal, no rush to get back to work, and no working through the meal.
Every single American person has a refrigerator. Even when you go off to college, you rent or buy a mini-fridge so that you can have cold food and drinks. Here, in the dorms, we don’t get refrigerators. There isn’t even a communal refrigerator in the “kitchen” area (I use quotes because it’s the saddest excuse for a kitchen I’ve ever seen: 2 little burners and a table aren’t exactly a kitchen). Luckily, the other Americans are staying in apartments so they have refrigerators that they let me borrow for the super-perishable stuff like dairy products. But in order to have a “fridge” in my room, I bought a big, insulated picnic bag and just keep putting bags of ice in it every day to keep my food and juice cold. In France (and Europe in general), it’s not customary to drink cold drinks except juice and milk. Things like water and soda are not served over ice. However, being the slightly spoiled American that I am, I really like ice cold water. And on the rare occasion that I do drink a soda, I like it to be cold, too. It’s very different living without a refrigerator, having to plan when to buy perishables so that I can make sure they don’t go bad in my ghetto, do-it-yourself refrigerator and not having constant access to cold, filtered water.
Even on a university campus, things like the internet don’t just exist everywhere. I don’t get internet in my bedroom. I’m so accustomed to waking up in the morning and signing on Facebook or Twitter or some other internet messaging website that I was a bit surprised not to be able to do that despite living on campus. But if I want to contact anyone in the US or check my email, I have to go to the common room across the little garden in order to access the internet. It’s the little things that you don’t think about until you don’t have them that make you realize how much you take for granted.
Another luxury we take for granted: cell phones. I lived for a couple of days without phones and found it very difficult. I was so used to just texting all the time that it was weird to actually have to plan to meet at a common location at a certain time, not to just say “Well, I’ll just text you when I’m ready and then we can meet up.” But if you think about it (for my generation), our parents and grandparents all lived without texting and survived just fine. Yet we can’t seem to live without it.
This is not to nag on Americans always having internet/3G/some technological connection to the rest of the world. In fact, I appreciate even more the fact that I’m literally just a click away from my family and friends when in the US no matter where I am: at school, on a trip to another state, anywhere. To me, that’s the biggest benefit of all of the technology Americans can’t live without: easy (and constant) communication. All of my family is in America. That’s a 3 hour train ride followed by a 10 hour plane ride away and a 7-8 hour time difference (depending on which family members you’re talking about). Phone calls, while possible, are not cheap. I bought the cheapest phone I could find so that the other Americans and I could text each other when we meet up. Not so that I could call the US every other day with my 40 minutes per month. I have to plan my internet time so that I can send emails, update my blog, and Skype with my family. And yes, I could technically do it whenever I wanted to, I just have to go to the common room. However, like I said before, the French actually take meal breaks. So Skyping during lunch or dinner is definitely unacceptable. Skyping in your pajamas is also unacceptable; everyone is very stylish here, all the time. No one just walks around in their pajama bottoms, and you DEFINITELY don’t show up to class wearing pajamas or sweat pants. It’s just different enough to make me realize how absolutely lucky Americans are.
This also isn’t a post about how horrible life is in France. I love it here!! None of these “problems” are actual problems. Life is good in France =) It’s just different.
Obviously, these are all first-world “problems.” If I go a few hours south (by plane), I will definitely find that I have more privileges taken away from me (to all the non-geography geniuses out there, south of me is Africa). Privileges like healthy tap water, showers every day, plenty of food to eat, and tons of choices and variety for each meal. So take time to actually think about the things you do every day that you usually don’t think about: constant access to internet (which gives you constant access to your family should you no longer live with them), constant access to healthy food and water, 24 hour pharmacies and Walmarts for every midnight illness or craving. You have the ability to do pretty much whatever you want whenever you want to. Most people don’t have that luxury. Even those people who are lucky enough to live in first-world countries still don’t have all of the privileges that Americans have. Don’t forget how wonderful life is in America, even on your worst days when it feels like everything’s horrible. Don’t take a single privilege for granted, because you’re lucky to have that privilege.
