Things I’ve learnt in France

In this entry I’m going to write some of the things I’ve learnt during my stay in France

• First of all, the rule of tu and vous….I thought that being Hungarian and having the differentiation in my mother tongue would help me understand the rules, but boy was I wrong! Let me explain. It’s a general rule that in a workplace you need to address people who are in a higher position in the hierarchy with vous (as well as the clients, even if they’re the same age). Fair enough. Now, the stagiaire is the bottom of the hierarchy. I use tu with Joy, since we do pretty much the same job, we’re always together and all, it’s normal. Then I also use tu with our gouvernante and the technician, which I guess is okay since we technically work together…although it would make very much sense to me using vous with them especially with the gouvernante because she is in her 40s so we also get the age difference. And then I use vous with my manager, which is fair enough since she’s the manager, although she is younger than the gouvernante and I work with her 3 days a week. And then the manager uses tu with everyone except me and Joy. Yet there are moments when she would just randomly say tu to us and then change back to vous….Oh French logic….

• When people say “c’est pas terrible” it actually means that it’s not great…and in some cases it is indeed quite terrible…..

• No one cares about grammar or good orthography outside Uni (much to my dismay!!!) I have found myself writing better French than many native speakers.

• When the French want to emphasize something they repeat it 3 times. Not twice, not 4 times, exactly 3 times. An example we say way too often at work: Notre planning change tous les jours, tous les jours, tous les jours.

• I am absolutely amazed by the amount of vocabulary I have learnt at work and the incredibly restricted application of it. Most of these words I don’t know in English nor in Hungarian.

• When French people speak in English, they actually speak in French and occasionally throw some English words in the sentence, it’s super adorable!

• It was really interesting for me to see the difference between our English and French clients. It’s true what they say, French people do tend to come off quite rude to strangers. Especially when they’re not happy about something they would come to reception and do a big scandal whereas English people tend to be much more discreet even if they’re not happy. Having said that of course I’ve had many French clients who were absolutely lovely and English clients who were really rude. However, in general I would say that the English clients were friendlier and treated me more as a human being rather than just a receptionist.

• It’s impossible not to develop a cheese addiction in France. I managed to try a huge range of cheeses and there was not one I didn’t like. My favourite would have to be la Brique, the Roustique camembert and I really liked Morbier, too. I’ve also discovered that putting jam on cheese is AMAZING! Now, I’m sure many of you would be looking in disbelief but don’t judge until you’ve tried it!! It’s devine!

• Buying bread in France is just not practical. Sure, baguettes are great and bakery in general is amazing in France. But when you’re working 5 days a week and you have 1 day of the week to go shopping you want to opt for something else. “Normal” bread is quite expensive and they don’t do big portions. It’s mostly white bread and the selection of sliced bread is not great (c’est pas terrible!!) and it tastes quite fake. I never thought I’d say this but I miss the Farmfood deal of 2 packs of whole meal sliced bread for 1,60!! The French are not big on bargains….

• There is no such thing as a bad cake in France. The other day I went to Super U (kind of like a French Sainbury’s) and picked up two strawberry tarts for 3,20 (in a patisserie you would get one for this price) and I was looking forward to my little guilty pleasure with no high expectations and it was absolutely fantastic!!

Another amazing supermarket cake!

• Eating snails is really not that big of a deal. I wanted to challenge myself to try it so I bought some from the supermarket, it didn’t have a very distinctive taste in my opinion. Mussels are a much better deal.

Now, I’m going home next week so my French adventure is reaching its end. I still have a lot to report in my blog so I’ll probably go back to it at home when I’ll have more time. And after that bring on Mexico!!