The France List

*No Carpet*

I remember last summer my mom told me that the most toxic thing that you can put in a house, and I'm talking like normal things, not, like, toxic sewage, is wall to wall carpeting. Carpeting has all kinds of chemicals in it, and all kinds of germs grow in carpeting and can live in there for years. Vacumes don't clean everything, you know. So in France its awesome, nobody, save for the extraordinarily rich, has wall to wall carpeting. Its just not the trend, or its too expensive, or something. I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm liking the nice clean wood or tile floors. This would also be the reason that everybody around here wears slippers, known in french as pantoufles, which is also cool, as its an extraordinarily cute word.

*Oh la la! *

Ok, I have to admit, this is totally awesome. I thought that Oh la la was an old expression that they don't acually use anymore. Like "Golly Jee!" or "That sure is groovy!", but no, they actually say it, and its so great! But they don't say it like we think they do. Its not pronounced "Ooo la la" like I always thought. They say "Oh la la". With the "oh" sound like the the "oh" in "Uh-oh". Cool, huh? And whats even greater is that they add on more "la,"s as they get more exasperated, because they use the expression to mean something the same as "You've got to be kidding me," or "Oh my god." So I've sometimes heard people say "Oh la la la la la la la la!" Trust me, the first time I heard that, I almost died laughing.

*Trains *

The trains here just rock. Period. They go everywhere, they're cheap, and they are super fast. Enough said.

The Different

*Cheese *

The cheese here comes in big round blocks that look like wheels. It has skin on the outside of it, and is soft and gooey in the middle. Most of it tastes incredibly good. Plus there are about eight hundred million different kinds of it. The only odd thing is, you can't find chedder anywhere.

*Language*

This is an obvious one. But for those who don't know, they speak French here, and its very different than English.

*Euros*

In the US we have quarters with different states on them. In France there is the euro with each country having its own design on the back of it. Its kind of a way to keep national identity going. The euro is different as well because they have coins (that are regularly used) for one whole euro, and two euros as well. It was hard at first, paying for things with euros, but just recently my host brother showed me an American dollar and the first things I said was, "Wow. That looks really wierd."

The Just Plain Disgusting

*Mac Dos*

I've gotta admit, from what I've seen, the French eat more at Mcdonald's than I've ever seen people eat in America. There is even the nickname "Mac Dos" for it. The parking lots at the McDonalds here are as big as the mall parking lots I used to see in the states, and you can almost never enter one with out seeing lines comparable to the lines in US McDonalds when a bus full of kids pulls into it. Its kinda gross, and it really pisses me off when I hear how obese Americans are because of all our fast food. Give me a break.

*Litter*

Maybe its because I've never lived in a big city before, but my city here in France is the most litter covered place I've ever seen. They sidewalks are almost multicolored because of all the pieces of gum that have been spit onto them. The streets are full of old paper and trash. I think this is because the littering laws in France either don't exist, or are never enforced. Either way, I think its time for things to change.