Two weeks. Yes, it most definitely takes at least two weeks for me to get back in the flow whenever I come home to the U.S.
I only go back every two or three years and I’ve been living here in France for almost eight years over all.
After two weeks of hanging out with loved ones, I finally get my Yankee accent back and stop pausing between words with a very french ‘eeehhhhh’.
In two weeks, the commercials every five minutes don’t wig me out or make me feel like they’re intentionally enhancing attention deficit disorder.
In two weeks, I can handle the food. The smell of greasy pizza that permeates most shopping centers and highways becomes second nature to me once again. Eating meals that have so much flavoring, cheeses, spices, salts or batters that it becomes hard to identify the base ingredients doesn’t phase me in. the. least.
After two weeks, I’m able to go into a grocery store without having a panic attack. The boxes and bottles and pre-prepared everyfreakingthing doesn’t creep me out as much. So what if it takes me twenty minutes to find plain couscous or I have to drive forty minutes to find fish fresh enough to make sushi? No big deal!
In two weeks time, I stop being ‘french’ and find my way back to my roots. However, this time around, I only went back to the United States for...
Four days.
Thank God it was four days of whirlwind activity. My cousin was getting married. I was a bridesmaid. I went straight from Boston airport to the rehearsal dinner and just kept going from there. In four days I managed to go to the wedding rehearsal, go shopping, get out to my favorite restaurant for some New England baked stuffed lobster, and (more importantly) out to the old town bar for a drink.
Then there was the wedding, the reception, and the after party. Monday I went back to my highschool and spoke with all the french classes about how I ended up in France and the differences in culture and language. My first french teacher was still there and she was ecstatic to have me. I have to say lots have changed since I was in highschool. My old school was torn down and they built a beautiful modern school over it. I was so jealous of the neat morning announcements with the principle saying the pledge of allegience on screen and an honest-to-goodness student news program like something out of 90210. I’m pretty sure I was the only one in the whole class who listened to the program though…
But again, like I said, it was only four days. I had no time to watch television (thank god). No one expected me to go food shopping (if I had, they probably would have found me eight days later looking like Tom Hanks in ‘castaway’).
Due to the time difference, fatigue, and my cold, I could barely manage to speak english normally and everyone kept commenting on my ‘accent’ which really just, in my opinion, sounded like I had woken up from a coma with brain damage.
It was peak weekend for the colored Connecticut leaves and the weather was uncharactaristicaly warm at around 75 degrees tuesday! All in all I had an amazing trip! Thank you all for your well wishes last week and I look forward to catching up with you!
To start- how was everyone’s weekend?:)
*CQG*
