A list of things I am getting used to

I’m still vacillating between feeling totally normal here and wondering how I got here and what my place is in this new, wacky world, but as I look back, I see the things that felt totally alien slipping into normalcy.

Shopping carts

Shopping carts here, with rare exceptions like Costco, have 4 casters. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it sort of is. Back in ‘Murica, a shopping cart has 2 fixed wheels on the rear, and 2 casters on the front.

What this means for you, the user of a shopping cart, is that back in ‘Murica, or Costco ( a functional analog of ‘Murica) is that you aim your cart by pivoting around the rear, non-swiveled wheels while the swiveled castors in the front steer themselves to adjust to your desired trajectory.

It is a nice balance, the rear provide a steady trajectory, the front accommodate and all four bear the load.

Here in France, our 4 castered carts have a mind of their own.

Carts here crab. They translate, they don’t steer. On a flat surface, you use your waist, upper torso, forearms and wrists to set a vector and sort of lean into it. It is a workout, the more food you buy (and thus eat) the heavier the cart, and the heavier the workout.

I am absolutely certain this is so that when you meet friends at the grocery store you can simply “slide” your cart to the side so that you may “bizous bizous” and chat about French things for a few minutes.

This whole translating thing is great until you have a force that you are working against… like gravity when there is a slope in a parking lot… like one to facilitate drainage as but one example.

Then you end up translating your cart at an angle, so that you are biasing your input force against the force of gravity acting on your cart, while maintaining a translational force to get you to your car. This is a whole body work-out, but the wrists and waist seem to bear the brunt. I have not hired a coach to check out my form, maybe with some training or some time in the simulator I could get better at it. Maybe there is a cart machine at the gym.

I am, surprisingly, used to it.

(Also, with rare exceptions, the carts are all chained together and a euro coin releases a cart. You have to bring your cart back to the cart area to get your euro back. )

Tiny, silly looking little cars

They don’t look tiny, they don’t look silly, they just look like cars now. Normal cars are smaller here, with good reason. It seems 90% of the buildings around here have been here for a few hundred years. Narrow streets sometimes meander atwix them. A 72 Cadillac Coupe de Ville has no right being here.

To that end, cars here are generally on the smaller side.

Then we have the “Sans Perims” vehicles. These are limited to 50 kph. They do not need a class B license. They apparently are the domain of those who have sample the local fermented product to too great a quantity and have driven into, off of, through or onto people, things roads in such a way that the authorities have gotten involved and suspended their license.

We have them. They are diminutive.

These things are simply natural, they rent them at the local farmer’s supply company, Rural Master.

Rural Master for when you Absolutely, Positively have to get there but you blew 0.8 on the breathalyzer.

Buildings

They sort of come in three varieties here:

• Ancient stone things that are older than ‘Murica.
• Sort of familiar looking things that are covered with a substance not unlike stucco.
• Metal things. Corrugated siding, painted, and entirely alien looking.

They simply look like buildings now.

Buying things and money

I have coins that represent 1 or 2 euros. There are no notes for these denomination. My bank (pronounced “bonk”,) has an ATM inside that dispenses coins. I have euro coins from other countries that were minted there.

I primarily use my ATM card for purchases. I use the TAP functionality for amounts below 50 euros. I have to slot it for greater amounts. The transaction is transparent enough.

This is now normal to me, the French prompts, heavy pocket change and TAP to pay. I don’t think about it. I try to always have a euro on me for the shopping carts…

Friendly drivers

Out here in the country at least, people are friendly on the road. They let you merge. They begave well, generally. On the autoroute (freeway) they keep right except during traffic and when passing.

Driving

Driving itself, having just passed the tests to get my license, feels normal now. There are a dizzying array of signs to follow and syncopated speed changed that sort of now make sense.

you’re on the autoroute, you’re doing 130.
You approach a toll, the speed is now posted at 110.
You get closer to the toll, the speed is posted at 90.
You get even closer to the toll, the speed is posted at 70.
As you approach the toll, at the point where you should have chosen your lane, you drive 30. I think it is posted.

You squirt out of the tolls into a lane-less no-man’s land and are at a posted 70.

You are now on a National highway with a divider and you are at a posted 110.
You exit onto a Departmental and now you are at a posted 80.
You approach a town. You are now at a posted 50.
50 meters later you are now at a posted 30, maybe as a zone for the whole town, or maybe just for crosswalks.
You leave the 30 zone and accelerate to 50.
Then you leave town and are back at a posted 80.

Or you are on a back-fucking-country road and the assumed is 80, which is madness considering traffic coming in the opposite direction is also doing 80.

Not used to: The roads are narrow. My driveway in the states was wider.
Every time a truck or RV comes the opposite direction, I shit a diamond.
I have seen RVs going in opposite directions smack mirrors.
A scintillating explosion of shards, like glitter in a snow globe.
I may never get used to passing.

Back to used to: Bugs and critters.

There are seasons for the bugs. I can’t tell you in advance which bug is in season. One week we may have a proliferation of stink-bugs, the next it is mosquitoes, swarming flies, moths, crane flies, house flies.
Mollusks too; Lots of snails, different shells, they seem to have a schedule of their own.

Not used to: Giant wolf spiders with 1000 babies on their backs.

We have no hummingbirds here. We do have hummingbird moths. When I first saw one I thought it was a dwarf hummingbird.

Used to: chemicals

The chemicals here are less…chemically. Cleaners and paints particularly. The paints are low on VOCs. You can moisturize your face with the spray paint. It is gentle. It is like a whisp of paint like substance compared to American “fuck you, in your face WWF wrestler” Krylon.
I manage. The planet is happier for it too, I bet.

We clean with vinegar. A lot of vinegar. We have a fosse septique (poop tank and leech field) and bleach kills the happy bacteria that eats the poop and makes it suitable to leech into the soil below your back yard.
The horror of killing that bacteria is unimaginable.

I am used to this.

Tiny beverages

I have not seen a thirsty two ouncers in over a year. The soda cans are smaller, coffee is smaller. Tea is tea, but what sort of madman chugs on a 24 ounce Earl Grey anyhow.

Normal food on cooking shows

The French don’t do “extreme food.”
You won’t se a TV show touting a 30 cm tall burger on a skewer jammed into a 10 kg watermelon filled with vodka-shaved ice, sherbet, with a bowl containing a decadent chocolate filled brownie drenched in vanilla ice cream.

I am very much ok with this.

If you are an expat and you made it this far, comment what you have gotten used to!