culture shock. or not

True confession: This is my French toilet. It is not
 in a gas station. Alas, I had no American ones
on hand for illustration. Who takes
pictures of toilets?

It was a gas station bathroom. One not remarkable in any way except that it was relievingly clean, as "les toilettes" at the big trucker-targeting interstate-highway gas station complexes tend to be--cleaner, at least, than the kind around back that must be entered with keys attached to three-foot-long boards marked "Women" in black magic marker. I was making my first little solo road trip in months, maybe a year, even, and enjoying the chance to be alone in a car on the open road during a summer trip back to the U.S.

The bathroom was small-ish as such bathrooms go, with only about three stalls. I exited to the sink ahead of the other woman who had entered the bathroom. But she had reached the hand-washing stage of things beside me by the time I was waving my hands under the magic sensor to acquire a paper towel. What emerged surprised me: only about three inches of stingy dispensing. As I waved a second time, so I could dry my other hand, she was receiving her first ration.

And then suddenly I realized I could comment aloud about the slightly comical allotment. So I did. She smiled and agreed that these were the smallest paper towels in the world (or maybe it was something slightly less hyperbolic but just as friendly).

And it was in that little highway bathroom somewhere in Tennessee that I realized how the past year, and especially the six months since my two-week run State-side for Christmas, had retrained me: I've stopped talking to strangers.

My brain still doesn't work fast enough in French to succeed well in those spontaneous life moments in which two unknown-to-each-other people exchange their humanity for a few seconds. And outside of France--say, in the realm of international flights--I now wonder how you can ever know which language to try first when speaking to someone you don't know. Really, you can't tell by looking at most people what language they speak. And with one and 1/4 languages now at my disposal, I'm paralyzed by the possibility of choice.

This thing that in my former life had always been a certainty--speak in English and they will understand--is no longer certain. As though I've eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, my new knowledge has left me tongue-tied. The world is no longer simple and innocent.

I hadn't realized how silent I've become until I was confronted by it in that truck-stop loo. It was strange and sobering and exciting all at once to discover how my new cultural milieu has changed me. I tend to dance between cultures quite easily, feeling at home in lots of places in this world. This is mostly a gift, though sometimes being a chameleon leaves you wondering who you really are.

So when others talk about culture shock, I can barely relate. I enter new places excited to discover how they are different and how they are similar to all the other places I know. I enter eager to understand how people transact life there, eager to interact with them on their terms. Perhaps it's that lens of wonder that keeps me from being too rattled by all that's new and different. I don't expect it to be the same. I want it to be different. I want the world's cultures to keep their endearing and sometimes-maddening quirks.

But this is the longest I've lived outside the States, so I have wondered if this culture shock thing would rear its ugly head in time to celebrate my one-year anniversary of life abroad. I expect I'll discover other effects, but for now I've just stopped talking to strangers. I suppose that's not so bad as the list of potential shocking maladies goes. And I have hope that this skill isn't lost forever. So watch out, strangers of the world, my French is improving. One day I'll learn how to say, "That's the shortest paper towel I've ever seen!"

oh, metric system, how I try to love thee

I can now admit that I was a bit smug a year ago when I packed to move to France, for what I then thought would be just one year. I was a little proud of myself for being world-wise and think-ahead enough to know it might be difficult to find my kind of measuring cups in France. You know, the kind that actually measure things by cups or portions thereof.

With my American recipes in hand, I was going to need some 1/4 cups and 2/3 cups of lovely ingredients from the local French produce markets. What a beautiful marriage it would be between U.S. standard units and metric-world items.

And so I and my measuring cups arrived to conquer France (only in a manner of speaking, mind you, and that manner is not a literal one). As I cooked my way through this part of the world last year ("cooked" is also used loosely here), I found myself regularly googling various conversion units and engaging in mathematics gymnastics every other meal. You don't want to know how many calculations it takes to make a bowl of oatmeal when you purchase the oatmeal in France where my 1/2 cup measures are nowhere to be found in the cooking directions. Determining how many grams of oats go with how many milliliters of water is the stuff of nightmares, even for those of us who actually like math. (Not to mention the fact that what that box refers to as a serving size is barely enough for a beetle to live on.)

Upon my return to lovely southern France a couple weeks ago after a six-week summer séjour (as the French would say) State-side, I'm taking some little steps to commit here. I'll be here at least another year, maybe longer (anything's possible!), and I don't want to live here transitionally for the next 20 years because I only sign up one year at a time.

Thus, came the idea of all ideas. The one that was destined to make the world a much better place. Or at least my world. The realization exploded in my brain--a brain made more agile by all those real life math problems I did last year, I bet--that I could actually go buy a milliliters measuring device! Such kitchen gadgets really aren't reserved only for those who grew up metric. In fact, when I crept into the kitchen shop--no need to draw attention to the act of treason that was about to go down--no one even asked to see my French residence permit before accepting my money. Amazing!

So watch out world. Looks like I'm really living in France now!

And don't worry, I will continue to get plenty of real life, brain-exercising mathematics application moments every time I buy anything, courtesy of earning money in dollars and spending them (painfully) in euros--euros that I'm very happy aren't pounds, the money kind or the weight kind.