It's not so different here from the U.S. (outside the obvious of course, and b/c it's such an international city) but there are some things that I definitely had to get used to. Here's a little list (good and bad!)
- Bagging my own groceries (stressful when you have someone behind you glaring you down if you're too slow)
- Not even having bags to put your groceries in (some places you have to bring your own, which is actually very environmentally friendly)
- Lack of bar soap (I miss Irish Spring!)...everyone seems to love the liquid washes. Unrefrigerated eggs and milk...the milk concept is actually pretty cool...you can buy a couple to store and you put it in the fridge once you open it.
- When you ask someone (train ticket guy) in French if they speak a little English, and they say no, and then proceed to yell at you in English after you stumble through a couple of phrases. Sigh...that only happened once, but can I tell you how traumatizing that was!
- Nobody returns anything here! Gone are the days of buying three outfits with the promise to myself that I'll return two of them (ok, I never did return them) :)
- No glass, paper, or plastic in the trash; very very heavy emphasis on recycling here, which is awesome.
- The three cheek kiss greeting...I love this actually, so get ready for me to lay some wet ones on you guys when I come home!
- The expensive meat...I think the cheapest boneless skinless chicken breast I saw was like 8 bucks a pound. Ouch. And I won't even get into the steak costs, although ground beef isn't too bad, at about 5 bucks a pound (both are sale prices).
- Scheduling a day and time to do my laundry. Yikes. Let me tell you that was an interesting conversation with my landlord (who spoke no English whatsoever).
- Not driving. I love it. I think my blood pressure has been drastically reduced...the public transporation system here is truly great.
- If we did drive - no right on reds, and there's a yellow before the red turns green!
It's been a month since we've been here (my how time flies). While walking around last night, Tyler asked if I was starting to feel like this was our home, and I thought for a second, and smiled and replied yes, because I feel we are truly embracing this place and just letting go of preconceived notions and habits. I don't think it will ever completely be our home because of not having our family and friends nearby, but it'll do :)
