Culture Shock.

I’ve slowly been entering a phase of culture shock.

Examples:

Trip to French Walmart, called Carrefour. I was looking for washcloths. They literally didn’t sell them. They just sold these square, washcloth material “gloves”. It’s weird.

I needed a pillow. Let me preface this with…the past two nights I had to invent pillows. How does one invent a pillow? Take the two pillowcases you brought with you, and fill them with fluffy things like sweaters, scarves, and a sweatshirt. Add the tiny travel pillow on top of that and it almost feels like you’re using the real thing.
So I had pillowcases, but no real pillows. Apparently France has different pillows? They’re all square, and are flatter than US pillows. Yeah, so my rectangle pillow cases will do me a lot of good. Don’t worry, I made it fit.

Everything is closed on Sunday. Not everything, but most things. So my friend and I spend most of today running around town getting the things we needed, because the stores will be closed tomorrow. Our French culture teacher explained to us that if they want places to be open on Sunday, that means that people would have to go to work. And who would want to go to work if you can have one day dedicated to nothing but spending time with your family? It has absolutely nothing to do with church, because no one actually GOES to church here.
Some restaurants and stores proclaim that they’re open 7/7 , and it makes them stand out from the rest. Back home, establishments get the same effect from being able to tell their customers they’re available 24/7. But, 24/7 doesn’t exist in France, at least not so much in Aix. It’s an accomplishment of sorts just to be open on Sundays.

So culture shock for me just turns out to be a series of mild annoyances. Thankfully I’m a great problem solver and can avoid these things from becoming too difficult.