I’m now 3 months into my study abroad program in Marseille and a lot has happened since my last post a month ago. The most notable development is the weather. Finally, it’s starting to feel like what I imagined the south of France would feel like. The past couple of days have been 70 degrees and sunny, and I spent both days on my balcony tanning. Regarding my assimilation into French culture, I am doing much better than I was when I wrote my last blog post. I feel like I’m doing a better job at adapting, but of course there have been many challenges along the way.
My biggest school-related challenge has been adapting to the French class format. Classes at my school are 3 hours and 15 minutes long. These are the longest classes I’ve ever taken, and learning to stay focused for such a long period was a challenge. For me, the thing that has helped me most is eating a meal before class. Back home at Pitt, since classes are much shorter, I can get away with not eating before a class. Here when I tried to do that, I made it about an hour and a half before all I could think about was food. Ever since I started to focus more on meal planning, I’ve had a much easier time staying focused. Another unique thing here that has been difficult to adapt to is class rescheduling. Since classes are so long and only once a week, if one gets canceled it gets rescheduled. The make-up time is usually Saturday at 8 AM. This was a surprise to me because I always thought working on the weekends in France was illegal. Turns out this isn’t the case, and to accommodate weekend classes I’ve had to be flexible with my plans.
Outside of the classroom, my biggest challenge has been communication. In general, French people are more formal in the way they communicate even when simply greeting each other. For example, In the US when I go to the grocery store there are many ways I could greet a cashier. I could say hi, hey, howdy, hello, morning, etc. Here in France, you would say either “bonjour” or “bonsoir” if it’s at night. If you use the equivalent of “hi,” you would get a confused look. This has taken time to adapt to, but I’m starting to get the hang of French greetings. I’ve tried hard during these past couple of months to learn how to say “bonjour” with as little of an American accent as possible. Everyone still immediately knows I’m American, but at least now it sounds like I’ve been in France for more than a couple of days. My advice to others planning to study abroad in France is to master the basics of the language first and don’t get discouraged when people inevitably don’t understand you. If you give up immediately like I did in the beginning you won’t improve.