In three days, I will have officially been in France for two full months. I feel like the first month felt much longer than the second month. I am very glad to have been told about “The U-Curve of Cultural Adjustment” because it is very real and knowing that I am not alone in this rollercoaster of feelings has helped me come to terms with everything that is changing around me. In my experience, adjusting to French culture has not been *extremely* hard, but there have been various points and times where things build up and missing home is all I can think about. However, I have been incredibly lucky with the host family I was placed with, I would say that while they have been great, I did experience cultural confrontation with them and interestingly enough I did so too with my roommate, another American student. I have grown up within two cultures as the child of immigrants, so to me, adjusting to France seemed just like visiting Mexico growing up, only for a longer period of time. It was interesting to arrive and see my host family and simply greet each other with “a hello are you so and so?”, a much different sort of greeting than I am used to in both Mexican and American culture. As the days went on, dinners here are very late, something I am not used to at all, and dinner conversation can easily last two to three hours. It is incredibly surprising how in the first few days here I discussed the most controversial topics with my host family, and one of the hard parts was debating these topics with another American student who indeed has different opinions than I. So, I believe it is safe to say the biggest of my cultural confrontation stories comes from living with a host family, it is still quite hard to get used to eating dinner so late but I have made new friends with who I joke about, and they have come up with the phrase “oh, life is so hard in the South of France” as a way to dispel any negative or frustrated feelings and remind us that we are indeed studying abroad in the South of France. I also think it’s important to note, that through all of these new interactions with other American students from greatly varying backgrounds and my French family, I feel that I am growing in so many different aspects and am very glad to be here regardless of any bad moments.
