Studying abroad here in Aix-en- Provence has been a formative experience for me and I have enjoyed every moment of it thus far. Since being in France, one of the aspects of daily life that I found hard to adjust to at first was the lack of air conditioning. I remember the first night I spent at my host family’s house in my room and being unable to sleep through the night as it was scorching and there was no fan or air conditioning. This was surprising to me as in the US almost always there is air conditioning everywhere and in India, there is always at least a fan. The weather in the South of France is one of the aspects of life here that I really appreciate as it is so beautiful, however, at the end of August and during the month of September, there were some really high-temperature extremes. Most buildings do not have any air conditioning and rarely have a fan and given that I walk everywhere here, when I arrive in a building or to class it takes a longer time to cool off. I have noticed though that despite there being a lack of air conditioners and fans, people here still manage to stay cool in other ways. One of the biggest ways they do this is by leaving most windows open. I grew up in India for a large part of my life and it is not a common practice to leave windows open unless there is a mesh due to the influx of mosquitoes. I now always have my window open when I am in my room and I love the feeling of waking up to fresh air and hearing the sounds of nature. There have also been other cultural shocks surrounding the language barrier and the idea of consent and eye contact I have experienced here but from all of these experiences, I have really come to appreciate the little things.
