Saturday
I woke up to a surprise text from another one of my neighbors, Catherine. I met Catherine when Mme Bodet took me to open an account at La Banque Postale. She works there a few days a week and had offered to invite me shopping. I had completely forgotten about the exchange until I received her message. She asked me to join her and her sons on a trip to The Village, an outlet mall in Villefontaine. We agreed to meet outside her house at 14:00.
I took my time getting ready and met her outside when it was time. She introduced me to her son Louis (who is my age) and Théo (who is a high schooler). Théo is working on getting his driving license, so he drove us to the mall. It was incredibly crowded because it was the weekend before Christmas. All the stores were offering deals because they had lost a significant amount of business during the confinement.
Though Catherine was an English teacher for 25 years, neither of her sons spoke English so the entire outing was strictly in French. It was certainly a new experience for me to be around younger French people. I heard and learned a lot of new expressions that simply aren’t used by older folks. It’s incredible, the longer I’m here the more I’m convinced that simply studying a language is not enough to learn it. You need to be immersed in the culture and hear from people who actually use it to fully understand and become fluent. While UM prepared me well for this experience, I certainly would not say that I am fluent yet by any means.
It was a struggle to get into many of the stores that we wanted to visit because there were limits on how many people could be inside at one time. As a group of four, we had to wait for others to come out before we could enter. We visited the Levi’s store, Adidas, and some French clothing shops I can’t recall the names of. American Christmas music was blaring overhead for much of the day and it was pretty comforting to be able to understand something so easily.
Before we went home, Catherine wanted to stop off at a factory sale at a leather making shop in Meyzieu. They were looking for a good wallet for her husband. I looked around trying to find gifts for friends and family, but even at discounted prices there was nothing I could afford. I ended up striking up a conversation with the salesman. He told me that he had visited Florida and really liked it. He wanted to return to the United States, but was disappointed because tickets were so expensive. Relatable content, honestly. When the family found a suitable gift, we headed back to Anthon.
I thanked them all for a wonderful day and spent the rest of my night listening to Christmas music and writing.
Mary-Est-En-France 