Are We Really THAT Interesting?

Another round of catching up- all of these blogs that never quite made it to publication. . .

Anyway, this one is a reflection on our EM classes.  For the most part they centered around one thing - culture.  Not just that, they all centered around the question "How is France's culture different from the culture of you home country?"

For the first few weeks, this made classes extremely interesting, it was wonderful to learn about all kinds of new places.  The wonderful aspect of the Erasmus program is that our classes were filled with students from all over Europe, and even all over the world!  So for the first couple of classes, it was great to have a chance to learn about them while at the same time venting to them about the French.

However, this soon became a bit tiresome.  While in my opinion every culture represented was very interesting, it seemed that in everyone else's opinion the only culture worth discussing was America's.  Now I  love talking about America, but it really does get old.  I didn't come abroad to tell everyone else about how strange we are with our 3-car-per-family and super-extra-large-fountain-drink customs, I came to embrace new cultures!

Being abroad it is inevitable to be an ambassador of your homeland, but I had no idea people were so thirsty to talk about America, and quite frankly I am sick of comparing America and France!  Clearly they are different, but that doesn't mean that one is better than the other!  Embracing differences as a tool for a French class is fun for a short while, but after a few weeks I just wanted to learn French without having to talk about America all the time!

And now on the eve of our return to the US, I imagine the role will be reversed and I will be met by a bunch of people thirsty to hear about how strange Europeans are. . . Can't they just read a book??