It changes

TIME MACHINE POSTs are things I wrote in France and then never published because of laziness something besides laziness. Here is one of them.

Every Friday I go to a literature review session for college students who apparently have nothing better to do on Friday nights. Last week when it was over and everyone was leaving, the teacher asked me where I lived and how I was getting home. When I answered that I lived by the train station and was going to take the metro she told me that was a horrible idea and she would give me a ride. I said that was very nice of her, and I put on my coat and my backpack and was ready to go.

"Woah, don't put your coat on! We're having a picnic."

I looked around, even though I already knew what I was going to see. It was 9:30 at night. There was no one else in the building. She pulled a picnic basket from underneath a table.

This is something that happens a lot in France. Someone says something very clearly, and I understand every word, but I don't UNDERSTAND. Yes, I caught that you want to have a picnic with me at 9:30 at night. I was able to grasp every word in that sentence. And yet... it's 9:30 at night. And you want to have a picnic?

Dinner was a bag of tiny chicken drumsticks that you can put in the microwave, gluten-free bread because she knew I was allergic to wheat, and a package of garlic cheese. There was a ton of chicken in the bag, but she kept telling me to eat more, until finally they were gone. Then she pulled out a second bag of tiny chicken drumsticks, barbeque flavored.

"Barbeque is a different flavor that regular," she announced in case I had never had flavored food before. "So, it changes."

"It changes" (or ça change for people who wish I didn't translate all the dialogue on my blog) is a sentence that I UNDERSTAND does not mean the same thing as it does in English, but it's impossible for me to think otherwise. In French ça change means "It's kind of different, but there you go." France is kind of different. It changes. But I like it.