The Difference Between France and Australia

These are little things that I have been noticing since I arrived and I thought I would share them with everyone:

*Cars - Everyone drives a Citron or a Renalt or a Pergot. There are actually very few other types of cars on the road. Though I have seen a few ford mondeos, a couple of nissans and every now and again a Mini Cooper makes it accross the channel. I will also add that very few cars on the road appear to be made before the 1980s, unlike Australia where half the cars on the road look like they could fall apart at any moment (especially when driving through the likes of Elizabeth).
*Vans (By this I mean the cross between the 4WD and a normal car) - Many more people drive this type of car than in Australia, but you can not deny that they are roomy.
*Meals - The french eat so much more than us but less frequently. Lunch and Dinner are tres grand (breakfast being normal size). Every lunch and dinner contains a main course, bread, cheese (always the cheese!!) and then dessert. I have to say I really do miss a decent informal meal!
*Vegetables - No this doesn't mean they don't eat vegetables, in fact they eat a lot of vegetables but they don't have the same variety as we do. One night we only had broccoli to go with our meat but oh my gosh the amount of broccoli!!
*Bread - French bread is really good! My family make their own bread and whilst it is good it is alot dryer than our bread. That's okay I just layer on the Vegemite. Which reminds me...MY FAMILY LOVE VEGEMITE!!! They eat just as much as me!! (for those of you that don't know I eat ALOT)
*Cheese - I have never seen so much cheese in my life. I have found a total of three cheeses that I really like but I'm still not a fan of cheese all day everyday. My family even have cheese for desset! It's called "fromage blanc" or white cheese, It looks like yogurt but personally I think it is disgusting but they love it.
*Low Fat - I doubt the french know the meaning of this phrase. Something tells me there is an unwritten law against low fat food. Definately less preservetives though.
*Butter - I have not seen butter since the airoplane.
*Kissing (on the cheeks) - Here we kiss three times but it's not exactly a kiss it's more of a touch cheeks and make a kissing noise. Wow it actually sounds really funny when you explain it but that's what it is.
*School Breaks - We spend most of our 15min breaks in the toilets. That sound really bad but there is a heater in the toilets which we all gather around. The toilets are also in pristine condition compared to school toilets back home.
*Handwritting - Oh the trouble I have reading their handwritting. It looks ten times better than my handwritting but at least mine is readable to them!! My biology teacher gave me a sheet of notes to copy but I highly doubt that my notes are correct. The notes are probably not even in french!
*Fog - seriously when is the last time we had fog so thick that you couldn't see 50 metres in front of you that lasted past about 7 am. That's right last week, early afternoon and still can't see a thing.
*The Language - Okay so the fact that everyone speaks French is a no brainer but despite popular belief very few people actually speak English
*Australia - They actually know very little about Australia. They know what everyone else knows but other than that, not really. ACDC and Tina Arena are the only Australian musicians that people know but most people didn't know that ACDC was Australian.
*Power Points - Other than the fact that their plugs are different to ours I am still yet to see and on/off switch to a powerpoint
*Light Switches - None of this "little switch with an orange mark" business. The light switches that I've seen are these fat rectangles so you have to be careful not to slip and accidently turn the lights off. And yes falling and accidently turning the lights off is something I have done.
*Dressing for Winter - Take the coat out of the equation and we dress the same as them for winter. Jeans, t-shirt, occasionally long sleeved t-shirt, jumper, scarf. Why is it on this list you ask? Because there is about a ten degree difference between our winter and theirs!!! Yet they dress how we dress for our winter and none of there appear to be as cold as I am. Then again I would like to see them try and cope with our summer (I was told about thirty degrees on average)
*Music - Okay so yes it is highly unlikely that someone in France likes the same music as me but they don't even know the French music I like!!! They also like Simple Plan alot more than we do. We were over them awhile ago but now I'm actually hearing their new stuff.
*Disney - This should probably come under movies but oh well. All blockbuster films are dubbed...even the songs. But it's good to know that they get the same kicks out of the English version that I get from the French version. difference is only I know the english version.
*French Movies - The french movies I love are (or were) not big here. I have seen some great french films (ie. Monsier Batingnol, Les Choristes, Amelie, Le Voyage De La Balloon Rouge....) but know one seems to know them. Either that or my accent is just that appaling.
*Literature - It appears that the Twilight phenomenon has not yet made it to France. I have seen the books in a book store but that is it. There are alot of books in the teen section of the store that I know were originally written in English but when it comes to French (the lesson) I have never heard of the texts we are looking at. The teacher briefly mentioned Victor Hugo and after that I had no clue. I also think that we were looking at a text in old french which would be like a French person studying Shakespeare luckily I was excused from the test on it.
*Maths - I really wish they did things the same way because then I would have one lesson that I knew what was going on. At the moment we're doing congruencey which is all good I can do that easy peasy. Problem is I know how to reason in English but not in French.
*The Snow - The fact that you can go to the snow for an afternoon just doesn't happen in Austrlia (not for most people anyway). When we go to the snow we go for an extended period of time because it usally involves an extensive drive.
*Spiders - Fellow Australians I really hate to admit it but have alot of spiders and big ones at that. Here I have seen a total of 1 spider and it was the size of an ant (average sized ant not one of those puney ones or one of those massive ones). In Australia, whilst it would still make our heart skip a beat (in a bad way), seeing a hunsman the size of a small saucer would not surprise us but people here looked shocked at how casually I say that get that big.
*Flys - None what so ever. Thankfully I think they're all frozen.
*The Smell - Now when you look at a title like "The Smell" you would automatically think it was bad. On the contrary my dear friends this place smells so good. All you can smell is wood fires and I don't know about other people but I love that smell.
*The Heaters - My school has great heaters. There are probably many other heaters that would do a better job but you can sit on these heaters and warm your hands on them. Which is why in breaks the toilets are a great place because the corridoors are tres froid.
*Ruins - Australia doesn't have proper ruins (no, old houses destroyed in bushfires don't count). On a hill near (okay pretty much next to) Espallion is a castle. Ruins of a castle. People don't get why I take such an intrest in the ruins. To most it's just a incrediably destroyed, old building but I can't wait to see the ruins.
*Snow Days - People here are all "yeah, sometimes there's so much snow we don't go to school or work". If that ever happened in australia people would go to school and work anyway thinking it was a massive practical joke.
*Beer - No Aussie fridge is complete without beer. Here I've only seen beer in liquor stores.
*Christmas - Here christmas is not bigger but more.....advertised?? In other words everywhere is decorated in someway or another. The towns, the shops, the houses, even my school has decorations. Christmas trees are also different as I have not yet seen a fake christmas tree. In Australia real tree are normally really pointy but here no. The trees look so much better.
*Mobile Phones - I have only seen a few people with Nokia's where as nearly everyone has had a Nokia at some stage back home. Most people my age had a nokia for their first phone.
*Computers - Most people have a home computer but unlike most schools back home there is no computer lab at Imaculate Conception. I have seen a total of three computers and they were in the science lab and they appear to be vey old.

Okay something just happened that I have to tell you guys: I'm sitting at the table waiting for lunch to be served looking at the pot thinkning "that looks different". It gets dished up, "please please don't let that be what I think it is!!" Odile announces what it is and it turns out I was right.....Guys I just ate tounge of cow. It wasn't really that bad it was more just one of those things that no matter how good it is I can't not think about the fact that it is COW TOUNGE!!!!!

Well that is my list of differences that you may or may not have ever thought about. I'm in the process of writing postcards for family and hopefully I should be able to send them soon and since I'm here so long they should arrive before I do (please let me not have just jinxed it).

That's me over and out x.