Feeling different

It's funny how easy it is to feel different...

France is undoubtedly beautiful, and it's citizens are just as lovely. But not being able to speak the language has proved not to be difficult to maneuver around in stores and restaurants, but difficult internally for me to process.

I feel different -- an outsider. And I want nothing more than to wrap myself up in this culture and all it's charm. I have to keep reminding myself I've only been here two days, and the survival French I will need to know to get around will come soon enough, and my French classes will start next week. I'm just antsy to be able to communicate more easily with the locals and be able to get around. I just have to be patient, and eventually it will all come together. 

It is fun learning new words though, I feel like I'm in first grade again, and I have this new set of vocabulary words to soak up into my memory. 

Being a very visual learning, it is harder for me to remember words that I hear, and I often need to look them up to visualize them to be able to remember them. 

I also love idioms. Anyone who knows me well knows I use them on a daily basis and I love learning the etymology behind them and the history of why they came about.

One my my favorites that I learned this summer, was the phrase, "hair of the dog that bit you" in reference to needing a drink to help ease a hang-over (not that I would know what being hungover feels like, of course)actually comes from when there wasn't a cure for rabies yet, and the "cure" that doctors would prescribe at the time would be to rub the ash of the tail of the rabid animal (dog) that bit you into the wound. 

Anyway, I'm loving learning new French phrases in idioms, and here is one I learned the other day that I thought was very fitting, especially since there's so many things I want to be able to say, but can't.