This past weekend, 6 of my friends and I traveled to the wonderful cit of Paris, France. In all the classes about study abroad we took before coming over here we learned all about culture shock and what its going to be like to experience it and how to deal with the stress and emotional roller coasters that go along with culture shock. Since being over here in England, however, I have experienced little to no culture shock. Sure some things are different, but I can cope well enough with things like driving on the left side of the road, or the fact that they don’t have mac and cheese. But I hadn’t actually experienced genuine culture shock… until this weekend that is.                          
I didn’t even think going over there that there would be a language barrier. I know, that’s a little ignorant, but I completely over looked that little piece of vital importance. My friends though, were prepared and printed out sheets of small phrases that we would most likely have to say. So on the train ride to the airport, we practiced our French. Still, at that point I still didn’t really think it would be too much of an issue. But, right when I got off the plane and walked into the French airport, I knew I was in trouble. EVERYTHING was in French, which makes sense because we were in France, but I was taken aback by how different their language was from ours. We successfully maneuvered our way through the airport to the train station and bought tickets to get to our hostel. Even buying tickets (which is such a mundane thing to do) was extremely difficult. We found our hostel and checked in and thankfully, a lot of Parisians speak some English (even thought they aren’t really happy to do so.)
The only things I know how to say in French are “Merci” “Merci Beaucoup” “S’il Vous Plait” “Bonjour” and “Au Revoir” and I said these 5 phrases over and over and over again this weekend. It was such a great relief when we actually found someone who spoke fluent English so we wouldn’t have to talk with our hands, or repeat ourselves over and over to get our point across, that, all we really wanted was a sandwich or a bottle of water.
Another thing is that the Parisians just really do not like Americans or the English so we stood out like a sore thumb with our loud American accents. We got many glares over the weekend. And when you get lost and are looking for directions, they will mess with you and play games because they think its funny to not help English speaking American tourists as some of our group found out the hard way.
I was extremely happy and relieved to come back to the UK and be able to understand all the people and read all the signs. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Paris and I would go back in a heartbeat, and really most of the Parisians are quite nice, but I felt a sense of homecoming when I got off the plane at London Luton and it was the best feeling in the world.