The Traveler

Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: Life & Style

Media Credit: Anna Nguyen

On my night table rest stacks of books. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller and Sylvia Beach are required reading for my literature course. Haruki Murakami, Jane Austen, Kazuo Ishiguro and company - and the occasional issue of the French Elle - are leisure reading.

Upon packing for France, and after much consideration, I chose to bring three books I wasn't able to cross off of my summer reading list. I also decided not to bring any other forms of media to entertain myself with, nor did I pack any sort of technology to use during my stay in Pau.

I concluded that my laptop was too heavy to carry when waiting for my next flight to leave the airport in Houston or sorting my way through the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. As a result, I've been transcribing the drafts of my papers and columns, then having to decipher my penmanship to type them on the computer of my host family, my fingers clumsily adjusting to the different locations of the letters.

I thought it would be good practice to try to live a life without gadgets, finding interesting activities to enjoy in a foreign country and setting aside time to read an hour or two before bedtime after a long day of trekking in Pau. I am also one of the few students who did not purchase a cell phone after arriving to Pau, only buying an international phone card to call home once or twice a week.

Perhaps my problem is my lack of interest in going to the pubs in the evenings to watch rugby and then walking to a nearby discotheque at midnight, waiting for others to show up at 2 a.m. - the official time the French commence the party scene.

Or perhaps the problem is that the shops and other establishments close earlier than the businesses in Fayetteville. Shopping boutiques close at 7 p.m. Cafes - oh, the horror - close an hour and a half later. The convenience store located near the university closes at the same time as the cafes. I recall one planned shopping trip to H&M was not possible because my friends and I arrived five minutes before its closing time.

Adapting to the stores and the dining habits of the French is problematic, especially for a person who is used to restaurants being opened at almost any time for lunch or dinner. The eating hours are very strict here; lunch is served from noon to 2 p.m., and thus some stores also close at those specific hours. If one is fortunate enough to enjoy a later lunch, some restaurants might not officially close until 4 p.m., my host mother said. Dinner, too, she said, is served between 7:30 and 10 p.m., perhaps closing at 10:30 or 11 p.m. at the latest.

Continued...

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