21 Thing You Didn't Know About The French That I've Learned In Less Than Two Weeks

21. They iron all their laundry, including jeans and maybe even underwear.

20. They eat pureed potatoes, not mashed potatoes. This side dish has quite a weird texture, and tastes very strongly of butter.

19. They buy new, fresh bread every day, and eat it at every meal.

18. They use actual glass cups and plates and metal silverware in their public school cafeterias.

17. They call credit cards “carte bleue” – Blue Card. Mine literally is blue, so it’s pretty awesome.

16. They get out of school at lunchtime every Wednesday, so basically you get a half day every single week.

15. Judo is a popular sport.

14. The official symbol of France is the rooster. This came about because, in Latin, the word for “Gaul” – the ancient people of France – and the word for “rooster” were the same.

13. Some of their beaches get the highest tides in Europe (St. Malo, Mont St. Michel), and during low tide, you can walk really far on the beach towards the ocean without ever touching water.

12. They put potatoes, shrimp, and some other weird stuff on their pizza.

11. They still respect the tradition of the whole family eating dinner together at the same time, no matter how much homework anyone has to do.

10. Their bathrooms are actually two separate rooms – their’s a room with a sink and bathtub/shower, and a totally different room with just a toilet. Sometimes the toilet room is not next to the real bathroom, meaning you have to walk to the kitchen to wash your hands.

9. Their school day goes until 5:00 pm, and starts around 8:00 or 8:30. They get about an hour for lunch, and free periods throughout the day, depending on their schedule. We have this same type of school day at SYA.

8. There are 60,000 college students in Rennes.

7.They listen to all our music, watch our movies, and their magazines feature a lot of our celebrities.

6. They have a fixed price on bread; meaning no matter where you buy a baguette it will be the same price. I think this may also be true for crossaints, though that doesn’t really make sense. They always cost 0,85 euro though!

5. Speaking of bread, it’s freaking amazing here. Forget cheese and wine, eat as much bread as you can if you ever come here, it’s simply glorious.

4. They don’t only wear their clothes multiple times before washing then (a good idea for saving the earth!), a lot of them wear the same clothes two days in a row. I’ve noticed this with my host family, and some of the other SYAers have too. I guess it’s less outfits to pick out!

3. Crêpes and galettes are very different. Though they are both really thin pancakes with stuff in the middle, a crepe is made with normal flour, and often has a bit of sugar in the batter. A galette, on the other hand, has no sugar in the batter and is made with buckwheat flour. It’s a specialty of Bretagne, and they often have cheese, ham, and eggs in them. There are a lot of varieties though.

2. A long time ago, Bretagne was actually Petite Bretagne. The people who lived there and eventually became part of France came from Grande Bretagne – Great Britain.

1. Their dinner parties last way too long, sometimes until one in the morning.

By the way, just for the record, French people are also in no way mean, bitter, grumpy, unfriendly, or only in the business of ripping off unsuspecting tourists. I think anyone who has actually been to France can tell you this just as well as I can, but seriously, Americans need to get over themselves and stop creating ridiculous stereotypes about the French. They’re all entirely false. For example:They do smile, but not at every single person they see.They don’t all sit around drinking wine all day long. My family never drinks wine at home.They don’t all smoke! Most of the kids at SYA have non-smoking families. They don’t smoke in restaurants usually, except maybe outside.They aren’t mean and grumpy. In fact, most of them are rather cheerful.They don’t wear berets all that often.

There’s always exceptions to the rule, obviously, but it seems that most of our perceptions about the French are horrible skewed.

(PS: If you’ve heard any rumors about French people riding bicycles down the street with a baguette under their arm, it’s totally true. I saw someone doing this the other day. In case I had forgotten I was in France or something, people walk past me carrying baguettes all the time. It’s rather humorous.)