1. You never need an excuse to wear a scarf. Man or woman, summer or spring, the scarf is always in! I can’t tell you how useful this has been when I have one black dress, and can easily change the entire look just by changing the scarf.

2. In primary school, among other places, lunch is 2 hours. A lot of the kids get picked up by their parents who take them out for lunch so much so that lunch is nicknamed l’heure des mamans. 

3. Bookshops are plentiful and are often a good deal. Several spots will put out a good selection of various genres starting at .20 cents like this tempting title,  “The Great Spies of the Second World War” for a euro.

5. It’s harder to get fat. Even if you wanted to treat yourself to a milkshake from a fast food chain or a frappuccino style drink (there’s no Starbucks in Montpellier), you’d have to buy two just to equal the small size in the U.S.. Granted, when you first arrive in France and are enjoying the newness of things, you will subsist on baguettes and chocolate croissants. But honestly, this kind of behavior only lasts a few weeks before you realize with horror that you haven’t eaten a single vegetable (except frites…those count right?!) since your arrival. This is not what normal people do. Do as the French do and you will stay skinny.

4. You are forced to relax. Remember those 2 hour lunches? Well when I was all in a rush to get to the bank one day, I arrived fully winded only to find out that the bank had closed for its lunch hour. I was annoyed for all of five seconds because then I looked to my left and voila! there appeared before me a lovely park complete with an arc de triomphe. Maybe I didn’t get to the bank in time, but hey, I got to discover Chateau d’eau in the Jardin du Peyrou which overlooks the surrounding Massif Central mountains.

A+

-D.