Missing France

So Adam tells me he enjoys reading my blog entries and that I should write more often. My plan was to wait until I got back to France to post again since this blog is about living in France but I guess I'll give one USA update. 

Now that I'm back to my normal life, the 4 months I spent in France feel like a vacation or a dream. And it really was both. I wasn't working, I was taking classes in something I love to learn, making friends with really cool people, spending everyday with my boyfriend. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it was real.

I've been back here almost 2 months and I really miss France. I see all my friends back in France posting pictures and I wish I could be there spending the summer with them and Adam. Summer is my favorite time of year and I'm spending it working like a dog right now. But then again its financing my super awesome life so I shouldn't complain. I do realize and appreciate that not many people get as lucky to live how I do and I never thought I'd even be so lucky. 

I miss speaking French and learning French culture. I was improving so much and I'm scared I've lost some of that improvement already. I've gone to a couple Meetup.com french speaking groups. I had dinner with my french nurse friend and her husband but for some odd reason I got shy and didn't speak very much French and I was kicking myself the whole drive home. 

I've been picking up an extra shift at the hospital almost every week. Each extra shift worked, in my mind, is a plane ticket or two. Working almost four 12-hour night shifts a week is exhausting and really messes with my internal clock so being awake when the sun is up is very difficult for me these days. I also have very little time to hang out with my friends which, at this time in my life, I'm considering a good thing because I'm not out spending money that needs to be saved. 

I also apologize to my friends for not keeping in touch like I thought I would since we're in the same country again. I'm really too tired to do much of anything these days.

But I have enjoyed delivering babies again and being with all my fun and crazy nurse friends. I had really missed the 5 am conversations that happen in a Labor and Delivery nurses station: vulgar and inappropriate but always highly entertaining. 

So 3 more weeks left in the US. 2 more left in California to work and then the last week I'm spending in Tampa with my parents. Time went slow at the beginning but now is flying by.

I'm not going straight back to France. I'm flying from the US to Norway to meet up with Adam for a 9 day Norwegian vacation. It will be lots of beautiful scenery and many outdoorsy activities.

I get back to France July 26 and have a few days before one of my college BFFs arrives for our 10 day southern France road trip that will take us from Grenoble to Barcelona with several stops in between. Then in late August while Adam is on a business trip to Ethiopia I'm planning on meeting up with some friends in northern England.

And then I have to find a job! So after all these trips are over with and I start my job search I'll post my next update. Until then I'll be a busy European explorer, I really do love my life!

Back in the USA

    I've heard that, when living in another country, the 4 month mark is the hardest. The newness and excitement have worn off and all the annoyances and homesickness that you ignored start to add up. For me, it was the annoyances and differences I was putting up with that were really getting to me finally. 

    The height of this feeling coincided with a weekend trip to London. I got to speak/hear English and be around a culture that is much more similar to my own. I came back to France for one last week of French classes and realized I had lost all motivation to speak/learn French or be in France. 

    Luckily this feeling wore off after 2 days and then it hit me that 2 days later I was leaving France for 10 weeks and I got really sad. 2 of my friends will no longer be in France when I get back and I am pretty bummed about that. 
    But although I was ready for a break I am no where near ready to move back to the US permanently, I can't wait to get back in July. 

French culture that I like better than US culture

    4 months is not a long time but I started to begin to understand French culture. In my French classes, the articles and news clips we were given for written and oral comprehension were related to something about French culture and we would have class discussions about it and how it related to/differed from our various cultures.
    In past posts I know I've complained a little about France and there are definitely things to complain about and get used to but I want to understand and embrace their culture and these are my 2 favorite aspects (and the 2 that I can easily explain in words. The rest is hard to explain, you really just have to experience it)

    ~Unlike in the US, they are not worried about everything always being the biggest, newest, fastest, bestest. They are not worried about keeping up with the Jones's and being materialistic. No one has big diamonds on their hands or cares about having a big fancy house/car. There's certain things that could definitely be improved but it doesn't bother them, its just how it is. I've discussed this with other US expats and all agree, its refreshing. Now, obviously not every American is the same and there are certainly materialistic French people, but in the overall sense of the 2 cultures, the difference is noticeable. 

    ~They work to live, not live to work. In the US, I've noticed, some people are proud of not taking a vacation day in 2 years. Its always work work work, whether we like it or not. In France, they get 5 weeks minimum of paid vacation, Adam gets 7 or 8. Businesses and schools close up shop for at least an hour every afternoon for lunch, nothing is open on Sunday, and sometimes Monday too. They will not stay open for 5 more minutes to help that one last customer. The legal work week is 35 hours. My french teachers said its becoming less like this in recent years, discussions are popping up about stores opening on Sundays, people are working longer hours, but all in all the attitude about work is just different.  

Coming back to the US

    Like I said, 4 months is not a long time to be in another culture and gone from your own, but it was enough for me to have a slight bit of culture shock when I returned. I was told from multiple people to expect it. My mom came back from Amsterdam after 5 years and didn't like it and wanted to go back to Europe. 

    ~First thing, American accents and ways of speaking. Minus the few American students I talked to at school here and there, I'd really spoken English with only 1 other American the whole 4 months, Adam. I got to my gate in Geneva last week and sat next to a girl with that annoying American 20-something girl voice ("like, totally!") and I cringed. It was like nails on a chalk board. Then more Americans arrived to the gate with various American accents, less annoying, but still annoying, and loud. I discussed this with a doctor at work yesterday who lived in Spain for a year and he said the exact same thing. My mom completely understood too.

    ~Loud restaurants. This was surprising. Went out to dinner with my parents and the first couple times was slightly overwhelmed with the volume of the people and the music in the restaurant and just the restaurant itself and the lights and the colors and the TVs and people everywhere.  

    ~The food. Its been a week and a half and it still hasn't gotten better. Starting the morning after I returned, my body hasn't been happy with what I've been eating. I'm almost positive its the ultra-processed American food, which is just about everywhere here, even when its "healthy." I cooked a lot and with fresh meat and veggies from the market and all the restaurants in Grenoble use fresh, local ingredients. I just hope my body readjusts soon, I'll have to watch what I eat.  
    ~and just a nit picky thing, now that I'm back people come up to me and say "hows Paris?!" and it drives me a little crazy because I've never mentioned Paris, I always just say I live in France, and people only think of Paris. Its a big country with lots of other cities, and Paris certainly isn't the best representation of France as a whole, for anyone who's been there. All my teachers always got a look on their face when they talked about the Parisians. Its kind of similar to how we look at New Yorkers, not the best representation of Americans. 

3 months in France

Its been a month since I've written in here. I've been really busy. We moved. Enough said.

School:
School is going great. My french is so much better. I can have fairly complex conversations with people, slowly, with some stuttering, but confidently. When I'm speaking English sometimes I replace English words with French ones, not on purpose, but because it just comes to mind before the English word. I have to say, whoever made up the rules to the French language, I'd like to punch them, they are so confusing sometimes. My non English speaking friends say that English was much easier to learn than french.
 I'm sad there's only 3 weeks of class left. Its way too expensive to continue. I've made lots of friends. Its sad that when I get back from my 2 months in the US, most of my friends will be gone because they were only here for the school year or semester. 

Moving:
So before I got here, Adam and I decided that his 250 sq ft studio would be too small for 2 people. Its quite difficult to find an apartment here, I sent about 15 emails to apts on France's version of Craigslist and got only a couple replies. So we really didn't have much choice so jumped on the first/only apartment we looked at. We now have 400 sq ft and a separate bedroom. we downgraded in other ways though, the kitchen is smaller, has only 2 stove spots and no oven. The shower head doesn't have a thing to hold it to the wall so I have to hold it myself, which is extremely annoying. But that's normal here. And we're not in the busy hypercenter of the city anymore, which I liked. We did get a washing machine, that's a plus. But the French don't like dryers so the extra space we have is constantly cluttered with drying racks full of clothes that take over 24 hrs to dry. We finally got it completely unpacked and organised yesterday and I'm starting to like it much more. 

We previously lived on the 3rd floor, no elevator, with a narrow spiral staircase, on a pedestrian only street. We got a code for access to the road luckily. Moving the furniture wasn't as hard as I expected, we got help from Adam's friends. Except for when we locked ourselves out half way through the process and Adam's friend had to break in for us. Who knew an old knee x-ray would come in handy for breaking into apartments, but it works very well. 

Living in France
Another mishap, which i posted on facebook, I left my wristlet on the tram when I was going to class. It contained my credit card, student card, tram pass, 25 euro in cash, my french cell phone, and my house keys. I've heard stories of things being stolen here all the time so I gave up on finding it almost immediately after realizing I lost it. But I went to the tram office monday morning and it was there and every single thing was inside and I've never been more relieved or surprised or happy

The french are very secure online, especially with banking. I'm not complaining 100% because its a good thing to be secure about. But its extremely annoying to log into my account. I need all kinds of passwords and security questions, then I need one of those secure key passwords that lasts 30 seconds (which i need a password to get). Then they want only certain parts of my password, like, the 2nd, 4th, and 8th letters only. Or you have to play a game to match the word with the pictures, Or type in numbers that are scrambled. this is not only for bank accounts, which is the most complex, but for any online account logins too. But I'm sure their rate of fraud less. 

The French, and I think most Europeans, like to wear things that have something American sounding on them, but they never quite make sense... I've seen: 
"California Redskins,"  
"Redskins New York," 
"Florida Dolphins" with "Miami" on the sleeves  
"Detroid Speedway," (yes, a D at the end)
"sparkly love"
 a sweatshirt supposed to look like a university that said "North State" 
and my all time favorite, a t-shirt that said "Authentic Seaman" 
Its 2015, Americans live in Europe, they should be able to easily verify with an American before printing these shirts. 

I got a small little job. I am tutoring a 3 year old little girl. She's been getting english lessons since she was 2. She knows basic vocab now she needs to start making sentences. I'm not good with kids. I usually avoid them at all costs. I don't know how to interact with them. I researched all kinds of ideas for games to teach with, lost sleep thinking of ideas. I've done one lesson so far. Its difficult. 3 year olds are all over the place. Its really hard to get her to speak in English, she just goes on and on in French. Luckily I understand but I dont know how to get her to do what I say. If anyone has advice, I need all I can get!

Of course French business hours continue to get the best of me, its so inconvenient and by far the hardest thing to get used to, coming from the US where things are always open and everything is always convenient

I also just posted pics from our little road trip to southern france. We stayed in Montpellier and explored towns around there. The weather was perfect and warm and sunny, finally. Just what we needed after a week of moving and unpacking. I now want to move to Nimes, France, The prettiest little town I've ever seen. If anyone is ever in southern france, go there.

2 months in France!

Its been a while since I've posted on here. I've been kinda busy. I've got updates on school and more on French culture and the differences I've encountered. Therefore, this may be a little long, sorry.
    Good news first, I finally got my "carte de sejour" which is my residence permit, which means I'm officially legal in France and I can work part time with my student visa. It was a long, annoying process (like most processes here) and it was the last of all the official things I had to do!

School:

After 2 months I can finally notice a difference in my french skills. Not as much my speaking but my oral comprehension has increased huge amounts. I've learned tons of new vocab. I'm glad I didn't ask to drop my course level. I'm comfortably challenged now. My speaking is getting better too, though. Since all my new friends are from all over the world the common language among us is French so that's what we speak when we're together. Sometimes English, because of course everyone knows some English, but we only use that for complex conversations. I still wish I had more opportunity in class to speak it. Adam and I are supposed to speak it together on the weekends but we get lazy.

So my courses are month-long intensive courses. Not all students are there every month, so each month you get put in a new level, you have new, and some of the same, classmates and sometimes a new teacher too. This month the students are: 5 Chinese, 4 Korean, 1 Japanese, 1 German, 1 Irish, 1 Canadian, 1 Qatari, 1 Chilean, 1 Belarus and me, the only American. But its cool because I like learning about different cultures. 

Here's a funny story for my nurse friends: 
There are 2 teachers for my class that switch days during the week. One I like, the other, not so much. She's very old school, very French, very serious, and not always very nice. We were learning about medical terminology, which I happen to be familiar with since I worked in clinics in Madagascar (they speak french there). Also since medical words are Latin based, they're similar in all Latin based languages. The word was "asculte." My nurse friends will know that "ascultate" in English means to listen, you ascultate lung sounds. She asked if anyone knew what it meant and I replied "ecouter" which means to listen. She said "no, it means regarder" (to look). There is a dentist in the class too and we both replied "non, c'est ecouter" she said "no it means to look, you asculte someones eyes, or throat" after a few minutes of us saying no and her completely refusing to believe us we gave up. A few minutes later she asked what are the different ways to take a temperature. She said, armpit, forhead, ear. I said "under the tongue" she said "really? I've never heard of that before" I said "well that's how I always take my patients' temperatures" she says "what are you a doctor?" I said "no I'm a nurse" and she says "oh you're a nurse?! well then maybe you are right about asculte meaning to listen, I mean I'm no medical professional you probably know more than me" She completely recanted all she said about "asculte" and then referred to me for answers for the rest of the class.


Living in France

Apartment hunting
     So before I even got here Adam and I decided to put in our 3 (yes 3) month notice to move out of his apartment. Its only 300 sq feet and the internet and phone service have absolutely horrible reception. Once the notice is given you can't change your mind, you have to be out in 3 months. We're looking on LeBonCoin, its similar to CraigsList but not nearly as good, not nearly as many options. We've been warned that landlords never give you back your security deposit, so to deal with this, the French just don't pay their last month's rent. 
     A major difference and difficulty we've run into is finding an equipped kitchen. In France, when you move, you take EVERYTHING with you. This includes the stove/oven, refrigerator, microwave. Some apartments we see online only have a kitchen sink. Luckily, the newly renovated apartments have the oven/stove built into the cabinetry/walls. So that's what we need to look for. 
     Another random thing about apartments in general, since the French are very into energy conservation and since energy use is cheaper at night, water heaters are only turned on at night, at 11pm. If you run out of hot water at noon you don't get hot water again until the next morning. Our water tank in this studio is only built for 1 person use and there's now 2 people in this apartment. On occasion, if we both take morning showers, I'll run out of hot water while doing the dishes later in the day. I take shorter showers and keep the water pressure low to avoid running out.  

Doing Laundry:
     The laundromat we use has 10 washing machines and 5 dryers. For some unknown reason only about 5 of them are turned on on any given day. So I have to go down the line to see which ones are turned on that I can use. Also, French people, and I think non-Americans in general, don't really use dryers for their clothes. Clothes lines strung outside of windows are very common. I've seen it in Italy too. Most people I see in the laundromat take all their clothes straight from the washing machine and leave. Our Brazilian friend had a special drying rack installed in her laundry room, she doesn't own a dryer. Neither do our French friends. Its also very expensive to use the dryers at the laundromat. 1 euro for each 10 mins. So Adam and I just do 10 minutes in the dryer and then bring it home and put it on our drying rack to dry the rest of the way. 

Public Restrooms:
   Most of the public restrooms I've used in France are teeny tiny. Sometimes they're kind of gross but not always. But what I've noticed the most is that there are rarely toilet seats on the toilets. You can tell there used to be one at some point. I asked 2 non French people why this is and they both told me they heard they get stolen. Why in the world someone would steal a toilet seat is ridiculous to me, I'll have to ask a French person.

Flying:
     So in the past year I've been on a few planes that are mostly full of French people. Something funny I noticed, they clap when the plane lands. My guess is they're applauding the pilot for not crashing. Not everyone does it, of course, but I was pretty confused the first time I heard it. 
     Also, when a plane is delayed, they tell you why! Our first flight to Venice was delayed because the pilot was sick so a new pilot was en route to the airport. My flight back from Venice was delayed because there was an issue with a passenger on the earlier flight from Rome so it was late getting in from Rome. Its kinda nice. In the US you only know delay reasons if they have to do with weather. 

American Food in France

More food adventures. I seem to talk about food a lot. Since being here I've been in a state of constant hunger. Which isn't unusual for me but its never happened this often. I wake up in the middle of the night and munch on a baguette. I crave charcuterie, which is various kinds of ham, prosciutto and salami, every single day. At any given time we have no less than 3 different kinds of cheese in our refrigerator. If there's any country for a foodie like me, France is it. 

Wednesday the school hosted a wine, cheese, and charcuterie tasting. I'm not a fan of wine, I went mainly for the cheese and charcuterie. Ever since I moved here I can't get enough of the stuff. But I ended up actually liking the wine, too. It was a diverse group, only 10 people, but representing Canada, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Iraq and Italy. I like meeting all these people of different cultures.

Speaking of different cultures, our teacher informed us that Thursday there was going to be a party for all the international students at the University. Everyone had to bring a traditional dish from their country. After saying this she looked at the 2 Americans in the class and said "USA, what do you have?" We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. 

I wracked my brain all week, everything American I thought of (fried chicken, BBQ, buffalo wings, ribs) was not possible to make. Either it doesn't exist here or I didn't have the capacity to make it at my apartment, or the money. Then I had the genius idea to make PB&J: easy, cheap and very American. I've heard from 2 french people that its the weirdest thing they've ever heard of. Stores here only just recently started selling peanut butter and if you search hard enough you can find it.

Well, Thursday comes and I proudly bring in my plate of PB&J cut into triangles only to find out that 2 other Americans had the exact same idea! It only then dawned on me that I could have made Mac N Cheese and then I could have stood out from the crowd. My teacher said that every year, it never fails, there's always at least 1 plate of PB&J at the party. 

There was a lot of good food there. Lots of Chinese, various South American dishes, some Middle Eastern stuff. My favorite was something from Romania, which had ground meat, sauerkraut, rice, and cheese. I went back for seconds on that one. I need to find this Romanian person and get the recipe.

Speaking of American (ish) food in the France, when asked if there's any food he misses from the US, Adam says Mexican and spicy foods. There's a quesadilla place down the street but its more like crepes with stuff inside that's not exactly Mexican.
 We had a sweet salsa-ish type thing at a French friends house once and asked what it was and he said it was Old El Paso salsa. Adam and I busted out laughing and the french people looked at us confused. We said it was nothing like actual Mexican salsa. It was still good though, so I went to buy some at the store, Adam and I like spicy, but the French seem to have an even wimpier taste than most Americans. The only salsa options were Mild and Extra Mild. 

We were taking a walk one night and passed a store with nothing but foods from the US, Canada, and the UK. They had British teas and cookies and beers, Canadian maple syrup. For the US they had BBQ sauce, hot sauce, Lucky Charms, frozen onion rings, mozzarella sticks, mountain dew, root beer, campbell's soup, twizzlers and skittles, aunt jemima pancake mix, corn bread mix. It was pretty awesome. I left with a can of A&W rootbeer and some cream of mushroom soup to use in a recipe. I almost bought a box of Lucky Charms until I saw that it cost over 9 euros! 

Besides all the cheese, the French are pretty healthy (oh and minus the smoking, that stereotype is very true. I HATE cigarette smoke. But you can't avoid it. Everyone smokes. All the time. Everywhere. Even if they only have 20 seconds to spare they'll light up and take just one puff. They roll up their homemade cigarette on the tram and have it in their mouth waiting, impatient to smoke it, then the moment they step off the tram they light up. As if waiting 5 seconds to step off to the side is too much). Anyways, I digress... And Grenoble is like Denver, next door to the mountains so everyone is really active. I love it. In 5 weeks I can count the number of overweight people I've seen on 1 hand. But an interesting thing I noticed on the food ads hung at bus/tram stops. At the bottom of every food ad it says one of 2 things: "for your health, avoid eating too much salt, fat and sugar" or "for your health, participate in physical activity regularly" ...random thought but just something i found interessante. 

Week 4: I survived my first month in France!

So my new intensive language courses began this week. They didnt have a class for my exact level so they bumped me up one. I would have preferred to be bumped down one, seeing as I haven't taken an actual French class in 8 years. Its definitely challenging. My oral comprehension is not quite on par with my classmates. The teacher talks too fast. I've seriously contemplated asking to be demoted but for now I'm going to try to stick it out. 

There's one other American in my class. Its nice to have one person to relate to and ask in English what the heck the teacher is saying. The other students are Brazilian, Colombian, Qatari, Syrian, Korean and Bulgarian. Its interesting to hear the different accents when these people speak French. Sometimes its hard to understand their French because of it.

French computer keyboards, not the same as american ones. The A and Q are switched. The Z and W are switched. The M is next to the L. You have to hold the shift key to type numbers and to type a period. its incredibly frustrating and its a good thing I'm in a classroom or I'd throw it at the wall.

One day we walked into the classroom and it was warm. I was like Hallelujah! But immediately it was deemed stuffy by the other students and the windows were opened for 10 minutes to get air circulation. That's the closest I've been to being warm here. Its really starting to get on my nerves this being cold all the time

Random tidbit about French universities, they're rather rundown looking. In dire need of a good power wash and some modernization. There's good reason for this: its virtually free for the French to go to college, so the money the schools receive from the government only covers the basic costs, teacher salaries, etc. There is no tuition money coming in. So no extra money to put towards landscaping, central heating and air, renovating the bathrooms so I don't feel like I'm in the bathroom of Dana's (only my college friends will understand that reference)

I discovered my new favorite French food. A crêpe with cheese, prosciutto, salami, and a fried egg. I've eaten it 3 times now this week. Crêpes were already my favorite. I've been making them with nutella and strawberries every 2-3 days or so.

I got a French cell phone! Its a super cheap smartphone but getting another samsung galaxy would have cost well over 600 euros. I now have gotten all of the important things out of the way. Except for my residence permit, which is also my work permit, but I've been told not to hold my breath on that one... Oh the French, they're lucky have have such a beautiful country and language 

Week 3: French Food and Skiing

I had a rather boring 3rd week. Highlights: I got health insurance and I got a French bank account a debit card (the concept of credit doesn't exist here). It was a long, annoying process for both of those things so I'm very relieved.

Food!
If you've ever been to France you should know that the food here is perfection, always. I've never had a bad meal in all the times I've visited this country. The baguettes and the croissants are addicting. The cheese: the stinkier the better.
     Each region has its own specialties and the Haute-Savoie region of the Alps that I live in has some good ones. All involve cheese, potatoes and cured ham (prosciutto) in a variety of ways.
     One night, after a long day of skiing, a group of Adam's friends gathered to eat something called Raclette. There's a special Raclette maker which has about 8 small shallow bowls and you melt a piece of Raclette cheese until its liquid and then pour it over boiled Raclette potatoes and then eat it together with a piece of prosciutto or salami. Its amazing. Its so popular even Dominoes advertises Raclette Pizza.
     Next new amazing dish I learned from my new German friend. You take a soft cheese called Mont D'Or, which comes in a wood bark bowl, scoop out the middle and fill it with minced garlic and white wine. Stick it in the oven and also pour that over Raclette potatoes when its all liquidy. Yummy.
     There's also Tartiflette. Which is like a baked casserole of au gratin Raclette potatoes, cheese, and cured ham. As you can see, lots and lots of cheese in all these dishes. I love cheese. If you try cheese in France don't smell it, just eat it. Like I said, the stinkier the better.
     Then one night we went to a restaurant and got something called a Potence. It looked like a medieval torture device, short, thick iron stick with spikes on it, each spike with a big chunk of duck meat. Hanging over a pot of french fries. Its set on fire to cook then all the juice from the meat drips onto the fries. Then you get dipping sauces for the fries. Probably top 10 best dinners I've ever had. I love duck, but only in France, its just not as good when I've ordered it in the US.
      Food mistake I made: don't try to save money and go to the grocery store and buy cheap grocery store brand baguettes and cheese. Not worth the money saved, you gotta go to the little patisseries and fromageries (bakeries and cheese shops)

Skiing
I'm learning to ski. I figured I should since I live in the Alps. I've gone every weekend since I've been here. You can see on my Facebook all the beautiful snowy mountain pictures I've posted. I bought all the equipment at a second hand ski store for under 200 euros. 
    Our first week we took the Ski Bus and the bus got stuck in the snow and we had to walk a couple km in the snow uphill with our gear, hitch hike with a car full of German guys, and we didn't get out on the slopes till 3pm. The bus got stuck at 9am. This 3rd weekend, I skied at a different location and on the way back on the Ski Bus it was the same driver that got us stuck! I was surprised he still had a job and that I made it back to Grenoble in one piece.  
     I only ever truly skied once in the US, in Lake Tahoe last year. It was a nice resort with a big lodge at the base and one at the top and places to sit and relax and lockers to keep your belongings. I've also seen the resorts in Breckenridge in the summer. Very nice. Well, I'm learning this doesn't really exist in France. Yes they have ski resorts but not like the ones in the US. There isn't really anyplace to sit and relax when you don't feel like skiing, no big lodge, unless you go to a cafe but then you have to buy something and sometimes they're very small and cramped and crowded. There are also no lockers. Unless you have a car or a hotel room there you must bring a backpack and ski with your belongings on your back. Also, the little cafes are not heated, like the rest of this country, there is nowhere to go and get warm.