How can I describe the three weeks since my arrival? Well, there’s the usual my-host-family-is-awesome, French-food-is-amazing, the-other-abroad-students-are-cool update that I’ve given to most of my friends who have asked so far. All of that is true.

My host family has been so nice and welcoming, especially my host father, with whom I spend several hours almost every weeknight watching soccer or the news or dubbed-over American movies (and, once, a marathon of Walker, Texas Ranger) and discussing, or attempting to discuss, politics or pop culture. The food, more specifically (and stereotypically) the pastries, the bread, the cheese, and the wine, has been great, and continues to consume the vast majority of my weekly expenses. And I have made a lot of awesome friends on my program, and, despite our somewhat frustrating habit of hording together in bars and cafes adding loud bursts of English to the quiet din of French conversation, I have been having a really good time with all of them.

But instead of just going on about all that, I’m going to throw in a short anecdote that I think sums things up pretty well.

On Wednesday I had my first class at the Université de Nantes: history of decolonization and the Third World. I left half an hour early and arrived ten minutes later with plenty of time to listen to my iPod and pretend to read a French newspaper, casually leaning against a wall wearing my newly acquired scarf and feeling pretty European. Forty minutes later I was sitting towards the back of a vast, dark amphitheater listening to an old professor monotonously rambling about something called lampi automone (which I eventually figured out was l’Empire Ottoman). Thanks to his slow, dragging voice I was able to follow along pretty well with the lecture, especially after I figured out the topic, and was taking some fairly competent notes in French, silently patting myself on the back for keeping up. About ten minutes before the end of class, a girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked me something completely indecipherable. Seeing my blank look, she repeated the question a little louder. I stared at her for a second, too proud to ask her to talk slower, before muttering something that resembled “je ne sais pas” and quickly turning around. My confidence was shattered and my foreignness revealed to everyone in my immediate vicinity.

The class finished and I headed to the Restaurant Universitaire for lunch, quickly forgetting the classroom incident in the anticipation of a huge portion of food. After filling up my tray, I wandered through the seating area looking for people I knew or at least an empty table to sit by myself. Finding neither, I walked towards a small table with two empty chairs and, momentarily forgetting how to ask “Is someone sitting here” and not wanting to betray my American-ness, proceeded to sit down without a word. Realizing, thanks to the looks I was receiving from the other people at the table, that I was probably awkwardly in a spot reserved for someone else but unsure if I should immediately vacate the seat, I focused intently on eating my lunch as fast as I possibly could, finishing in around five minutes and leaving the cafeteria right away.

Both fairly insignificant but uncomfortable incidents, where my eagerness to blend in only heightened my awkwardness, were very characteristic of my first three weeks here. Within the surprising normalcy that I feel in my daily life here are those moments that remind me that I am an entire ocean away from home. But rather than dread or detest those moments, I appreciate them, because they bring me back to reality. Those language blocks and culture shocks serve as constant reminders of the awesome opportunity that I have been presented with, challenging me to make the best of my time here and showing me that if I want to transition from tourist to resident I’m going to have to work at it.