Hello America!

As I write this, I'm sitting in my old Indiana bedroom, which smells exceptionally good and feels exceptionally good and is just exceptionally nice in general. I'll be here for a week and two days for my brother's wedding, and I'm just soaking up American life. I love France, and I love Pontault-Combault, but I have missed Indianapolis. I've missed the canal and Circle Center mall and the library and genuine Mexican restaurants and useless celebrations for useless holidays and parents who take me out to eat for free. I keep spontaneously giggling, because I just almost can't believe how Paradise-like Indiana is. Today, I went to the bank and almost hugged the teller. I hadn't seen that woman in two months, and I mean really, she's the woman who gives me money, and let's face it: I've missed her. I just stood there behind the counter and talked and talked to her, and though we've never been super friendly before, I found out how she's preparing to move and why she's moving and what her kids have been up to lately. I later went to Walmart, and the greeter was so friendly, and he brought over a shopping cart for me, and I got tears in my eyes, and said, "Sir, that is just the nicest thing you could do..." I went to the hair salon to have my hair cut, and my stylist asked question after question about my life in France, and I got the mouth diahrrea and started telling her everything--frustrations with teammates, about the poor guy on the train who got robbed, about the crack down the middle of my toilet seat and how it pinches my leg every time I sit down. I went to Starbucks and when they handed me that Apple Chai Infusion, this weird screech came out of my mouth--something I've never heard before. And everyone was looking at me, so I tried to pretend it was just my ring tone on my phone. And I sat down next to a man in a suit, and I told him how great gift cards are and how unfortunate it is that I couldn't find a Starbucks at the Philadelphia airport. You see, the great thing about America is this: though the world doesn't really care what's happening in your life, they certainly pretend to. I love customer service.
But I've missed overhearing other people's conversations the most.
The other day, I was on the train with my boyfriend, and he was listening really intently to the girl a few seats over. After she got off the train, he said, "Did you understand what she said?" I said, "No." And he told me that the girl and her boyfriend agreed that they don't want to officially marry, so instead of having a legal wedding, they've planned to stage the whole event. She'll wear the big white dress and he a suit. They'll have flowers and wine and everything, but they won't have any of the official documentation. After he told me this, I felt deflated. If I missed a conversation that great, I probably was missing even greater conversations on a daily basis. That whole week, when I heard people saying, "No way!", I kept thinking about what might possibly have been said. What sort of tragedy or triumph had happened?
Though my French is steadily improving, I still can't "overhear" things. To understand, I need to be abnormally close to the speaker, and I need to be looking at the speaker's lips, and there has to be no background noise. When you think about it, this makes eavesdropping tricky, and by "tricky", I mean "Impossible."
So anyway, today, I could listen to my heart's intent--while I waited in line, while I had an emotional crisis over which of the million cereals I should choose (I don't get these kind of options in France)--all the time! It was unquestionally one of the greatest things to happen so far, apart from seeing my family, of course.
Speaking of language difficulties, here's an anecdote to end with: on Saturday night, I was talking to my team leader about how classes were going. I was mentioning how hard I'm working with my women, and how sometimes, they just don't retain anything from one class to another. She said that there's a woman at one of the tables who has been in the beginner's class for 7 years, and still, when you ask her what sound A makes, will just smile blankly and shrug her shoulders. Then, she added, "Elle etait a Mecca", which I know now means, "She's been to Mecca." However, I heard, "Elle etait un mec," or "She used to be a man." So, I thought she was telling me that the woman was having learning problems due to her recent sex-change operation. Finally, after providing a few obligatory nods, I confirmed that the woman indeed had transferred the gender card, I learned I'd really gotten a little lost in translation.
Anyway, I'm going to be an 80 year old woman and go to bed at 9:00 tonight. I'm just so tired. Jet lag has not been a friend to me.