What do you expect to encounter? What concerns do you have?

expected encounters: French people, for sure, definitely some of those. Also, fish. This one is going to be tricky. Living in a coastal city, in France, I will surely come face to face with these ugly suckers and it may not be pretty. I've never been able to get over the "flaky meat" aspect of fish. One of these days, though, one of these days. I've also been forewarned that wearing shorts and sneakers around in the summer gets you strange looks, so I imagine I'll be catching a lot of those with my wardrobe the way it is. I'm just hoping the Nantais stand in awe of my madd original style -- rather than in disgust.

concerns: That they won't like me. I'm just worried that between the language barrier and my general awkwardness, my off-kilter charm just won't come through! I'm also terrified of getting lost. We're all familiar with my directionally challenged tendencies, and I can only imagine those will get worse in another language. I'm nervous about strange men, but then again, I'm not the kind of American girl any of them are expecting, so I imagine I'll be okay. Really, it's the difference between me and this charming creature to the right.



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