Inga M. Beck

France is a country of bad habits: wine every day, smoking everywhere, delicious local candy and delicacies… it’s a beautiful thing. I find myself drawn to it and into it. I find smoking to be a horrible disgusting habit. Yet I have found during my time here that I am tempted to light one myself and revel in the disgusting flavour and the health issues it invites to your body. The horrible aftertaste is the taste of regret. Yet there is still something alluring about the feel of the tiny phallic object between my fingers, between my lips.

Maybe it’s the isolation that drives one to want to take up habits that are so obviously deeply rooted in the foreign culture. When you are an outsider it seems as if the simplest way to bond with people, to break the ice and make a connection (however small) is to go outside with a cigarette and ask for a light. It’s the same reason a lot of teenagers start smoking, because their friends are doing it and they want to be part of a group. It is an interesting feeling, one that I never used to struggle with. I guess I could be experiencing some sort of delayed mental puberty. Or perhaps it is just the culture that is doing this to my head, I wouldn’t really know because I’ve never spent such a long time in a foreign country before. I would have to repeat this experience with another country, another culture, another place and see what happens.

Coffee I always enjoyed. Home as well as here. Although I admit here one gets infinitely better coffee than back in good old Iceland. Or maybe it’s just the surroundings that make it so good. Who knows, but I drink a lot of it. But here I am, at a café (or so the name tells me) and when I sit down and ask for a coffee the waiter looks at the clock which has just reached the sixth hour of the afternoon and says, “no, sorry, no coffee after six o’clock”. The Icelander in me is appalled. The rebel and bad girl in me is delighted. It is the perfect excuse for a beer before dinner. Not that you need an excuse in France. A beer before dinner, maybe a cigarette. A glass or three of wine with your dinner, and then maybe desert and a coffee. Finally, another beer and a cigarette, maybe a whiskey or a gin and tonic. Maybe I’m getting the wrong idea. Maybe I am too influenced by the tourists at the hotel where I work, or the young students with whom Montpellier is brimmed. Maybe I’m only seeing what I want to. The rebellious bad girl in me finally seeing the light of day. Whatever it is. I like it. France is doing good bad things to me. But like always, any experience is a good experience for a writer and I am sure reaping the benefits from all this. I’m writing. And a lot.

To be continued….