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antonino: yes, i am going to kareoke tonight! i will leave at midnight!
other italian guy: yes. like Cinderella.
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I have a college degree. Practically.
I have to remind myself of this while I stare down the washing machine, completely mystified. A bored-looking guy in an Erasmus Dauphine hoodie slouches against the wall of the laundry room, thumbing numbers into his cell phone, but I just can't bring myself to catch his eye and gesture for help.
I try to mentally formulate the sentence in French anyway, out of habit, as I drop my laundry bag to the floor and absently palm my change. S'il vous plaît, monsieur- wait, I don't call him that, he's like two years older than me- uh, excuser-moi, comment la machine travaille-t-il? Right? Wait, he'll think I'm asking if the machine works or not. Okay, that's okay, I have this under control. Does this thing have a coin slot?
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I let my change spill out of one cupped hand and into the other, a pile of strange coins that are too thick and too small. They feel foreign in my hands and, when I use them, tend to remove any lingering doubts that I'm from out of town. I sort through them too slowly at the supermarket checkout and somehow always manage to use the wrong ones in vending machines. Looking back, however, I prefer either to the washer in front of me, smooth and impenetrable as a fortress.
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Anne is eyeing a panel of buttons affixed to the wall, looking dubious. The instructions on the wall are in French, which until we reached France we mistakenly believed we had some proficiency in. We stare blurrily at the unintelligible words, looking for anything familliar and brainstorming different approaches. Coins first, buttons second? Other way around? Clothes first, then change? Get used to hand-washing in the sink? I hear it's therapeutic. And if there's one thing we could both use right now, it's therapy.
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The guy in the corner is watching us through lowered eyelashes. I want to tell him, I know what you're thinking. Can't they read? Well, no, actually. I can't. Not anymore.
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Times like this are when it hits me, really. It's not when I'm walking over a bridge older than the United States, or when I'm bargaining at an open-air market. When I'm standing in front of a washing machine that I can't figure out how to use, I fully appreciate the fact that I am in a foreign country. I never thought about my culture- nobody really does- until I walked into a different one, and now it feels like I've suddenly run out of air. The simplest things completely defeat me, like post offices, or the bus system, and I'm unable to explain the problem to anyone else, or understand their reply. In a matter of hours, I've been downgraded from an educated and, you know, somewhat productive member of society to an outsider who is incapable of conversing on the same level as a five-year-old child.
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Anne boldly feeds change into the slot and pushes a button at random. The washer instantly starts to fill with water, and we let out sighs of relief- until we realize that our clothes are still in the laundry bag, on the floor. Panic ensues, and Erasmus hoodie slouches over to show us how to close the door properly (apparently you turn the handle; it's written on the door).
But when I finally leave the laverie with my clean (if slightly damp) clothes in tow, I feel okay. It's nice to have to earn something, even if it's just a load of clean laundry. It's impossible to sink under a routine when even something as simple as buying a pastry is an intense problem-solving exercise.
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Still, I think I'll save the other two loads for tomorrow.
