Le Nausea: culture shock in reverse

So when Professor Brault warned us about Le Nausea brought on by one's own country, to quote Baudelaire, I was not so sure I believed that it would happen to me. I had been craving an enormous, juicy burger (or any barbeque, really) and a walk to the Lake since about half-way through my time in Paris and was looking forward to finally satisfying my obsession. But of course, Brault was right, and I do not know why I ever doubted her wisdom.  I have found that I truly prefer french fashion (in the sense of casual style, not the couture stuff, which is nice but impractical), and was told yesterday that when dressing as such, I "look weird." Sigh. Oh, America. And everything is so huge. My latte this morning at ArgoTea was about 6 times as large as any espresso drink I consumed in France and about 1/10 the quality.  Why I even thought that the croissant here would satisfy my desire, I will never know.  I feel a bit stifled, a bit claustrophobic in a way, and cannot really grasp the reasoning.  I feel disoriented at hearing the Chicago accent and seeing men with some sort of muscular physique (the french may not have any body fat, but have no muscle either).  This is not to say that it is a bad thing, only that I feel very out of place at the moment. I desire greatly to share my revelations with friends and relatives, but so far, when I have gone to express them, they escape me.  I feel myself slipping back into old habits that I wanted so greatly to change, and dream of recapturing whatever energy I found by the Seine.

I have this wild fear of losing my french, and it haunts me.  I am plagued with nightmares about not being able to speak french, I awake to my tongue poised to rattle something off in french, only to in the end feel swollen and numb at the realization that it would be wasted.  Recently, at being awoken by drunkards in the street, I desired greatly (almost unconsciously) to scream out my window down to them, "Ça suffit! Alors! Vous en bas, arretez! Vous n'etes pas chez vous! Ecoutez, respectez les voisins, alors!" And then I realized that correcting others is taboo in the US, not to mention that the streets are too big to simply yell, as everything would echo and further wake the neighbors.  

All of this being said, I am not trying to find a sad ending to my trip.  I felt very happy to be back at home where people are friendly, and you can chuckle opening upon overhearing someone's phone conversation about their friend's wild and crazy drunken night, and that they can turn to you with an appreciating smile and nod. Or that you can find a bathroom open for the public at just about anytime of the day or night. Or that you do not have to worry about an exchange rate that kills your bank account.  I had an amazing Sweet-Home-Chicago moment yesterday when I took a lovely walk through Lincoln Park Zoo, watching families gobble down popcorn and ice cream, and continuing on, listened to a live band belt the blues on the lakefront.  Couldn't get any better than that, and you definitely cannot find that in France (regardless of just how much they love Jazz and the Blues).