Frenchies

While it’s lovely to dig in France and participate in a French excavation and spend the day talking about archaeology in French, some of the Frenchies and their mannerisms are getting on my nerves. There is one guy in particular that I find especially annoying. He is unfriendly and makes snide comments and never misses an opportunity to say something negative about America (although he has an iPod and drinks Coke and wears Nike’s). I’ve also found that there isn’t a whole lot of communication in my direction, but I’m supposed to pick up on stuff anyway. I find that with my family in France sometimes too – they don’t say anything but you’re just supposed to ‘get stuff’ and I don’t, either because I’m dense but probably because I’m American. Maybe Americans are just used to more direct communication. Some of the discussions we get into about paleoanthropology or archaeology kind of annoy me too – people get very rhetorical and philosophical and seem to look down on me when I talk about real evidence to back up a point. And they smoke and are smelly :(

The only really funny guy here who I had a good time talking with was Argentinean and left yesterday :( But the director of the dig, Francesco, is Italian and just got back from a conference today, so he will mitigate some of the Frenchiness until the excavation is over.