Polite society

It's been interesting to observe the differences in politeness and manners here. From day one we noticed that if you walked into a lift, waiting room, small space, your apartment building people would say 'bonjour' (or often 'bonjour madame/monsieur'). One of the earliest examples that sticks in my head was in a deserted railstation waiting room and a young boy (seven or eight?) walked in and said bonjour. It just seemed so...polite. And passing people on my walk along the Lake will often say bonjour (the older women in particular). The one that tickles me the most is walking into a waiting room and saying bonjour. Then when you leave saying au revoir. Whether there is one person in the room or half a dozen.

Kissing three times (or twice for the French) on the cheek when saying hello or goodbye is another fun one. When we were in St Gallen last week the hostel had a big group of young French people staying and some older leaders. In the dining room at breakfast, one of them would come in and give a kiss (once on each cheek) to all the other people sitting at the table. This seemed to go on all morning!* But kissing is between women and men/women. Between men it is shaking hands. It's so funny to think that Michael shakes hands with everyone on his shift when he arrives and then again when he leaves. But the cutest example I've seen recently happened yesterday. When we got to Lily's new school for first day, we were looking around for her classroom. I saw a teacher (male, middleaged) standing at the door to his classroom asking every student going in their name (they would have been about eight years old) then shaking each of their hands as they walked in. It was priceless...they start young!

*it can take ages to leave a party...even when a bunch of ex-pats get together we often do as the locals and kiss three times on the cheek. You can add a good half an hour onto your time just leaving!