Let’s just hope you never have to know how to say this one. Although, from our experiences with guys abroad, this convo is a given.

[Photo courtesy of failblog.org]

If you’re lucky, you’ll be studying abroad this summer instead of taking a load off and “relaxing” (aka being unemployed) or working at Barnes and Noble (which is how my summers typically go). To avoid such occupational plagues, I decided to go to France last summer even though I didn’t really know French and I hate cheese. Nevertheless, I learned a thing or two about our neighbors overseas and being an American on old, foreign soil.

1. Blend in. The problem with studying abroad is that the experience tends to lack authenticity — You go abroad only to find yourself surrounded by more Americans than in America. And these Americans can be fairly “exotic” themselves (in my program there was a tribe of Mormons).

In many cases American students abroad make no bones about their nationality and flaunt it by traveling in large, loud groups, bumping and grinding in discotheques, speaking odd Franglish and buying bottles of champagne by the crate to drink in the streets. My best advice is to stray from the American wolf pack and try to pass as a native. It’s a fun challenge that prompted a man to feel me up on a bus in Paris because he thought I was German. Close enough. Read More »