{It All Adds Up}

If I were to honestly list what’s most important to me in life, baked goods would make the top ten. Maybe my love for pastries goes back to sharing this passion with my mom as she taught me to bake, tried new recipes with me, and joined me in critiquing every cupcake, muffin, or scone we came across. Or maybe I just really have a disproportionally large sweet tooth. It’s one of the two.

Either way, I was so excited to come to France to enjoy treats from its world famous bakeries. I even texted my mom weeks before the program, worrying that after eating baked goods in France, I wouldn’t enjoy the ones back home as much. She assured me that this would definitely not happen. While in France, I’ve taken advantage of the numerous bakeries to their fullest extent. I think my record so far is sampling from three different bakeries within two hours while in Aix En Provence (the world’s cutest town). Here’s a picture of my favorite pastry:

I knew this pastry was going to be incredible from the moment I walked into the bakery. And it exceeded all of my expectations. Two small puff pastries filled with a light, airy chocolate mouse, sandwiched together with an incredibly rich dark chocolate ganache. I had chocolate literally all over my face but I also had no regrets.

Why did I assume my pastry was going to be so good? Because I have heard of French baked goods and seen examples of them my entire life. Every time I came across this concept, it was like a coin was added to a piggy bank in my mind, building up my value for French pastries. On the other hand, as I’ve tried other new foods I had never heard of this week, I was open to them but didn’t have that same level of excitement or expectation.

There’s a parallel to this concept of building up trust and capital in something that can be found in intercultural communications. The idea of intercultural capital is that one has various experiences or characteristics that build up their ability to communicate cross culturally. If I were to learn a new language, it would put a coin in my piggy bank, or if I were to work closely with someone from a different culture, that experience would add to my bank. Simply put, our communication capabilities or experiences across cultures make us better adapted to communicate interculturally.

There have been a lot of coins being added to my cross cultural piggy bank during this program. Some of these experiences were very positive, like passing for a French person in a store while completing a transaction entirely in French, thus building my confidence in myself. Others were actually really hard. While staying in Aix, my luggage was broken into (despite the padlock!) in my hotel room and a few things were stolen from my bag. Later that day, while flying from France to Spain, all of our bags were lost and remained untraceable for 5 days, leaving the entire group without basic necessities like toothpaste, clothes, and medicines.

Even though these experiences were really uncomfortable and difficult to process at times (it’s harder than you think to find a store that sells underwear in Spain!!!), they ultimately taught me a lot about traveling and helped me to become more confident in handling unexpected circumstances in the future, even when I’m outside of the comfort of my own culture. All of this added a pile of coins to my cross cultural piggy bank. I’m excited to keep finding ways to build my intercultural capital, even back on campus!