I am writing this post after my first successful attempt to do laundry here in France. An experience I will surely laugh at later, but caused a fair deal of frustration initially. My problems partially stemmed from the language barrier of comprehending simple directions, but mostly from my general lack of knowledge of doing laundry.

After about a week or more of holding out on doing laundry, I finally ran out of socks and underwear (the essentials) and decided it was time to go to the store and get laundry detergent. A seemingly simple task, I went to the supermarché and, due to my budget, I bought the cheapest cleaning product with a picture of clothes on it and went home to wash my clothes.

After navigating the foreign controls and washing a load, I hung my clothes out to dry (dryers are not very common here in France). Simple enough. I had successfully completed my dirty work and went about my day, or so I though. It wasn’t until a few days later that I discovered what I bought wasn’t actually detergent but was liquid fabric softener. Upon the realization that I have been wearing really soft, dirty clothes, I couldn’t help but laugh. I went back to the store to buy real detergent and was finally able to have clean clothes for the first time in weeks. My biggest takeaway from this experience was that living in another country has allowed me to learn invaluable lessons about the things I take for granted, even if it is something that I have never given a second though to before.