After I returned to MSU from a week in Paris during spring break, I was walking down Grand River Avenue and something weird happened. Someone passing by said "hi" to me. I half responded, trying to figure out how I knew this person — why would a random stranger acknowledge me?

But then I remembered — that's what people do in the United States. Having spent the past week in France, I grew accustomed to not looking passersby directly in the eye. I grew accustomed to sitting across from people on the metro and not saying a word to them. Unlike Americans, French people never acknowledge strangers. They think it's pointless, contrived and artificial.

If you think about it, this reasoning does make sense. Do you ever sincerely care how a stranger is doing when you quickly ask, "What's up?" or "How are you?" I expect the quick "great" or "fine" response and continue on with my life.

Imagine someone actually responding, "Well actually, right now my life sucks because I just broke up with my boyfriend and I failed my midterm." That will teach you to ask how a stranger is doing.

France also has no concept of a little phrase we Americans like to call "customer service," a difference I realized while indulging in my favorite pastime — shopping.

To say I love shopping is an understatement. If I am at one of my favorite stores, I usually grab one of everything and traipse around the whole store clutching a huge, messy pile of clothes. After I have touched and examined every article of clothing at least twice, I then proceed to the dressing room, with clothes falling out of my arms and tangled between the hangers.

Sales clerks at Club Monaco, Banana Republic and Forever 21 welcome my obsession. They take my clothes and show me to a dressing room. Even if they are annoyed by my massive clothing pile, they never complain — the customer's needs always come first.

After spending about 45 minutes in the dressing room critiquing every article of clothing, I take the clothes that I want and — I'm ashamed to say — leave the rest of the clothes on the dressing room floor.

Then the sales clerks go quietly to my tornado-hit dressing room and clean up the debris. They wouldn't dream of reprimanding me, the glorified customer.

But in France, customer service does not exist. I don't even think there is a phrase that translates.

During my first French shopping experience, my older sister Suzanne, now a full-fledged Parisian, introduced me to Zara. When I walked into the store, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I think I had every article of clothing in the three-story store grasped between my arms by the time I headed for the dressing room. The dressing room attendant had obviously never seen anyone as zealous as me, for he took one look at my giant jumble of clothes and started laughing.

He showed me to a dressing room, but not before making fun of me in French to Suzanne.

Suzanne warned me not to leave a pile of clothes on the floor of the dressing room or I would be yelled at by the dressing room attendant.

So after I finished, I meticulously hung up every item of clothing and gave him the clothes I didn't want. He gave me a weird look and said I must take the clothes back to the racks.

I was shocked. Why was he standing there, if not to willingly take the customer's castoffs? At Club Monaco, they would never in a million years make me hang up the clothes I tried on. And I thought I was being so good for not leaving the dressing room in shambles.

The next day, during my routine browse at the stylish clothing store NAF NAF, I noticed a sales clerk following me and "fixing" the clothes that I ever-so-lightly touched. I just wanted to get a better look at the clothes — I didn't even take them off the hanger.

But I stopped touching the clothes.

This experience was nothing compared to the outspoken and hilarious reprimanding we encountered while buying delicious, fatty, Nutella-stuffed crepes at a stand across from the tourist-saturated Eiffel Tower.

This being our first crepe-eating experience, Suzanne wanted us to have the most delicious crepes of all. She asked the girl behind the counter to squeeze extra Nutella in our crepes (Suzanne said this is not an uncommon request — she asks for extra Nutella all the time). The girl responded by saying, "Tu vas grossir," which means, "You are going to get fat."

Needless to say, we didn't get extra Nutella in our crepes.

Can you imagine a customer asking for extra cream cheese at Bruegger's Bagels and having an employee say, "No, you're going to get fat?" That would cause immediate discharge.

I am flattered that a total stranger is concerned for my health; I really am. But I refuse to believe that a little extra Nutella will kill you.

And anyway, if we choose to get fat, that's our choice. Nutella crepes are definitely worth getting fat over.

Almost two weeks after returning to the United States from my trip, I have grown readjusted to acknowledging strangers on the street.

But I have learned to mindfully clean up my dressing rooms. Even though American sales clerks don't chastise me, I know they don't enjoy hanging up my discarded clothes any more than the blunt sales clerks do in France.

Elizabeth Swanson is an MS&U general assignment reporter. Ask her about French culture at swans130@msu.edu.