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The French are not known for very many surprises, but Holmen students returning from a three-week trip to the country were astonished by a lot of little things — from trash cans to pet behavior.

Fourteen Holmen students joined 21 students from Lancaster, Wis., and five adults on an exchange program from June 11-28. It’s the second year Holmen has participated in the exchange program, according to Brian Wopat, French teacher at Holmen High School. The students go to France every other year.

Upon their return, Becca Clements, 18, and Rachel Dunne, 17, reflected on their experiences of the trip and on everything they learned.

“It was all so surreal,” Clements said. “After so much anticipation, it went so fast it feels like it didn’t happen.” Clements has graduated from Holmen High School and in the fall will attend Northern Michigan University, where she plans to major in zoology and possibly minor in French.

Even though one of the goals of going to France is for students to become more proficient in speaking French, the two students, who each have taken five semesters of French, Dunne said they didn’t have to do very much of that, which was their first surprise. “A lot of the locals knew English. We really didn’t have to speak much French,” Dunne said.

“It was a really good experience to see how the average French family lives,” Dunne said. “Things make more sense there. They ride their bikes more and walk all over, they eat healthy and drink lots of water,” she said as she sipped her own water.

Dunne said she is more conscious of how much water she’s drinking since she’s been home. Dunne will be a senior at HHS in the fall and hopes to return to France as a junior chaperone.

For the first five days in France, the students stayed with host families and then were back with the group of 35 Americans staying at hostels and hotels.

One of the most memorable events for the girls was visiting Normandy Beach, the site of the Allied Forces D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. “That was so amazing,” Clements said. “It was really rainy and gloomy that day.”

“And it was such a huge shock to see all those crosses at the American Cemetery,” Dunne added.

Nevertheless, she said it was cool to walk on the beach and to the water. Both said they would have liked to see more palaces, but there just wasn’t enough time. “We were on the other side of the country, away from where the castles and palaces were,” Dunne said.

The biggest surprise for the students was the fashion requirements in France. “The worst part was we couldn’t wear shorts,” Clements said. “It’s considered inappropriate dress.”

“I felt under-dressed all the time, and so out of place,” Dunne chimed in. “The French are so stylish, we felt completely out of style with them.” Dunne also said that dresses were cheap, but pants and suits were more expensive.

“The French have a certain style,” Dunne said. “Everyone seems to wear dark tones. They all wore tight pants and they had tiny legs.”

Dunne and Clements said they did not do much shopping for clothes. They learned the government, in an effort to protect mom and pop shops, regulates when stores can have sales. “They can only have sales two times a year,” Clements said.

Of course, the exchange rate for the U.S. dollar did not leave the students with a lot of cash. With an 18 percent sales tax rate and each Euro representing $1.55 in American dollars, students learned the art of negotiating prices.

“That was fun,” Dunne said. “I started enjoying negotiating with them on prices for stuff.”

While negotiating prices, both French and Americans could be hard-nosed, but the students were surprised at how friendly the French were toward one another. “They do a lot of cheek kissing,” Dunne said.

“Yeah,” said Clements, “They are more touchy feely. They’re more open. They don’t hide themselves.”

And, surprising to the students, the French eat a lot. “My host family fixed huge meals for lunch and dinner,” Dunne said. “But breakfast was a little tiny bit of food. But where did they put all that food the rest of the day?” she wondered.

She and Clements also wondered where they put all their trash. “In my host family’s house, it was hard to find any trash cans. It took me three days to find where to dump my trash.”

Dunne agreed. “My family had a small bag tied to a kitchen cupboard handle. It took me a few days to figure out I was supposed to use that for trash. They were taking trash somewhere, maybe a compost pile or something. But I never saw it.”

The students also enjoyed the animals. “They had the most obedient dogs,” Clements said. “They don’t bark. It’s like they taught them to not talk to strangers.”

“My family had three cats,” Dunne said. “They only went out in the morning and came back at night. They acted as if I wasn’t there.”

Aside from France, the students also took a one-day trip to Brussels, Belgium, which they enjoyed immensely. However, some of the dark sides of big city life showed up for them in Brussels. “We got hit up for money by beggars everywhere we went,” Dunne said.That wasn’t the case in France.

Although the school system surprised them, the students thought the French system might be worth trying out in the United States. “You get tested real early and put in certain groups by the time you’re in middle school. When you’re in middle school, you decide what you want to do with your life and you take more tests. Those results dictate where you go to high school,” Dunne said. “As a senior in high school, you have to take a test at the end of the year. If you pass it, you go on to university — free. If you fail the test, you have to take your senior year all over again and retake the test.”

Dunne thought it might be a pretty good system. “I don’t know if I could decide in middle school what I wanted to do. I change my mind all the time now.”

Clements said having seniors take a test “would be worth a try to have to take a test and then go back if you fail.”