Are you studying French? I can't imagine why someone would end up in a francophone community if they aren't learning French! I'm Canadian and could never have a conversation in French. But only in Quebec would you find just French words - everywhere else is bilingual as far as I know.

Small towns anywhere are really hard to get accepted in - people tend to have grown up with the same people their whole lives and don't really think about what it's like to be alone because they never have been.

When you were talking about Thanksgiving, were you talking about Canadian Thanksgiving or American Thanksgiving? They are in different months - Canadian Thanksgiving is early in October and not in November at all.

The USA is sort of notorious for having huge and cheap prices for things like food though. I'm sorry that it's been such a culture shock! We have costs for plastic bags for environmental reasons - it's to encourage people to not be wasteful. Do you turn the heat down for when you leave the house for a day? That helps save on the cost of heating, just like keeping the heat at your minimal tolerable level.

Wasn't there a way to stay in student housing and have a meal plan? Or any clubs that you could have joined? Usually there's groups for international students so that they can get to know each other and have people to help them adjust to a new culture.

I'm sorry that your experience here has been so negative!