PARIS! FRANCE! Part III!

Check out Part I and Part II of PARIS! FRANCE! wherein I play the part of a power tourist, and an emotional and righteous observer of high art.
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Now we come to Part III, the part I like to call: dusting off your haven't-been-used-in-fifteen-years French skills and making them sing for their supper, or French 101.

I'd say it was about an hour before I landed when it really settled into my mind that "OH CRAP! I AM GOING TO A COUNTRY WHERE ENGLISH ISN'T THE PRIMARY LANGUAGE." Maybe I should have done something to prepare for that. But I had years of French in high school, that would be enough, right? As it turns out I remember and forgot just enough French to be dangerous.

From that moment on the plane until I landed in Seattle a week later, my brain was on overdrive: constantly on trying to remember as many random words, phrases, and pronunciations as I could. Sadly, I never once found the opportunity to talk about hippopotamuses or how I just love "to do the mountain climbing."

I practiced my recall in the shower, in my head during the work conference, even in my sleep. And it helped, sort of.  All the French people I was with at the work event said I had a very good accent (plus one for LMNT), but a good accent and small vocabulary can leave you stranded in bilingual limbo--and trust me, it's on par with how Dante described it. 

As my confidence built, I used French everywhere I could. And you know me, persistence is my middle name. So, even when the French would recognize me as an American and extend a courtesy to me by responding in English to my garbled attempt at communicating to them in their native tongue, I would continue the conversation in broken French. Because THAT'S WHAT I DO. And there we'd be, speaking each other's languages and somehow making it work. Or not.

The epitome of my foreign language adventure happened when I stopped into a small market for a bite for lunch. When I got there, the place was empty and I took my seat at a table. Within minutes, it had filled up with other lunch and pastry-goers and I knew that I was going to need to share my table with someone.  Enter the cutest older French lady, who spoke absolutely no English. We sat together for about a half an hour talking the whole time. My Facebook status update post this encounter summed it up best:

Just had an absolutely lovely conversation with an adorably lovely, older, French, non-English speaking woman sharing a table with me in a crowded cafe. I have no idea what we talked about.

Except I do know that while I was talking about living in Seattle, Washington, she was talking about how the rhododendrons in Washington, D.C. are beautiful. What? Yes. Just go with it. I did, and so did she... I think.