silly americans!!

At a very nice and expensive restaurant, the first weekend we were here, Diana asked for the location of the “salle de bain” so she could wash her hands before eating. The waiter gave her the most priceless look, highly amused that one of his customers would specifically request a room with a bath. The proper word for bathroom in French is “toilette.”

The word for peach, pêche, is feminine in French. I didn’t really know this, but I wanted to verify with the man who sells the peaches at the stand in the market that the peaches I was buying were the white kind instead of the yellow kind. The word I used for white was “blancs,” and his correction came as a reflex: “blanches.” Sometimes you can’t bear to hear your language slaughtered and it’s worth correcting the offender.

Deciphering French signs and labels can sometimes be too overwhelming to do with 100% accuracy, as Diana learned tonight when she made pasta with a can of cocktail sauce instead of spaghetti sauce! Sometimes you’re too hungry to care and you eat it anyway.

Young girls as naive as me can be almost purposefully oblivious to the intentions of guys who are flirting with them. Today I was waiting for Diana outside of the supermarché, and I got to talking with a hobo-type of guy who appeared to be waiting too, but probably was sitting there just for the opportunity to hit on me. He asked me right off the bat if I was French, which I had to reply “no” to (somehow it’s still obvious that I’m a foreigner; I’ve been trying!) Dying for a conversation in French, though, I happily explained to him where Illinois is, using Chicago as my reference. Then I found out he was from Normandy, and before I knew it, I was held captive by a very long story about how the Vikings landed at in Normandy in the 10th century and settled there. I found this whole exchange completely, innocently delighting, though it did become difficult to find a breaking point once Diana had emerged (he adamantly ignored all hints that I was trying to leave). According to her recounting of the event later, he was very clearly hitting on me by the end, asking me my name and where I live (which I frankly don’t remember, I was so confused about what he was saying by then). She told me that as things dragged on, she and this other man who also happened to be standing around were watching the two of us. The two of them had an absolute riot exchanging meaningful glances as they burst their sides with barely contained laughter at how completely oblivious I was to what was going on. For me, I feel it was a matter of perspective. I had a cultural experience, thank you. But I’m happy to provide amusement to onlookers. To each their own.

On the bright side, neither of us has been run down by a car yet, thank God.