...Passing as FRENCH!!!!
...I DID IT...in PARIS!!!!
...When I was a Junior in H.S., my Parents arranged for me to go on a "Study Trip" during my summer vacation. (They probably just didn't want me to STAY AT HOME WITH THEM THE ENTIRE SUMMER...
...and they signed me up for a trip to France and Spain...I would almost be on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET...and so it would be difficult for me to bother them...
) I was happy, I like to travel, and experience new things. I was also very fluent in Spanish, because of my home learning, but only knew a few basic words in French.
...I went out from the Campus on my own a lot, especially in Paris. I would locate Music Shops, and take the Metro to near they were, walk a few blocks to the shop, and go through the sheet music that was being sold, and buy Ethnic cello and piano music, and walk around, and go into Art Galleries, and marvel at the paintings. Young men would try to flirt with me, but i just kept walking and ignored them. (Good thing that I didn't go there as a teenager when times were like this...I probably would have found myself thrown into a van...and ended up...who knows where? But, times were better then.)
...I really LOVE bread, as a young woman I ate a lot. I would make a 'dinner' out of a loaf of French bread, some cheese, and sometimes add salami. My roommates didn't like it when I did that...my breath was pretty foul for the rest of the evening...but...I DIDN'T CARE!!! So, in Paris...I was in 'Bread Heaven'!!! There were BAKERIES all over the place. I would buy some loaves after I did my music shopping, bring them back to my room in the dorm, and eat them in a day, or two.
...I also studied French Fashion, at that time the clothing looked very cute on a young woman. The 'student chaperones' helped me, and I bought some clothing, and they advised me on my makeup and my hair...and I FELT that I looked French. So, I put on my French clothing when I shopped, and spoke Spanish. I even went so far as to buy a French/Spanish translation book, and would study a word or phrase when I needed to speak to a shopkeeper.
...One afternoon, I was fully dressed dressed as 'French'...(wearing the cute Beret I had just bought...I liked it)...and was holding two loaves of bread in my left arm...my right hand was clutching a bag that had sheet music had bought. I saw an obvious middle aged American woman ahead of me...she was stopped...and was leafing through one of those 'translation books'. I just kept walking, and when I got to where she was, she waved at me to stop, and asked...
..."Oo eh el metro..."
...That was one of the French phrases that I was very familiar with,,,it means..."Where is the Metro?" I had used it a lot.
...I was tempted to reply, in English, "Go down two blocks, take a left, and it will be ahead of you...(Which was true...that is how I got to this area...) But I jabbered very fast, in Spanish...I just threw one word after another...a Spaniard would have been rolling on the ground...laughing...but I did point in the proper direction. I then just walked away...I wanted to eat some bread.
...So, I guess that I have to share some blame for why Americans think that the French are SO RUDE!!!
