Why I learned French. It might be my 9th grade French teacher Miss Laplace who was tall buxom and wore low cut dresses in a middle school that was 7-9 grades. Not Latin that my mom made me take as a language learning castor oil. I didn’t mind studying Latin. I enjoyed Socrates’s Ant-Cataline and Caesar’s Gallo Bellum.
Russian inspired me after my first experience with it in winter in The Bering Sea. My friend Britt from UT had gotten a job at the French Embassy doing non-diplomat work. My Dad took me to Europe on a bus tour after I got back. We did a bus tour of Belgium and Holland. It was like WWII. We had Dutch Germans Italians English Japanese and Americans. The Japanese family had a 7 year old played in the isle. Nobody bothered him he wasn’t too disruptive. I made friends with a Dutch woman. Also I sat alternately with the blondish snobby North Italians who unnecessarily bad-mouthed the darker Southern Italians including a young woman a daughter I was attracted to. They resented the snobby Northerners. I’m not sure why snooty still angry at being conquered by the Romans. We went to cheese and pottery shops ate fairly well. Had a multi-lingual guide who didn’t like my dad and me dawdling.
Had two restaurant gaffes. One fancy place they brought our meals covered with ornate metal lids to keep the food warm. The female and male servers got visibly mad by their expressions when I thoughtlessly removed the top and placed it awkwardly on the table. Americaines Gauches . We gave them a large tip to make up for it. Another time we were trying to be cheap by ordering water or I was since I didn’t drink. My dad must have been drinking. I expected a glass of water but the male waiter trumped us rightly by bringing a tall bottle of spring water. I mentioned I just wanted tap but he pointed why not drink the good stuff if yo have the chance. We had some great Argentine beef at another place. I asked what kind of spices were on it and said there weren’t any it was flavorful enough. I got mad at him for taking forever to take a picture. A lot of them show me frowning by the time he has taken me one in a cold rain.
We arranged to meet Britt at his work with his girlfriend Cecille a petite brunette and a great storyteller including in English putting her whole body into it arms waving head tilting. She was a lot of fun I could see why Il etais enamore with her.
Later he invited me to his apartment. My dad said he was tired but I think he was being gracious in letting me have some time alone with him. We were enjoying the late night sexier programming.
I set out in the evening. The streets were deserted except three men who looked as if they were some West African country like Nigeria with the round heads. They ignored me. I only remembered one phrase from French Vous etes une bete poisson. You are a dumb fish.
I got to the neighborhood of close=packed apartment buildings around 5 floors. Up a dark stairwell and his studio apartment. It was very quaint and romantic and was great to be us. We were both finding adventures using our foreign language skills and this was the beginning of wishing I had stayed up with French. She prepared some simple delicious cuisine and we caught up. I could hear the shop owners and street cart fruit sellers closing up and shouting out au revoirs! Britt directed me to le toilet with a weird smile on his face which turned out to be a Turkish Toilet namely a whole in the floor.
Did you like our toilet/
Sure it was great! Not giving him the reaction he wanted. I had used ship board toilets worse than that including nearly going blind from the raw ammonia they used. The ship board water gave me a cast iron stomach since. At one point they were standing by the window Britt about 6 fT my height 5 FT 11 34 on the with his arm on the right listening to my sea stories. They were framed by a cathedral in the window in the evening light. It looked really romantic and I wanted it for myself. I said Goodbye. They eventually ended up in DC so I got to hang out. More contact with Cecille and her French-speaking friends made me more determined to try out some other language professionally about which I’ve already talked. I’ll tell his story in another blog.
I was standing out side with my classmates from our geology class and Kevin Hansen who was about my size but more filled out enduring a fire drill. Bigger bones. I never filled out so I still look like a 17 year despite weight training. He was in a short sleeve shirt though it was winter and seemed impervious to the cold. I was not doing so well with my thinner bones and was trying to suppress my shivering so as not to look like a wimp ad resisting holding my arms to my chest He was talking about his plans to spend the summer somewhere ion some glaciers as part of his preparation for going into Geology. I was planning to also having given up on music: violin although I continued to play in college.
He said You should always have some kind of adventure. I would have felt inadequate but I had gotten an invitation to spend the summer in Italy with Toma and Luca sons of a visiting Professor at UD who invited me. I told him and he was impressed.
Now here I was adventuring. I remember seeing some girls out side my middle school in Claymont Delaware burning their Spanish books after finishing their requirements. They must have really hated it. That motivated me to learn a foreign language so I could use it in a job somewhere out of the country. Not so much with Latin unless I could have found a time machine. I did get a laugh trying to speak Italian with Modern Napolis. Tom and I did speak Latin occasionally and I impressed people if we ran into Latin Inscriptions. They weren’t laughing. Maybe I’ll find time to get back into it. I have to keep up with my rusty Spanish I learned because I had a lot of parents who didn’t speak English and it wasn’t a good idea for kids to have to tradujar. Want to try Catalan also.
My next hitch is my most poingnant and moving. All professional attitude and respect to the language and to the people culture and land pays off in a way I never expected. Normandy for us is always associated with D-Day but for the people it’s a home of great cheese and wine beautiful beaches and rugged people many of whom have a wander lust that sends them out of the country on walkabouts. Not like the Irish who were starving poor and oppeessed. Our gain!
