to France

[astra_nomer]

I'm off to France for a week! I've never been to France before, unless you count the couple of hours I spent there on a jaunt from a summer school in Geneva as a teenager. I may have once changed flights in Orly, but I'm not quite sure.

I'm spending a very jetlagged Sunday and part of Monday in Paris itself.

For the rest of the week, I'm going to be at a scientific meeting en provence.

I would be practicing my French, except I've been told that I will merely be mocked for my bad French, and should just stick with being a gauche américaine. (Or is that américaine gauche?)

Son the Younger wants me to bring along one of the Madeline books, which are set in Paris, of course. I'm tempted to visit all the monuments depicted in the books and take pictures for the kids. And of course, the internets have already thought of this for me.

Anyway, back to working on my talk.

Comments

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I didn't find myself mocked, just answered in English (except at the subway station).

The Madeline tour is very very cute.

[desireearmfeldt]

Don't listen to them. No one has ever mocked me for my bad French in France, not even in Paris, not even when I was 11 and could barely say anything. They will (at least in Paris; less so in less citified places) speak English to you unless you resist hard, but hey, then you get an option. Speak French, 'cause why else do we go to foreign places?

(Climbs down off of soapbox.)

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Whee, have fun!

And yeah, my impression is also that, outside of Paris (where my parents spent a sabbatical), you are much less likely to be mocked for your French.

[vfish.livejournal.com]

You could be a gauchiste, although that's something a bit different.

je mange une tête d'éléphant à la discothèque

[luvrhino.livejournal.com]

Il y'a un poisson dans votre bibliothèque.