Throughout high school and college, I took French classes, which peaked my interests to travel to France at some point to experience the culture I learned about and try to put what I learned to use. I always made pretty good grades in school but for whatever reason I was always bottom of my class in French, so I wasn’t working with too much in France, but I still wanted to give it a try. So, me and my good friend and former teammate at Dickinson, Ian, decided to go to Paris. As soon as we arrived my French was put to the test. We had to meet with the tenant in order to get into the apartment. The problem was the tenant knew absolutely 0 English. I knew we were in trouble when I asked the guy “parlez-vous Anglaise?” (which I’m 80% sure is the correct way to ask do you speak English) and he said shook his head no. He was infuriated with our lack of ability to speak French, (which was a common theme for us) but eventually after I just kept saying “oui” and nodding my head in agreement to everything he asked us, he left us with the key and we were able to go into the city. Over those 2 days I saw a proposal on the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, took a selfie with the Mona Lisa, tried escargot, saw the Palace of Versailles and was at a firework show and new year’s countdown with thousands of people in front of the Arc de Triumph. Immediately after that we got caught in the Gilets Jaunes protests and were surrounded by armed riot police, angry crowds, tear gas and fire on the Champs Elyees, but that story’s for another blog another time. Over that Weekend I got a full dose of French culture, some crazy experiences and had a great time bringing in 2019 in Europe.
