Je vodrais un ver d'eau, sil vous plait!

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So I've been in France for exactly a week now and "je vodrais un ver d'eau, sil vous plait" is all I can get people to understand when I try to speak French. It's not that I haven't learned how to say anything else, it's just that my accent is so bad that it sort of comes out as gibberish. It probably doesn't help that my French vocabulary is the equivalent of that of a small child. A very slow, small child.

So this morning I finally broke down and found a McDonalds. I wanted a hamburger, but it was ten in the morning and they seemed to be still selling breakfast. I wasn't sure though, so I wanted to ask "Are you selling breakfast now?" except that the only word I knew in that entire phrase in French was breakfast, le petit dejeuner. So I go up to the counter "Bonjour Madame. Le petit dejeuner?" I get a blank stare so, still blindly hopeful, I repeat "Le petit dejeuner?" "Breakfast"? Still blank. The manager comes up. Apparantly I am a problem customer. He asks me something, probably "What do you want?" and points the menu board. "Je suis desole. Un sil vous plait" "I'm sorry, one please." I wanted to ask for number one on the menu board, but I did not know the word for "number". Basically I was a blubbering idiot. Eventually they handed me my mcmuffin and tea, patted me on the head simpathetically and sent me on my way. I sat outside with the hipsters that frequent the McDondalds here and ate my meal in petrified silence. If one of them had spoken to me, I probably would have asked him for a glass of water, sil vous plait.

In other news, Paris is amazing. It seems like every time I turn a corner I'm facing some extroadinary fountain or building that probably has some great signifance. After my McDonalds episode I took my "vas de the" (tea) and walked along La Seine, a river that runs through Paris. The apartment I'm staying in faces it. There were lots of runners and I was sad that I stupidly forgot to pack my tennis shoes for the trip. I might buy some here.

Classes start tomorrow and I'm excited about that.

But I'm already sick of bread and of cheese and the combination of the two. The first few days I was all about the bread and the cheese, but I think I over did it. It's easy to do over here. I think I'm going to try to lay off it for a few days, which will be easier said than done. I have a feeling that if I try to refuse the cheese course at the dinner table with my host family they'll peer pressure me into eating it. "Porqua pas, Leigh?" they'll ask, and then they'll say in French, "but everybody's doing it."

Other things I've noticed:

I always wear the wrong thing. Putting my hand out the window of my room is a completley inaccurate way to judge what the weather will be like. Then again, I've also been googling it, and that's usually wrong, too.

Paninis are way better here.

Drinking in the streets is illegal. Unless you're sitting down. Then it's a picnic.

That's all for now. I think I'm going to put up pictures from orientation in Compeigne. We went to a castle there and also a palace. Il est super cool!

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Comments

[Aunt Shawn]

bonjour Leigh!
I love the blog - Carla had a great idea! The McDonald's story was hysterical! I remember being desperate for a cheese hamburger on my trip to Russia. There is nothing that says America like re-constituted onions and special sauce - LOL! To hopefully help out, I went to http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt and got a translation for "I would like a number 1, please." Je voudrais un numéro un, svp. Let me know if it works. I love the pictures of Compeigne and cannot wait to see move pictures! Have a great day! Love you, Aunt Shawn