Things that have completely pwned me so far:
1. Buying laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioner, etc. They are mostly different products and the labels are in French, and it takes me 20x longer to do than it would take a normal person!
2. Getting out of a metro station alone: WHAT? There are like 4 exits?
3. Finding the proper desk to buy a discount train card: I can ask for directions is French, but I don't always understand them...
4. Finding flour, and later, sugar, in the grocery store. They aren't together! There is no real baking section! I wander aimlessly through the aisles for 10 minutes, literally walking through every aisle several times. As I have forgotten the word for flour (farine, I now know), I ask someone where the sugar is. I find it with the candy. But no flour. I leave the store, defeated. Hours later: I go to another store. After 10 minutes of wandering, I find the flour. Oh, and I guess it would not be a bad idea to get some sugar, too. I wander for 10 more minutes. Never find it and leave. PWNED!
5. Using a French cell-phone. Doing this properly is completely elusive to me. There's something about a zero or not a zero before the number? And I managed to lock myself out immediately by guessing my PIN to many times (it was 0000). *sigh. Thank goodness for Valentin, who called the technical assistance and fixed it.
6. Interacting with others: when people speak to me on the street, on the metro, in stores, etc. I always just end up giving them a really wide-eyed confused look. Ooops.
7. This morning, I was walking down the street and a man walking in the other direction tried to give me a cigarette. Wide-eyed confused look. "Ne fumez pas?" Nonon, but more importantly, why did this happen!? Is this normal behavior?
8. Pomme de douche. Apparently this is the shower head! Well, I never would have guessed that one.
Anyway, that's all I can think of right now, but I may be in a bit over my head. Thank goodness I have Valentin and the au pair family who are able to sort of fix the confusion.
This weekend, I'm off to Strasbourg for the gala at Valentin's engineering school. It should be awesome! :)
Bon weekend, mes amis!
sounds challenging! but you'll get everything down & it'll be easy as pie sooner than you know it :)
ReplyDeleteBahahaa. You poor thing! I'm glad Val is there to translate for you. By the end of this venture, my guess is that you will look back on this and laugh... and be able to do all of these things without any trouble at all. Have fun at your gala! Did Val find a suitable ball gown? ;)
ReplyDeletehmmm lots of adjusting.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry the metro is so confusing. I was with my family there and if they weren't, I'd be lost. Good job finding the flour. That's a little bit easier next time :)
What were you going to make?
can you take a few photos at the gala and share them here or on facebook. I'm excited to see!
much love from across the ocean
;)
p.s.
I'm going to challenge myself to learn French again, so I can leave comments in French.