Not a surprise, I know<\/p>\n
I was going to tile this post \u201cThe Stupids Go To Paris\u201d, but that seemed a little too on-point. But it became immediately clear on arrival in France that I am instantly recognizable are an American, and I find it fascinating. While, yes, I have been wearing shorts (along with many, many of the French gentlemen I\u2019ve passed), I\u2019m NOT wearing white-shoebox-sneakers, glaring white socks, or Budweiser t-shirts. It\u2019s a pretty universal, standard-dad-with-family-on holiday ensemble: navy polo (no logo), chino shorts (above the knee), Montecristo Panama hat. Take a look at the photos of gents in the stands at the French Open earlier this summer, and you\u2019ll see hundreds of me in the stands.<\/p>\n
So, why do people immediately address me in English as soon as the first, \u201cBonjour!\u201d escapes my mouth?<\/p>\n
Not that I really mind (except, methinks he doth protest too much). I\u2019ve come to find it amusing, and now I\u2019ve doubled-down on my menu-ordering French at the local brasserie. After handing me the menu with English translations, I pounce on the waiter with my \u201cDeux vin blanc et un carafe d\u2019eau, sils vous plait!\u201d To which the waiter invariably replies, \u201cWould you prefer Chardonnay?\u201d in accented-but-perfect English. He\u2019s excited to practice his English on a real, live American, right? I am happy to help, being so friendly and open like we Americans are.<\/p>\n
As are the French! Many others have already commented on this, but with my mammoth reach I feal compelled to my voice to the chorus: the people of France are absolutely delightful! And while this is NOT news to anyone who\u2019s been to France in the last several years, the perception otherwise still persists. I sorta-kinda expected the docents and staff at Versailles and the Arc de Triomphe to be used to dealing with international tourists. I\u2019ve been delighted at how approachable and well prepared the Gendarmerie and all of the Olympic volunteers are. Even when I drop a, \u201cBonjour. Pardonnez mois, je parle un peu Francais, parlez-vous Anglaise?\u201d and they reply, \u201cOnly a little\u201d, they then go on to answer my questions on directions or the situation in far, far better English than I speak.<\/p>\n
On last thought for now: I could have croissants and a coffee for breakfast every day. In fact, I think I just might!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not a surprise, I know I was going to tile this post \u201cThe Stupids Go To Paris\u201d, but that seemed a little too on-point. But it became immediately clear on arrival in France that I am instantly recognizable are an… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bqFE-66","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.surveyyoda.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}