Saturday, 6 August, 2022 – After a day of “downtime,” it seems E has covered a lot of ground today. It is 9:30 p.m. in Paris, as I write this. He has posted quite a few beautiful pictures so I am not going to pull anything from Google, except maps to orient me.
From texting with him, I know he is doing one of the hardest things about traveling in a foreign country: speaking a foreign language. I think everyone I know has studied a foreign language at some point so we all can remember sitting in beginning French/Spanish/Chinese, etc. class, and feeling like a dope. But feeling like a dope in front of your classmates bears no resemblance to the feeling of being totally at sea, embarrassed, and flushed as someone barks at you in the foreign language you had the idiotic idea you might know how to speak because you used the wrong money, or selected the wrong thing off the menu, or asked them to repeat their directions.
Actually, I get kind of sweaty just thinking about it right now. I know some people are better at it than I am – the jumping in and trying to express a thought or question without being embarrassed – but I can’t believe they feel nothing. One minute, you see yourself as a reasonably articulate person and the next minute, you can’t keep up with the 5-year-old babbling at you while you share a seat on the bus. Argh!
In any case, E has started testing the waters with his French. All I can say is “good for him!” Or, more precisely, “Bien pour lui!” (Yes, I admit I had to look up the “lui”.) Here’s our exchange:
E: I had some broken conversations in French today which was cool but not as easy as talking to someone I know. First conversation in a week really.
Me: Good for you. It is so hard when you want to say something and the words are just not there. I am glad you made contact and had a conversation.
E: Definitely not easy but feels good to use what I know.
E’s Pictures of His Day in Paris
Some useful links
- The Paris Tourism website has some nice pictures and information.
- The Pantheon website
- Website about the history of the Place de la Bastille
- Jardin du Luxembourg website (there’s a dropdown menu to view it in English on the right.)
Maps for the day
