The French, especially Parisians, are often considered to be brusque, sometimes to the point of rudeness. However, we have found this not to be the case.
Angelina and I recently spent three weeks in France visiting rose gardens, museums, and other points of interest. We rented a car for nine days and enjoyed cruising through the idyllic Normandy countryside. This included two day-trips to the Omaha beach area, Pointe du Hoc, Mont Ste. Michel and the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, sacred ground for Americans.
We returned to Paris for a week and then on to Lyon on the high-speed train. While this was our third trip to France, we found ourselves needing a little bit of help from time to time and we got it.
When we arrived in Lyon, a rowdy demonstration was going on in front of our hotel and the area was blocked off by the police. All the taxi drivers at the train station were aware of this and would not take the fare. One driver who understood our predicament gathered the other drivers and they came up with an alternative using the nearby Lyon Metro. But once inside the metro station the only way to buy a ticket was at the ticket kiosk where the instructions were in French. A young man walking by saw our confusion and worked the machine for us and then escorted us to the right line. Voila.
Besides accepting friendly support from strangers, we had a number of interesting chance encounters with French citizens as well as other travelers which add flavor to all our trips. One of our favorites was meeting a waiter in a Lyon bistro who spoke amazingly good English. I asked him how he learned – in school? perhaps at home? Nah, he said, he picked it up by listening to the New England Patriots play-by-play announcers for ten years. He would wake up at 3am on Sundays to catch the game live on French satellite TV. Big Tom Brady fan.
In a Lyon fromagerie, where no one spoke any English and my French failed me, the cheese lady pulled out her iPhone to a translation app and we got the cheeses we wanted courtesy of Apple.
But the most memorable experience took place when we left the Bois de Bologna, a large public park in the western outskirts of Paris. We were returning to our hotel from a visit to the Roseraie de Bagatelle, the rose garden within the park with a worldwide reputation and an annual international competition. We had taken a taxi to the garden but there was no taxi or bus service within the park to get us back. We knew where we were and where we wanted to go but did not know exactly how to get there. We were half-lost.
We intrepidly hiked the half-mile out of the park and found a bus stop and decided to board any bus to get us to any Metro station and we would wing it from there. I tried asking the bus driver what stop we needed for the nearest Metro but she did not understand my French. Neither did I. It was then that we heard a voice behind us ask where were we going in fluent English. We turned around and that’s when we met Francoise. We told her we were heading back to our hotel in the 6th (arrondissement). That’s where I’m going, she said, follow me.
She led us to the Metro station and off we went. We sat together and chatted like old friends. Her English had a slight French accent but also a bit of London and a touch of Manhattan. It was so good I asked her if she was really French. She admitted that she had lived in New York, Los Angeles, London, South Africa and, get this, Newport RI where Angelina was born. When asked what she did for a living, she only smiled.
She suggested ways to see Paris (ride the bus not the Metro and take a river cruise on the Seine). We were aware of these tips but enjoyed her cheery narrative. We had to switch lines which meant up and down a maze of stairs and escalators to reach the next leg of the trip but we simply followed Francoise. When we finally reached the point where we parted company, we shook hands and she briskly walked on to the crowded platform of the next metro and disappeared. Mary Poppins sans the umbrella.
After a hiatus of three years, it felt good to be back travelling again. As always, we plan to be good guests in whatever country we visit by first learning some basic words and phrases in the local language and using them. Our efforts are usually clumsy and the pronunciation awful but the locals forgive us for trying, especially the French. Maybe that’s why we get along. N’est-ce pas?
The Rose Journal 