English Vit a Vrrrench Acksent

I vood like to begin vith a verd about surviving in land of France. If you ask a Frenchman in an information booth whether they "parle vous anglais", the answer is most emphatically... NO. Be prepared for that.

They will stick with that answer until you start to stumble your way through some canned French phrases you learned from downloading "All-the-French-You-Need-to-Know-in-Five-Minutes" in an I-Tunes Podcast, and then suddenly it is like God struck them with the gift of tongues, and they say, in perfect English diction, "I speak English." Imagine my surprise.

On the off chance the Frenchman still feigns to misunderstand what you are saying... please DO NOT...

DO NOT repeat what you are trying to say slower or louder.

WWWWHERE ... IZZZZ... THAAAA... TOYYYY-LETSSSS???

DO NOT repeat it with an accent:

I vood like tu buy un metrrro passe vorra deux.

DO NOT repeat it in fragments.

I no like this. Food bad. Patay bad. Need meat. Real meat.

If you get a chance to take a train anywhere in Europe, do it... ... just make sure you have a reservation for a seat. Nothing says "tourist" quite like sitting on the floor near the TOYLETS between the cabins, smelling brake dust, and sipping coffee from a grande cup the size of two tablespoons for three hours on your way from Paris to Bayeux.

It may not look romantic, but it definately brough us closer together. We got seats on the way home... WAY better.

If the city you are in has a metro station, I suggest that you get to know it really well on your first day or so because they purposely make maps HUGE ... like quadruple the size you need it to be..... so that the WHOLE CITY knows you have no idea where you going.

My best travel advice is to buy the "Paris City Walk" cards and a mini-tripod.

We bought the city walk cards for Paris because we didn't do much planning... which I know shocks everyone.... WHAT!!!! TIM AND RACHEL DID NOT PLAN EVERY DETAIL OF THEIR TRIP!!!!! .....Nope. Nada thing. We were ... hehum... discovering.... and discover we did... We discovered you don't always have to reach your destination to enjoy the journey, and there are more than ten different ways to reach the same destination... hence the reason I have a million pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

Anyways, the cards had fifty different two-mile walks you could take through the city, and it highlighted activities you could do and what you would see on your walk. The cards are must less cumbersome and less obvious than an life-size atlas. We carried 3 or 4 around with us each day.

As a disclaimer, you should know that we achieved set-upon destination only once, but it was alot of fun trying to re-create the experience of finding our way to where the cards told us to go each day. It was like a scavenger hunt...only not.

The mini-tripod was awesome... I hate looking like I travel alone in every scrapbook and I hate asking some other tourist, "Can you take our picture?" You end up giving them a short lesson on the mechanics of a camera.... Pooosh dis button rite heear..... no no not that one... that turns camera off... ... Look through heear.. well, sir.. you no need to hold up camera to your face... okay never mind... did it take?.. yes .. I think it .. oh... no... could you try it again?.. okay good yes now it took... ugh.. our heads are missing. When the whole ordeal is over, you are ten years older, the picture sucks, and your don't remember the reason why you wanted a photo in first place.

Last bit o' advice... check the weather... don't wear a skirt when you plan to tour the top of the Eiffel Tower. However cute you look in the photo... Frostbite is a really serious side-effect.

Well, dat es my English vit a Vrrrench acksent por vous.