Voyage d'affair

By Horace J. Digby


Our trip to Paris took so much planning, I began feeling like Bilbo Baggins preparing for his great adventure. A grand sendoff would be the final step. Speeches, fireworks, I'd invite the entire Shire. But my wife, always the pragmatist, reminded me that we weren't actually Hobbits and didn't even know where the Shire was. She was right of course. Luckily, I headed off my nephew Frodo, before he mailed the invitations. I don't think I'll tell him about the magic ring.

Even without a party the details were endless. The most important was to brush up on my French. How hard could it be to lead my family on a safe and joyous romp through Paris? With my background in French (seventh and part of eighth grade) one of those "French-for-travelers" CDs would be the ticket.
After all, French is like math; you never forget it. So what if my last brush with the language was . . . let me see, hmmm . . . four minus three . . . carry the one . . . Maybe French isn't like math at all. Maybe French is more like riding a bicycle.

My wife and son got me a mountain bike for my 40th birthday. It was great to be back in the saddle, pedaling as fast as I could for the park. It was like I'd never been off of a bike. I'm sure that's what French is like. With my driveway just thirty yards ahead, I decided to see how fast I could take the turn. We used to lay our bikes nearly horizontal when I was a kid. You just lean into the turn.

Swoosh-crshcrbbll-brrssh—I slid nearly ten yards across the pavement, mostly on my left hip and forearm. Of course when I stopped sliding, I jumped up at once, acting like nothing at all had happened. This is an important part of being a guy. The quicker you jump up after a mishap, the better. Luckily, our garage door was open, so I headed there with all the bounce in my step that I could manufacture.

There was a lot of pain and probably blood, but I couldn't look. Not yet. You can't show pain, especially when you got the pain by doing something really stupid. This is the basis of all male behavior. After I got the garage door closed, I would wither and dissolve into a pool of quivering agony, but until then, "I was fine . . . I meant to do that."
Everything hurt. Heck, the bike seat was shredded, along with my shorts, my shirt and a good deal of my hip and forearm. A week or so later, before all of the bandages were off, I bump into my old childhood friend Ronny Pocan. I hadn't seen Ronny in years. He was the kid who actually taught me to ride a bike. My first real bike wreck was with Ronny.

Ronny took one look at the scab on my arm and knee and said, "I see you got a mountain bike."

"How did you know that?" I demanded.

Ronny didn't say a word. Instead he just pulled aside his shirt to show me his freshly abraded ribs and left arm. "Me too," he said.

I was sure French would be like that.

Luckily, there were scads of French-for-travelers CDs at the book store. But that meant I had to choose. Sure, I know they're all the same. But this was about the safety of my family. I had to make the right choice. I stood there, a man of once mighty Scottish and Viking ancestry, in a book store, trying to protect my family by choosing the right French-for-travelers CD. One million years of human evolution had distilled manhood down to its raw essence--pretending not to feel pain after bicycle wrecks, and protecting loved ones by reading labels on French-for-travelers CDs.

It isn't as easy as it sounds. Just a year ago we were making the same sort of selection for my son, Horace, Jr. He was headed for Slovakia as an exchange student and needed to learn the language. As you might imagine, there isn't much of a selection of Slovak-for-travelers tapes, so we pretty much bought the only one available. When we plugged in the tape, a gentleman with a thick British accent was saying something like, "Pip pip old chap. This is Nigel Rathbottom welcoming you to colloquial Slovak." [To get the full effect, the reader is advised to reread this quote using a very thick British accent, which everyone seems convinced they can do.]

We had a great laugh, until my son reminded us, that for all we knew this was how Slovaks really talked. Fortunately only the narration was in Cockney (or whatever that accent was). The actual lessons featured Slovak speakers.
I chose a French CD with a lot of writing on the label and photos of two attractive happy-looking people apparently talking in French.

They say, "Never judge a book by its cover." But—and I looked this up on the internet—no one ever says, "Never judge a French-for-travelers CD by its cover." So it must be ok.

Help! They Stole my watch!
It turns out that Nigel Rathbottom also does French CDs—just kidding. Whoever it was sounded very French (or perhaps Slovak). The first part of the CD was devoted to "most needed phrases." This seemed like a good idea, although I was a bit suspicious when one of the most needed phrase turned out to be, "Au secours! On a volé ma montre!" Which apparently means, "Help! They stole my watch!" No kidding. Whoever did this CD thought I'd probably need to be able to say that in France.

Another most needed phrase, according to the CD was, "Je veux un avocat qui parle Anglais?" Which makes sense. If you are going to hire a lawyer in France, getting one who speaks English is a good idea. Although, it was hard to imagine what sort of vacation traveler would find this to be a most needed phrase. But then, I'd never been to France. Maybe it was a big thing over there. Besides, the people who edited the CD knew more about traveling in France than I did. Who was I to argue? So, I learned this next phrase too. "Je ne peux pas bouger la jambe." Which the CD assured me meant, "I can't move my leg." I'm really not kidding here.

I was still trying to get a mental picture of the editors of this CD. Did they really think that these were the most needed phrases for a family vacation? Or this one, "Ce sont des pillules ou des suppositories?" "Are these pills or suppositories?"

I sort of figured if you really need any of these phrases your vacation is already pretty much beyond hope. So, what possible good could it do to chat pleasantly about your situation in well-formed, grammatically correct French sentences? Although that one about the suppositories might come in handy.

Soon, I was spending more time worrying about the life of those poor editors than studying French. Did they get these phrases from their own experience? Did they also know these phrases in, say, German? And, could I get a guarantee that the editors would not be staying in the same hotel we had booked?

And what about the thousands of phrases that were left out? Like, "Help! They kidnapped the Swiss Ambassador!"

Sure, you might not need that one most of the time, but let's say you attend a wine tasting party at the Louvre and somebody runs off with the Swiss Ambassador. How will it look if you just stand there making small talk about whether or not you can move your leg, while everyone else is yelling, "Au secours! On a volé Le Ambassadeur du Suisse!" You should at least be able to say something about the kidnapping. The French consider such minor courtesies quite important. Although, I guess, you could just pretend to be looking for your wristwatch.

This detour of thought had to end. I had spent good money on that CD, and most needed phrases or not (including how to ask for more pepper, "Je voudrais du poivre s'il vous plait") it was time to make the best of things.

We already had our airline tickets, and room reservations in what had been promised to be a nice hotel avec douche—which I hoped meant, "with a shower." But we didn't have any French money yet.

Money Matters
In junior high, I tried to learn the names of French currency but it didn't take. I couldn't remember any of them. I did remember, however that the French are always saying, Ça ne fait rein (which I knew means either, "Don't worry about it," or "There is no more rice.").

Happily, France now uses the European Common Market dollar called the Euro. Euros even have nearly the same change as our money, nickels, dimes twenty cent pieces and pennies, although they probably call them something else. When I checked, the price of one Euro was about $1.30. That seemed high so I checked again a few weeks later. It had gone up to $1.50.


I knew the price would go down. I also knew this wouldn't happen until we had purchased all of the Euros we would ever need. And then the price would never go back up again as long as we held any of them. So, I did the only intelligent thing. I pretended to buy some Euros. "Je voudrais du Euro s'il vous plait," I said. Which is French for, "May I buy some Euros?" I said this to nobody in particular, because I was only pretending.

Then, in a squeaky falsetto, I answered myself, "Je ne comprends pas." Basic French for, "Huh?"

Not getting anywhere with virtual currency trading, the only alternative was to hold out until the last possible second, hoping for some lucky break—like the economic collapse of Europe—to drive the price of Euros down.

Until then, I decided to study more French.

Lessons Deux
French English
Banker: Bonjour monsieur. "Hi."
Tourist: Je voudrais du Euro s'il "How much for some Euros?"
vous plait. C'est combien?
Banker: Où est la garantie? "More than YOU can afford."
Tourist: La Garantie? "You want my house?"
Banker: Vous vouloir Euro, n'est pas? "Yes."
Tourist: Je ne peux pas bouger le visage. "I can't move my face."

Best Laid Plans
Planning our trip was loads of fun. We wanted to visit Slovakia first, then rail to Paris before pushing on to London (we also wanted to use other travel-related words like "explore" and "navigate," but we were on a budget).

Checking the map, we learned that Paris and London both have a river running through them, roughly in the shape of the letter "n." Both cities also have a perimeter highway around them, and in each city the preferred mode of travel is by subway. We soon realized the only actual difference between Paris and London is that London has a really big Ferris wheel where the Eiffel Tower would be if you were in Paris. Other than that, the cities are identical. In fact, if you rush up behind a group of Parisians and listen in on their conversation before they know you are there, you will often catch them chattering away in Cockney (or perhaps it's Slovak) about fish 'n chips and ale.

We used the travel agent method to planning our trip. This is the best way to organize plans for travel to Europe. Your agent will know all of the secret instructions about getting a hotel with showers. Your agent also has a much better chance of getting your money back if something really goes wrong—like if Paris happens to be closed for repairs when you get there [it happened to us at Disneyland once] or if a really big corporate party (like IBM) has booked all of Europe and you can't get tickets to do anything [this happened on our honeymoon trip to Kauai].

Whenever you face these or other major problems on your trip, your travel agent can really help. He or she is certain to know the MOST NEEDED FRENCH PHRASE OF ALL, which is:

Vous ne puis-pas exchangre ceci.

Which means, "All sales are final."

-- Horace J. Digby
Copyright © 2006 Lexington Film, LLC. All rights reserved