A Fun French Detour
Oct. 27th, 2009 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenJune of 1989 was a month that was wrapped up in travel throughout Germany and France. I was heading to start my summer French course in Paris at the beginning of July, but I first wanted to experience a little more of France than I had in 1987 during my German course in the Black Forest.
In my 20s, I stayed in youth hostels throughout Europe while dreaming of an America where that kind of accommodation was more prevalent and safer. Still hasn't happened. I took the train most everywhere. In France, I discovered hitchhiking and the 80s were still a pretty safe time to hitchhike. Strasbourg was one of my train stops into France from Germany. I stayed for a couple of days and got on the train for Paris. I thought that I would simply head on to Paris and get my bearings in the city. Fate had a different plan.
I sat down on the train next to another American. Slowly becoming an early 20s Gen-X Eurotrash snob, I spoke to her in German first, then in well-planned French. To my "surprise", she was an American studying Political Science and Journalism at Colby University, but traveling around Europe for the summer on her divorced dad's dime. We ended up having a great conversation on the way to Paris. She, Jennifer, convinced me to come with her to Caen, France, and spend the week there before heading to Paris for school.
I had never heard of Caen (Normandy), except from having found it on the map when trying to find Cannes (Provence on the French Riviera) the first time. Jennifer and I stopped off in Paris to change trains to Caen, which proved not to be an easy task. I also took the opportunity to dump my extra bags in a locker for the week - knowing that I'd have to pick them up from the station porters later.
We got to Caen Monday afternoon late. The manager (1/2 American, 1/2 French) of the youth hostel gave her and me the apartment at the end of the hallway with a little kitchenette! By Tuesday we'd met another American and a Brit at the hostel. During the day, I had found out about a disco we should visit called, appropriately, "The American Disco".
We got to the disco and were all wearing sneakers. I had left my better shoes in my suitcase in Paris and the others, well, they simply didn't have anything else. We were all students after all. We had to knock on the door to get in. The bouncer looked me up and down and said we couldn't come in and, after glancing around our foursome, slammed the door in our faces. Undeterred, I knocked on the door again and asked why we couldn't come in. He said, looking me up and down, "Vous portez les chaussures de mauvaise!" ("You're wearing the wrong shoes!") and went to slam the door.
I exclaimed, "Nous sommes Americains!" casually forgetting that one Brit was in our midst.
He replied exuberantly, "Pour-quoi tu ne m'as pas dit ça que la première fois?" ("Why didn't you say that the first time?") and let us in. He happily ran around the place telling everyone that we were Americans (not realizing that one of us was British). Everyone, and I mean everyone in the place was excited to hear we were there. People came over to us and bought us drinks. They got us on the dance floor to awful disco music trying tragically to teach us the Hustle. The evening turned out great and they showed us that not all French hate Americans. The people in Caen's American Disco explained that only the Parisians really hate Americans, but also that the Parisians hate everyone - even themselves. We found out that in Normandy, in particular, Americans are highly revered from our storming the beaches to save France from Nazi occupation.
We eventually made it to Omaha and Utah beaches, Jennifer and I, to see the remnants of the floating docks. There were great museums that depicted what Americans did during WWII to secure the beaches. It was deeply moving to know that my forefathers (my own father included - who thankfully didn't die) offered their lives to our country to save France and eventually Europe from such evil domination.
Granted, a free ticket into the disco wasn't really the resounding, "Thanks for saving our country!" anyone would necessarily expect, but at least our sneakers didn't fully stop our entrance, either. Having WWII discussions over French beer on a Tuesday night in an "American Disco" in northern France and speaking a mixture of Franglais was interesting. Meanwhile the Brit kept trying unsuccessfully to explain that he wasn't American.
In my 20s, I stayed in youth hostels throughout Europe while dreaming of an America where that kind of accommodation was more prevalent and safer. Still hasn't happened. I took the train most everywhere. In France, I discovered hitchhiking and the 80s were still a pretty safe time to hitchhike. Strasbourg was one of my train stops into France from Germany. I stayed for a couple of days and got on the train for Paris. I thought that I would simply head on to Paris and get my bearings in the city. Fate had a different plan.
I sat down on the train next to another American. Slowly becoming an early 20s Gen-X Eurotrash snob, I spoke to her in German first, then in well-planned French. To my "surprise", she was an American studying Political Science and Journalism at Colby University, but traveling around Europe for the summer on her divorced dad's dime. We ended up having a great conversation on the way to Paris. She, Jennifer, convinced me to come with her to Caen, France, and spend the week there before heading to Paris for school.
I had never heard of Caen (Normandy), except from having found it on the map when trying to find Cannes (Provence on the French Riviera) the first time. Jennifer and I stopped off in Paris to change trains to Caen, which proved not to be an easy task. I also took the opportunity to dump my extra bags in a locker for the week - knowing that I'd have to pick them up from the station porters later.
We got to Caen Monday afternoon late. The manager (1/2 American, 1/2 French) of the youth hostel gave her and me the apartment at the end of the hallway with a little kitchenette! By Tuesday we'd met another American and a Brit at the hostel. During the day, I had found out about a disco we should visit called, appropriately, "The American Disco".
We got to the disco and were all wearing sneakers. I had left my better shoes in my suitcase in Paris and the others, well, they simply didn't have anything else. We were all students after all. We had to knock on the door to get in. The bouncer looked me up and down and said we couldn't come in and, after glancing around our foursome, slammed the door in our faces. Undeterred, I knocked on the door again and asked why we couldn't come in. He said, looking me up and down, "Vous portez les chaussures de mauvaise!" ("You're wearing the wrong shoes!") and went to slam the door.
I exclaimed, "Nous sommes Americains!" casually forgetting that one Brit was in our midst.
He replied exuberantly, "Pour-quoi tu ne m'as pas dit ça que la première fois?" ("Why didn't you say that the first time?") and let us in. He happily ran around the place telling everyone that we were Americans (not realizing that one of us was British). Everyone, and I mean everyone in the place was excited to hear we were there. People came over to us and bought us drinks. They got us on the dance floor to awful disco music trying tragically to teach us the Hustle. The evening turned out great and they showed us that not all French hate Americans. The people in Caen's American Disco explained that only the Parisians really hate Americans, but also that the Parisians hate everyone - even themselves. We found out that in Normandy, in particular, Americans are highly revered from our storming the beaches to save France from Nazi occupation.
We eventually made it to Omaha and Utah beaches, Jennifer and I, to see the remnants of the floating docks. There were great museums that depicted what Americans did during WWII to secure the beaches. It was deeply moving to know that my forefathers (my own father included - who thankfully didn't die) offered their lives to our country to save France and eventually Europe from such evil domination.
Granted, a free ticket into the disco wasn't really the resounding, "Thanks for saving our country!" anyone would necessarily expect, but at least our sneakers didn't fully stop our entrance, either. Having WWII discussions over French beer on a Tuesday night in an "American Disco" in northern France and speaking a mixture of Franglais was interesting. Meanwhile the Brit kept trying unsuccessfully to explain that he wasn't American.
