Language Barriers

After posting about my day in Paris I started thinking about the good time that my husband and I had. Yes the weather was awful, but it didn't hinder us- well not until we hit Barcelona, but that is a whole other story.

I took two years of French for my second language requirement in high school. That was 17 years ago!! OMG do I feel old now. It is pretty accurately said that I could not carry on a conversation nor understand most if spoken in French. I could pick up a word here or there and I could say thank you, please, yes, where is, how are you, hello and good bye. There may be a few other things but definitely not enough to really help in situations like the one I am about to share with you.

After leaving the Arc de Triomph we decided to head back to the hotel to take a nap and get out of the rain. We chose our hotel for its location... within walking distance of the Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triomph and the Champs-Elysees, so we walked, and walked, and walked. We had walked ourselves to the point that our feet hurt, we were drenched, cold and ready to snap. Yes we had a map! Of course the street we were looking for was not on the map, but we knew the general area. I finally convinced my husband to stop so we could TRY and ask someone for help.

We go into the Pharmacy thinking, Ok I can only say a few things here hopefully this lady is like most that we have come in contact with and speaks English. No such luck !! Here I am trying to ask where is (which is very easy to say) our street... the street name was not easily pronounced, especially coming out with my strong southern accent. The lady was completely at a loss. Another costumer comes in who does speak English and between the three of us ladies, my husband wasn't touching this conversation with a 10 foot pole, we figured out the direction in which we needed to head.

I decided while we are here I might as well get some conditioner. The hotel only provided shampoo and it wasn't the 2 in 1, and after the last 2 days I my hair needed it. So here we go again! For some reason my mind went blank and I did not think to ask for "cream rinse", I asked for conditioner. This poor French lady was at a loss again. We went round and round trying to figure it out and all of a sudden the light came on... in her head not mine. She says "After Shampoo" , Yes Yes yes! That is what I need. She rings my bottle of After Shampoo up and we head out.

Hubby hits the sack as soon as we walk through the door. I am off to relax in a nice long HOT shower. Guess what comes next! The darn bottle of after shampoo was in fact SHAMPOO!!! I was sooo frustrated all I could do was laugh.

Now every time my husband sees a bottle of conditioner he calls it "After Shampoo"!