A language barrier is a great culprit for humiliation! Still on my stories from traveling in France.... this story takes place in a metro (subway). Still not knowing how to speak French and traveling in France, I was lost 90% of the time. In my small hometown of 800 people in Northern Colorado, we didn't have a single stoplight, much less a metro. The biggest problem I found with having to read the metro map is having to know where you are at in the first place. Once figuring out where you are and where you are going, that is half the battle.
After closely revising the map for the umpteenth time, I confidently walked down the stairs. I waited for a good 15 minutes. During that 15 minutes, I felt awkward, like a zoo animal, being stared at from the 30 or so people waiting on the other side of the tracks. "Go ahead, stare at the funny American and her funny way of standing and waiting for the metro," I thought to myself. Finally, the metro pulls up and I breathe a sigh of relief as I step inside and take a seat. As if to purposely torture me more, there seems to be some kind of delay....
Sometimes these delays happen. You have to be patient and wait. Usually the announcer comes on the loudspeaker and says there is a problem of some kind and to stay seated. The announcer just kept repeating and repeating.... Finally, I understand what they are saying. "Madame, please get off of the metro. This is the end of the line."
To my humiliation, the 30 people on the other side of the tracks all witness my stupidity first-hand. I had a good laugh at myself, along with everyone else, and made it over to right side.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wipe Your Feet
As promised, here is my first humiliating story. This one just happened to occur on my travels in France. It is one of Jacqueline's favorite stories. To fully understand the humor and humiliation of this story, it needs a little preface.
First, cast introduction. Jacqueline, 24, from Northern CA, is one of best friends. She is amazing, fun, a very serious procrastinator, easy-going, and tells great stories. Michelle, 24, from LA, was my roommate for two years in CA. She loves making fun of me, making people believe her lies, and she is terrible at returning phone calls. She is however, a wonderful person with a big heart, and if she didn't cook for me in college, I may have starved. Reena, 24, from WI, was also my roommate for two years in CA. Reena is best described as a selfless, adventurous, shop-ahholic, who is usually talking a bit louder than everyone else....ok, a lot louder, but I love her and she has a way of saying things that makes me laugh almost every time she speaks. I met all of these amazing ladies, who have become three of my very best friends, for the first time in Lyon, France. If I do say so myself, we were the most fun foursome of the group (yeah I know how that sounds). We were the easy-going, fun-loving group, always ready for a new adventure. That being said, this is not an "adventurous" story. That is the cast. Now to set the scene.
French people are, besides having terrible body odor, very particular and clean when it comes to their homes. They also seem to be a more serious culture. Most things we think are funny, absolutely horrify and disgust the French. So, say what you want about the French, but DAMN can they cook! Lucky enough, they also love having dinner parties. They are a big deal.
The infamous dinner party was to take place at Michelle's host parents' house. This was a bigger deal than usual because the year was half over and Michelle had not invited us to her house. She always said it was just way too awkward. Her host parents were OLD and SUPER serious. I still don't know if she was more embarrassed about us meeting them or them meeting us, but anyhow, we finally got the invite.
We, being the famous foursome, showed up to her parent's house at exactly 7:00PM for dinner. They greeted us at the door with a bisous (kiss). Before they could officially welcome us into their museum style home (you know the type of home you walk into and don't feel like you can touch anything because it is way too clean, neat, and expensive), they needed to be sure that we had wiped our shoes. We all answered a very polite, but nonchalant, "Yes." Just like that, we were at the dinner table.
Michelle was right. Dinner was awkward as hell. Yummy, but sooo uncomfortable. No one said hardly anything. For some bizarre reason, Michelle's host mom would randomly pipe up and ask us all if we had wiped our shoes. The way kept repeating the question made me think either 1) She doesn't believe that we understand French and wants to be really sure 2) She is old, and old people sometimes forget things and repeat themselves, or 3) She literally can't think of anything else to ask.
Finally the meal was over and we were "released" and incredibly relieved to get away from the table. We all felt the urge to get away so we could speak English and not feel rude. We toured the housing walking all over their beautiful home and then went upstairs to Michelle's bedroom to relax. We all laughed at the incredible awkwardness of the evening and we all expressed sympathy for Michelle that she had to go through that every night. None of us could figure out the paranoia of the shoe wiping question, but it provided us with a good laugh. As we were laughing and gasping for air in Michelle's small room, everyone's face began to turn from smiles to.... disgust. "What is that smell?!" all of asked almost simultaneously.
It was obvious from the stench that the dinner had not agreed with someone in the room..... AT ALL! Eeeeew! Usually smells like that go away after opening doors and windows, but this smell was not. "Ok, whoever it was should probably go use the restroom," I strongly suggest in a joking manner. Then I really began to think that someone had already gone. YUCK!!! In the middle of thinking to myself that one of my friends had just gone #2 in their pants, I looked down, trying to shield whatever face I might be making from the stinky pants person, I saw it!
Somehow I had gracefully managed to step in dog poop. Funnier still, is that it wasn't just a little. It was actually THE ENTIRE piece of poop. It was amazingly still intact and stuck perfectly to the bottom of my white tennis shoe! Visible from outer-space, this piece of dog poop was surely visible to Michelle's host mom from the moment we walked in. I felt so bad. I walked all over her house and spread poop everywhere. She probably had a few choice words for me while she was cleaning it up.
Here are the two cultural morals I can offer from this story:
1) Americans, it is rude not to wipe your shoes when you walk into someones house.
2) French, instead of asking the Americans if they wiped their shoes, just tell us that we have a giant turd on the bottom of our shoe. Then, most of us, will really wipe our shoes and won't accuse you of being an old French bore with Alzheimer's.
First, cast introduction. Jacqueline, 24, from Northern CA, is one of best friends. She is amazing, fun, a very serious procrastinator, easy-going, and tells great stories. Michelle, 24, from LA, was my roommate for two years in CA. She loves making fun of me, making people believe her lies, and she is terrible at returning phone calls. She is however, a wonderful person with a big heart, and if she didn't cook for me in college, I may have starved. Reena, 24, from WI, was also my roommate for two years in CA. Reena is best described as a selfless, adventurous, shop-ahholic, who is usually talking a bit louder than everyone else....ok, a lot louder, but I love her and she has a way of saying things that makes me laugh almost every time she speaks. I met all of these amazing ladies, who have become three of my very best friends, for the first time in Lyon, France. If I do say so myself, we were the most fun foursome of the group (yeah I know how that sounds). We were the easy-going, fun-loving group, always ready for a new adventure. That being said, this is not an "adventurous" story. That is the cast. Now to set the scene.
French people are, besides having terrible body odor, very particular and clean when it comes to their homes. They also seem to be a more serious culture. Most things we think are funny, absolutely horrify and disgust the French. So, say what you want about the French, but DAMN can they cook! Lucky enough, they also love having dinner parties. They are a big deal.
The infamous dinner party was to take place at Michelle's host parents' house. This was a bigger deal than usual because the year was half over and Michelle had not invited us to her house. She always said it was just way too awkward. Her host parents were OLD and SUPER serious. I still don't know if she was more embarrassed about us meeting them or them meeting us, but anyhow, we finally got the invite.
We, being the famous foursome, showed up to her parent's house at exactly 7:00PM for dinner. They greeted us at the door with a bisous (kiss). Before they could officially welcome us into their museum style home (you know the type of home you walk into and don't feel like you can touch anything because it is way too clean, neat, and expensive), they needed to be sure that we had wiped our shoes. We all answered a very polite, but nonchalant, "Yes." Just like that, we were at the dinner table.
Michelle was right. Dinner was awkward as hell. Yummy, but sooo uncomfortable. No one said hardly anything. For some bizarre reason, Michelle's host mom would randomly pipe up and ask us all if we had wiped our shoes. The way kept repeating the question made me think either 1) She doesn't believe that we understand French and wants to be really sure 2) She is old, and old people sometimes forget things and repeat themselves, or 3) She literally can't think of anything else to ask.
Finally the meal was over and we were "released" and incredibly relieved to get away from the table. We all felt the urge to get away so we could speak English and not feel rude. We toured the housing walking all over their beautiful home and then went upstairs to Michelle's bedroom to relax. We all laughed at the incredible awkwardness of the evening and we all expressed sympathy for Michelle that she had to go through that every night. None of us could figure out the paranoia of the shoe wiping question, but it provided us with a good laugh. As we were laughing and gasping for air in Michelle's small room, everyone's face began to turn from smiles to.... disgust. "What is that smell?!" all of asked almost simultaneously.
It was obvious from the stench that the dinner had not agreed with someone in the room..... AT ALL! Eeeeew! Usually smells like that go away after opening doors and windows, but this smell was not. "Ok, whoever it was should probably go use the restroom," I strongly suggest in a joking manner. Then I really began to think that someone had already gone. YUCK!!! In the middle of thinking to myself that one of my friends had just gone #2 in their pants, I looked down, trying to shield whatever face I might be making from the stinky pants person, I saw it!
Somehow I had gracefully managed to step in dog poop. Funnier still, is that it wasn't just a little. It was actually THE ENTIRE piece of poop. It was amazingly still intact and stuck perfectly to the bottom of my white tennis shoe! Visible from outer-space, this piece of dog poop was surely visible to Michelle's host mom from the moment we walked in. I felt so bad. I walked all over her house and spread poop everywhere. She probably had a few choice words for me while she was cleaning it up.
Here are the two cultural morals I can offer from this story:
1) Americans, it is rude not to wipe your shoes when you walk into someones house.
2) French, instead of asking the Americans if they wiped their shoes, just tell us that we have a giant turd on the bottom of our shoe. Then, most of us, will really wipe our shoes and won't accuse you of being an old French bore with Alzheimer's.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
First Blog Ever :)
Let’s just say a little monkey has inspired me to write a blog. I have to admit that it took me a VERY long time to figure out what a “blog” is. I mean, who made up the word “blog?” I like it, but it sure as hell sounds like it should be something other than what it is....
“A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[1] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.” -Wikipedia
Moving on… A recent conversation I had with one of my best friends, Jacqueline, actually inspired me to write. If you know me, I am a pretty accepting and friendly person. You would pretty much have to make it your job in order for me not to like you. Jacqueline and I were recently in Vegas together for a weekend. Needless to say, we had too much fun. As we were laying in bed on Sunday afternoon at 4PM, feeling like death from the night before, we started having one of those half drunk, endless conversations. After recounting several stories about our travels in Europe and going over some of my slightly interesting choices in friends, she looked at me and said, “It’s like you approach the world with your arms wide-open. Not just to people, but to things and life in general. Things just happen to you all the time. You have so many great and funny stories.”
Suddenly, I realized that she was right. I always feel like “things happen to me,” but I don’t think much of them because I assumed “things happen” to everyone. Point is, I have some GREAT and VERY embarrassing stories that I feel, for whatever reason, I should share. So stay tuned..
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