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I hope you don't mind, but I've shared that story with several people, including a list of francophones that I send neat French stuff, too, and a French woman who runs a crêperie where some of my French giclées hang. DH cracked up when I told him your tale.

One of my friends, an American living in southwest France with her French husband, shared this story in response to yours:


Years ago we were in a café in Paris with a British friend who spoke excellent, although accented, French. He tried to order a steak/frite and the waiter just stared at him and said, "Pardon, Monsieur, mais je ne parle pas anglais!" (I'm sorry sir, I don't speak English). He would only take the order when JM [her French husband] gave it to him!

Julie, I like John Sandford too - particularly his Virgil Flowers series. I just listened to Heat Lightning for my commute the last few weeks - definitely good on audio book. As are the Laurie King - Mary Russel series.

Greenhouse_gal, I'll definitely put Katie Fforde on my list. Brain candy is good!

Kymmco, I think Heat Lightning was the first book that I read of his (have read three in the last month or so) and I really liked it. He does a good job with characters. Mom read one that I haven't read yet that she felt was kind of boring, but she has enjoyed the rest. I can't remember the title, but it was a Kidd novel. I love finding new authors that I like that have several books out.... makes for a good stack of reading!

If you want to try Katie Fforde, Second Thyme Around is my favorite. After a while she does get formulaic. For a slightly more challenging bit of brain candy there's Maeve Binchy; my favorite of hers is Scarlet Feather - and Evening Class, which has some of the same characters, is also good, but not as good or as complex as Scarlet Feather.

Funny things can definitely happen with language....and contextual assumptions. When in Spain, more than 20 years ago, we had a rooftop clothes washer that one filled from a rainwater cistern. It did not have a spin cycle, only agitated the clothes somewhat, and then you had to twist the clothes dry by hand. To wash the whites we used bleach, and the bottle was shared by everyone in the apartment building. On the bleach bottle, in big letters, was the word CONEJO. I assuimed that this was the word for bleach, but really it means rabbit, which was apparently the brand name for that bleach. Anyway, to get on with my story, one day I went up to the roof to do my laundry and discovered that the bleach bottle was empty. I went knocking on doors to see if any of the residents had any I could use. Thinking that the word for bleach was "conejo" the translation of what I was asking people is, "Do you have a rabbit that I can put in my laundry?" Of course all I got was extremely puzzled looks and shrugged shoulders, as everyone decided that the American really was crazy.

Holly, that's so funny! At least you were trying! It sounds like it was quite an adventure, too. How long were you in Spain?

The last time we were in France we stayed in a gîte that had a front-loading washing machine, which we had never used before. Figuring out the cycles was interesting, and the floor got a good scrubbing as a result. Also, I didn't know the French word for detergent, so what I ended up buying at the Intermarché on the outskirts of town turned out to be fabric softener. Close, but no cigar....

MHF - what really strikes me as funny was why in the world was a brand of bleach called Rabbit? what in the world is the connection?

I know I have said it before, but I really want to become a professional 'namer', brillant job!

Glad all of you enjoyed the story.

Laurie, you would be a spectacular namer. I'm sure you would have clever names for all kinds of products, but also think of the possibilities for colors of paint, for example: "festuca blue", "pulcherimum pink"

There was a tiny picture of a rabbit on the label of the bleach bottle, so small I had never noticed it. This was pointed out to me by the chortling apartment residents when I showed them the empty bottle in my next attempt to communicate my laundering needs. It was a white rabbit (hence the bleach whitener?), though most rabbits I have ever seen are brown. Really, all the bottles of bleach I've ever bought say BLEACH in large letters, after all the stuff is dangerous. It eats right through the bottle eventually if you leave it on a shelf in a storage shed.

GG, I was in Spain (Barcelona) for 6 months back in 1987. I was on doing an independent study (for college) on the history and culture, and had been invited by a friend of mine who was there on an art scholarship and had a 3 bedroom apartment (rent paid for) in the old town area. She was from Venezuela, and had been my roomate in the States previously. I learned most of the Spanish I know from her, so I speak with Venezuelan accent, which is somewhat different than the Castillian Spanish spoken in Spain. She probably picked up a bit of a Chicago twang from me as well. At any rate, my local communications in Barcelona were also affected by the fact that the native language there is not Spanish at all, but Catalan, and some people pretended not to understand me at all when I spoke in Castillian. Most were appreciative that I was doing the best I could, and I learned to start with a greeting in Catalan and an apology that I did not know much more.

Another few language episodes occured while I was there. I had gone to the market to buy groceries, and had been told about the custom for getting a turn to be served at a vegetable stall. There is no such thing as getting in line, no nice, clear queue, but instead a large crowd. You are supposed to call out "Who is the last?" to this crowd, and notice who answers "I am" then watch her like a hawk so as not to forget who she is and when you will be next. Anyway, the person selling the vegetables is surrounded by shelves with all the wares and is located several feet above the large crowd of shoppers jostling about. When your turn comes, you tell them how many kilos of which vegetable, and they quickly stuff it into bags for you. I had forgotten the word for half, so I decided to simply order one kilo of each item. To make my message more clear (so I thought) I held up one index finger. The vendor also held up one finger, quizically, and I nodded, foolishly. I had started with green peppers. Imagine my surprise when she filled several large plastic bags with green peppers. It turns out, holding up the index finger indicates "2", whole holding up the thumb indicates "1" so I had just requested 2 kilos (almost 5 pounds) of green peppers and was so mortified I paid for them and made my escape without buying anythiong else.

What cool stories, Holly. They speak Catalan in Southwestern France, too, but I don't know any of it at all. In other areas of the south it's French with a rolling r and a nasal twang.

How funny that you speak Spanish with a Venezualen accent. I wonder what that's like!

I spoke the y sound with a kind of slight j embedded in it, like my Venezuelan friend. The Spaniards say the s sound as a th. I never did pick that up.

I can kind of imagine that s sound. It's neat that you had such an exotic accent!

And of course Mexicans and Puerto Ricans have their own take on the language, just as Canadians have a different version of French. When their sit-coms are broadcast in France they often put French subtitles in!

Oh, MFH, I have such sympathy for your market shopping - When in Versailles I had to shop the market and stooped to pointing, smiling and nodding. the stall holder for fruit and vegetable decided "not good enough", and so each day I would go - point, and he would say the name of the fruit or vegetable I wanted and wait for me to pronounce it - the entire quque waiting behind me, impatiently. Each morning I was shown what I bought the day before, naming each in embarassed french and then we would begin the days new lesson. I would get so nervous waiting the persperation would make little tickling rivulets down inside my shirt (fortunately big loose shirts were the fashion). It was just excruciating - especially when he would make me repeat, and repeat - glowering sternly and chuckling at the same time - with all the ladies sucking air as only french housewives could. I took to mumbling the words all the way to and from the market hoping to shorten the lessons. I think I looked abit mad.

why in the world people travel is beyond me - for that same trip I knew I would be spending most of the days in Paris on my own and I had to work out how I was going to manage to sit in Cafes and Restaurants solo - I am actually painfully shy (stop laughing, it is true). So for two weeks prior to going I booked drink or meal meeting with friends in London and arrived early to practice sitting on my own at the bar or lounge trying to affect an air of casual interest without attracting interest! I think I must have looked absolutely ridiculous - but at least I managed to survive Paris without passing out from low blood sugar or dehydration - most days.

I like staying in my nice little neighbourhoods.

I love traveling alone. One time I rented a car in Rome and just started driving. You just need to understand the rules of the road in different countries. For instance, a stop sign in Italy does not necessarily mean stop - only if you feel like it. My favorite road sign is "cassuto massi" - it's fun to say. A stop sign in Germany definitely means stop. In France it seems to mean "my car can go faster than yours". In Switzerland it means "hello and how are you" looks between drivers. It's all fun.

I want to go to Budapest.

The only books I'm reading right now are medical books. And my subscription to the AIA magazine. I'm in limbo between 2 professions.

Oh, Laurie, but it's so much fun to dip your toes in strange waters! I don't know that I'd like traveling solo, to be sure, but it's neat to be in a country where you can sort of speak the language and have to manage to communicate and get things done in it, plus, with France, the beautiful countryside and delicious food. It does help that we have friends in both places, whom we will be visiting, but when we go there we always toy with the idea of buying a place, at least for vacations if not to actually move there.

Judi, my maternal grandparents came here from Budapest, and I've always thought it was an interesting place, but I have no desire to travel there. Hungarian is a very difficult language, too - neither Romance nor Germanic.

I'm busy putting books on my brand-new iPad for the trip.

My best meals in Italy have been cheese, salami, prosciutto, and fruit bought at the outdoor markets in the piazzas. And gelato. France, same thing. Since I can't eat wheat I can't indulge in the pastries. Saved!

We love the charcuterie in France, too. And the last time we were there I had some crevettes with home-made mayonnaise that were just wonderful. In fact, we had cold leftover Dungeness crab for lunch today and I served it with mayo.

I want to just plop down in a little apartment in Sienna and stay there for a year. My favorite city in the world.

I have always wanted to go live somewhere in England for 6-12 months. Maybe when we have no kids in college.

Laurie, I completely commiserate!! The determined ladies with their shopping accoutrements were very intimidating, especially when I was slowing down their plan for getting the best deals with my stumbling communication and fumbling for the right coins. I do wish I could find one of those cool shopping "carts" which were kind of like the rolling sutcases, but set up for grocery shopping with lots of compartments. They wouild literally charge down the street with those.

I was an adventuresome traveller when I was younger, but having family responsibilities (and expenses) as well as a garden to take care of does complicate things in my current situation. I like best to visit a place for a good while, with a home base and side trips from there. While living in Barcelona, I took rail and bus trips to other places, one a small village in southern Spain where I was invited by one of the locals to have a meal of none other than 'conejo' stew. If you read my post above you know that I learned this word (rabbit) the hard way.

Portland, GG, I so envy your forward going ness. I, sadly, am not of that ilk. I do appreciate the dipping of toes - but I am so embarassed before the event that I somehow have tread where I shouldn't be. difficult. I have travelled with wonder, it is just a trial doing it - and with the effort of work, travelling in peoples internal worlds, I like the peace of my own place when I have time off. that being said, perhaps when I finish with working.......

Gwen, I hope you will eventually get your stay in England, but more importantly I hope we can live up to your expectations.

MHF - I have seen those carts and the gladiator shoppers. We get them here in England at the weekend farmers market - it is the only time I have heard the word 'sorry' used as a threat and they definately take no prisoners.

We would love to spend longer than sixteen days or so in France, but what with the chickens and the dog - plus we are depended upon for after-school child care for our GD, and last time we partially solved that problem by having her join us for a week - it's really hard. This time we are splitting it up between two regions, with a week in each, and I'm sorry about that because we won't get to settle in to a gîte and learn the neighborhood as well; it would be great to have a month in one place and, as you say, Holly, take side trips and also get to know the local boulangerie and charcuterie and such. At least the second week we'll be back in the area where we've done that, but it's a different town so we'll have to get to know that microcosm.

Laurie, I never got into people's internal worlds to the same extent, but I did do a lot of counseling of kids and their parents in my job. It could be tiring and frustrating, but I do enjoy people, which is why I tend to paint figurative works mostly! Any idea when you can retire from it all?

Isn't it interesting how people relate to the world differently, and often because of their profession or education. I would love to travel with all of you and listen to what you see and sense. I also like having a home base and making side trips from there. How can you get to know a culture and the people without shopping for food at the outdoor markets? Who wants to find a shared place (like our own little time share) as a home base - if we had enough people it could be pretty affordable and we could rent it for a year and take turns using it. That might be fun! MHF - you get time in the summer because you teach! I have the travel bug but no money. :(

GG - the time schedule is 12-18 months for finishing work, the reality is more like 2-3 years. But if I don't get an image of finishing, tell all my network I am finishing, then work just keeps coming. So word is now out, and I am turning away long term work referrals.

Portland, I love your communal living plans. Don't forget I'm signed up for the 1) the retirement living arrangement, and now 2) put me on the list for the communally held holiday home: I'll vote for a place in Chile (coastal) or Mexico. Italy and Spain would be second choice. I'll let you know how Cappadocia is, that might be a possibility too. I'm fine with MHF having summer, I'll settle for a timeshare in any of the other months.

I would INSIST on southwestern France, so I shall have to opt out. I'm a lifelong francophile but I never thought I'd make it there, at least in this incarnation! However, after a health issue I realized that I should seize the day and go for it, so I did. This will be our third trip - the first was in 2006. I don't know whether we'll make it again so I plan to enjoy every minute!

It sounds as though you have some control over the level of work that flows in. Can you simply cut back to part-time? With us, we had to work at least 25 years and reach a minimum age of 55 before retiring, in order to lock in health benefits.

GG - I'm past both of those criteria! But we have national health care (as well as private) - so I'm good to go! I've already taken my clinical days down to three - but even then I still start at 8am and finish at 8pm. Its managing how to reduce those hours. It has taken 6 months to rearrange the monday mornings I took out for the drawing class. But I can feel that it would be really easy to let that be resumed into work - I have inadvertantly let one of the tele. producers know the class was cancelled (I answered the phone!) and she has already booked up next monday - but that is short work, so I count that as okay.

Must remind myself - do not book out all monday mornings! Go draw.

Sign me up for Italy. Or France. Or some cool place on the east coast. Or....

What is a tele. producer, Laurie? And that's right, I forgot that you have a good health system there. For us that's a deal-maker.

Gwen, there's no place "cool" on the east coast. Well, there's always our place, but we just took the floating docks in....

I was married to an Italian and we spent a month every summer with our kids in his little village - Vigo di Cadore. It's incredibly beautiful and looks like scenes from the old Heidi movie. I love Italy, and would insist on that. We would never come to an agreement!

When I retired from architecture I was not, and still am not, eligible for medicare, so it costs me a small fortune every month. But it was either that or my health - too much stress. It's discouraging that you get the education to do what you want to do, but then you find you've educated yourself into a position that is not sustainable for a long time because the stress level of that position is too much. Nursing is not like that - you walk out the door and you're finished until you walk back in. But having said that, I am trying to estimate how much time and energy is spent on finding patient information and records in the prison because they do not have electronic health records, and how to quantify it. It does take up a lot of the staff's time and interferes with good patient care. Instead of staying at a patient's bedside when they are having chest pain and can't breathe, you have to call someone away from their duties to go and get the chart, and meanwhile you have no idea if they guy has had 10 heart attacks or none. Or is HIV positive. And then the lawsuits. So instead of going home and forgetting work, I still think about it. The money from the state to activate such a system would be saving in the long run, but no one has provided substantial documentation. Wow - thanks for listening - I feel better now!

Or Greece - I've never been there.

My sister is traveling to Italy and Greece next week. She goes all over the world for work, giving talks at medical conferences. I envy the world travel, but not the stress of her job.

I'm ready to retire to Italy any day. Or France. I don't much care for Mexico. I would want somewhere that would be safe to wander around. Somewhere like "Mama Mia".

My daughter is going to Cabo in December for her 50th B-Day. An all inclusive resort, so no outside the area.

This message was edited Sep 23, 2010 12:53 PM

Judi, I have an email friend who is a nurse, and it sounds like a very stressful job to me. Long hours, nasty staff and patients, and too much work. The lifting and other physical demands are getting to her, too.

Willow, "Mama Mia" as in Meryl Streep? What a fun movie.

I would move/retire to Mexico in a heartbeat. I've never stayed in a resort of any sort down there, but have twice rented casas in small villages. Lovely experiences, and I particularly like the life tempo. But, I've never been to Europe or Asia, so perhaps I'd like other countries just as well. I would have a difficult time with the long plane ride. As both my sister and husband have told me on more than one occasion, I don't travel well.

Bonehead I'll go with you as your nurse - I'll talk you down from the ledge, or sedate you. If you like the pace in Mexico you will like Italy.

I'm not really comfortable in Mexico. I know some people are. My brother loves it there and is there all the time. He wants to retire there and has purchased two adjacent lots on which he plans to have something built.

I think the New England states are very cool. I love it up there.

All the stories I hear about the crime in Mexico, and the drug cartels, make it sound like a really dangerous place. Maybe that's not true in the area your brother is looking at, but still...

Isn't that funny GG, from this side of the Atlantic, although we know about drug cartels (Russia and the Caribbean are our bugaboos for drug cartels) - Mexico and south America get pretty good press for travel. I have really fond, safe, memories of travelling in Mexico, particularly in the south (although admittedly 20 years ago!).

Portland are you working as a nurse in the prison system? why did I think you had gone into remedial literacy teaching? I think I missed read something somewhere. sorry, but well done.

Laurie I am not qualified to teach remedial reading, but maybe you got that idea because I volunteer with the SMART (Start Making A Reader Today) organization and read with first graders (who have trouble reading) once a week. The main goal there is getting kids to love books and reading, following with their fingers as we read from left to right - real basics. I am doing the nursing thing in the prison, but only as part of my re-entry for my Oregon license. It is interesting, but I am discovering that inmates get great healthcare, much better than many Americans. I am not saying they don't deserve healthcare - I think it is a necessary right for everyone - but I would like to spend my time caring for those in a "safety-net" clinic who have no where else to turn. Until our country comes to its senses and changes our system.

I like Mexico, and I also like the word "Mexico" - say it slowly and let it roll off your tongue. It's fun to say. I think many Americans have an unreasonable fear of Mexico but it can be pretty dangerous on some of our city streets.

My sister likes to say 'garbonzo beans' for the same reason.