Parlez-vous Francais?

After coming home, it's hard not compare New York to Europe. Mark and I have made a pact - we will win Lotto, purchase Costa Rica, then a townhouse in Amsterdam and a pied-a-terre in Paris. That's the plan.

It boggles my mind that people are born French. They don't have to learn the language. They can live in Paris. They dress fashionably without having to work at it.

I was telling a contractor today about my recent trip. Martin is working on a house in Montreal. His heavy French-Canadian accent sounds like a caricature. Every conversation with Martin takes twice as long, and I have to cover my mouth sometimes to stifle my good-natured laughter.

'Inches' actually means 'hinges'. Every other word has an additional 'lo' attached on the end. Then one day, we struggled while talking about a swimming pool. 'Les herbs!' he said, emphatically. 'Les herbs! They get into the tile.'

'Huh? Les herbs?' I racked my brains on that one. 'Oh, you mean algae?'

And so as a tribute to Martin and to Paris, I am posting the following video clip.




Photo by myself, from the hall at Versailles. I'm still processing images, but for some others, click here.