My experience with the French language goes back to early high school....before I even spoke a word of Japanese. Since then I have picked up French and dropped French time and time again. But over the years, I began to develop a negative feeling toward France and the French through bad experiences with French people, as well as stories from others.
Nonetheless, I made the trip to Toulouse. No, not Paris. Toulouse. Why, you ask? I was (and still am) fairly certain that Paris is not the place for me. Too many people, not enough space.... Having been to London, New York and Tokyo, I purposely picked Toulouse-- a much smaller place. And boy, I'm glad I did. Although I had been a little too strategic, planning just a one day trip, in the case that I didn't like Toulouse and wanted to leave.... Well it was the opposite.
Toulouse was a breath of fresh air to me. At first I was nervous as everything was in French once I left the airport....there would be no English to coddle me.
But as I began exploring, I quickly became excited at how the locals would speak to me in French once I spoke it to them! Many of them even tried to help me correct errors. And there was none of the awkward "I don't understand you" crap either. Even with my accent and all, they understood me and were very helpful. Only the main parts of Toulouse were "crowded" and even then, there wasn't anything too crazy. I had space to breathe, people were nice and I even met another American girl who showed me the whole town. Again--total shock. She showed me a place with amazing burgers and fries to die for. I was stuffed but I managed to cram a crepe into my stomach too. Honestly I had a list of things to do but I ended up going to 2 gyms, walking a lot and exploring Place du capitole. My day was so wonderful, I had to write it down here. I would love to visit Toulouse again soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment