One of the things that got me the first time I ran into them in southern France were turkish toilets. I was a bit “backed up” from traveling, and was grateful for not having to worry about clogging a normal toilet. The other thing was the toilet (in its own room) in our Strasbourg flat had no tank; rather, it had a turn valve on the water supply pipe that dropped down from the ceiling, and you simply ran the water for an appropriate amount of time.
In that block of apartments, a neighbor draped the bed linens out the bedroom windows on the street side, every day. Our windows had real shutters that we closed every night at bedtime, and opened again in the morning.
People in the building across the street from us called the fire department one day. I watched from a front window, but didn’t see any signs of fire or medical emergency. Later, a downstairs neigbor said non-chalantly, they were there to clear out a wasps nest.
Another day, I was walking to a main shopping square, and stopped to watch firefighters on the roof of a building. I was 26 at the time, and a woman in her 40s came up beside me and asked, not in French, but Alsatian: , 's isch e feuer?" I was not prepared to be addressed in Alsatian, even though I heard it every day. I responded in French, even though I could manage a sentence or two in Alsatian.
The French also loved Yorkshire Terriers, and you’d see them walking their Yorkies all day long. The little dogs looked like mops bouncing along on four legs. Funniest looking dogs I’ve ever seen.
Many traffic lights in many parts of France are mounted high on a pole at the curb. If you stop at the stop line, you won’t see the light. Instead, you have to learn to stop a bit before the line, so that you don’t look like an idiot while craning your neck.
In Toronto, at least, instead of a left turn arrow meaning the opposing traffic still has a red light your green light flashes for a few seconds. That one took me a while to figure out and get used to.
In Toronto about 20 years ago, you could order a fast-food meal “for here to stay,” which was as redundant to me as it was irritating to the native Toronto woman I was visiting.
Also in Toronto, Kiminy and I were helping the above mentioned Torontonian set a table for dinner. We had heard her refer to “serviettes”, and Kiminy wasn’t sure if that really meant paper or cloth used to wipe our mouths, or if she could ask for the more familiar “napkin” which might indicate the need for a feminine hygene product. At dinner. In Canada. In what sounded like English to us.
And then there was the malfunctioning gas gauge, on the road to Roberval, PQ. We thought we might have a problem with our gas gauge, and Kiminy pulled out a translation dictionary to make sure she had the vocabulary correct (le gage d’essence). We pulled into a gas station, and started to explain the problem. The attendant looked at us funny, and then figured out what we were talking about: “Ah, c’est le gauge de gaz!” It was a nearly direct translation of English, similar to the “chiens chauds” (hot dogs) stands we had seen in Quebec City.
Finally (I swear this is the last one), back home from France, I wanted to keep my French sharp. I worked in a retail music store (records, tapes, CDs, radios and a few keyboards). A Quebecois family comes in, and I help them with a purchase of a Yamaha electronic drum set. Mind you, drums in continental French are “Batteries”, and electrical batteries are “piles”. So, going for the suggestive-selling kill, I ask “Vous voulez les piles pour le batterie?” Do you want batteries for the drums? They give me a look of incomprehension, and I ask again. Then it dawns on the mother, and she grabs a pack of batteries and says “Ceux-ci sont les batteries, celui-ci est le tampon.” These are batteries, and this is the drum (tampon). We all had a good laugh.
Vlad/Igor
