Valentine's Day in France

Last night was one of those nights that cause me to twist and turn. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t go to sleep, which was worrisome because I had to be at the train station by 9:03 in the morning, it was three in the morning and I was not asleep.

Well I caught about four hours of sleep before I woke at about eight o’clock. I rolled around in bed, then took a shower and made my way to the train station. It was a beautiful day, only a few white clouds in the sky and just a slight tingle of cold.

A man checked my tram pass on the way to the train station. It was only the second time someone has checked. He was nice about it and I was able to understand what he was saying, but he started to speak English as soon as I tried to respond.

Oh well.

My monthly tram pass takes me all around the surrounding area on weekends. So I figured that since I pay for it anyway, it would be stupid not to take advantage of it. At 2:30 Leah will meet me here in Strasbourg, which is a moderate size city on the French side of the French/German boarder. It is currently 10:50, and I’m eating my brunch in a bakery.

As I drink my coffee and eat my ham and cheese sandwich, Elton John sings “Song for You” through the stereo. The song is a nice reminder of home and perfect morning music. I can’t help but feel like a world citizen and confident young man as I sit here alone in a café that is thousands of miles away from what I know as home and across the boarder from the nation where I had spent the last night.

The people around the bakery are speaking French. This makes me recall a conversation I had during the Swedes’ farewell party at the student bar last Wednesday. Madeline had raised a good question: she asked, “Is it strange for you to travel and hear so many different languages within such a small geographic area?” I thought about it, and said, “Yeah, it is sort of strange.”

“Yeah I mean you live on a continent where the language is the same,” Madeline said. “If we, here in Europe, travel from Germany to France or Germany to Sweden, the language changes, we must learn many languages.”

“It is different than my experience,” I responded, now thinking of the geographic landscape of the United States. I considered Mexico and very briefly French Canada, but quickly thought of the size of the United States compared to Europe. To get an idea of this comparison, think of Germany – one of the larger European States – which is the same geographic size as the state of Montana. “If I was to travel from California to New York,” I said. “All the states in between would only speak English.”

I think about this conversation now that I sit in Strasbourg. I had to transfer trains in Mannheim, a small German city, which was only a few miles from the French boarder. All the folks there spoke German, then just moments later I crossed the boarder, and suddenly everyone is speaking French. It is interesting, but a little jarring. I’m used to hearing German, though I have trouble composing German sentences, I can usually understand some of what I hear.
But French, French is a different matter completely. Suddenly in France, I’m at the mercy of the French conductor at the train station and the French server at the bakery. Until you’re in such situations you never knew how far such one word phrases as, “mercy,” “pardon” and “bonjour,” could take you.

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Well, I just returned from Strasbourg. It was a great trip. Leah and I had a wonderful, one day late, Valentine's Day date. The city was wonderful, beautiful and all other possitive adjectives that apply.