Driving through Belgium on Saturday, we saw numerous billboards that said, "Ne pas fete sans Bob" which translates into It's not a party without Bob. Since R and I both have Bobs in our family, we thought it would be really cool to take a picture of it. Alas, after many attempts to capture one of these billboards in a photo, the batteries died. Sorry Bobs! But we already knew it wasn't a party without you. heh!
They speak a version of French in Belgium. I took four years of French in high school and one in college. I can rehearse beautifully in my head the simplistic gist of what I want to say, but put me face to face with a foreigner and I have no idea what comes out of my mouth, other than it's not coherent. So, when we went to McDonalds for lunch I was determined to order in French. Hhhahaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Ahem. You'd think I'd learn by now. Let me just preface my next few paragraphs by saying that I took a year of Spanish in college and an intensive ten week course in German right after we moved here. So, when trying to speak Spanish or German, French will pop into my head - usually words I didn't realize I knew. Let me try to communicate in German, and it's a new language entirely - I call it Gerenchish. No wonder some Europeans dislike Americans..we can't even master our own language most of the time, never mind another one...or maybe it's just me.
Anyway, let me start off by saying this was the smallest McDonalds I've ever been in. It was a mcminiture mcversion of a mceuropean mcdonalds. As you may have guessed, everything was
"mc"'d. Mcparking, McDrive, McToilettes. Okay, I'm not sure about the McBathrooms, but it fits. There is a McDonalds really near where we live in Germany. While it's different than the ones in the states, it's fairly spacious by European standards. The McD's in Belgium was McTiny. At the order counter, there were three registers - all manned - with enough room for about 7 folks to be squished in together. (Of course, I have a personal space issue. My preference for calculation is to take the 24 or however many inches Americans prefer and double it. With cheese. heh. In this particular public space, you were lucky if you got six inches of personal space. Between R, me, the kids and the diaper bag, we were immediately labled American because of our space hogging. As were were being stared down and muttered about (interestingly the translation for idiot in most languages seems to pretty much be idiot with a few different accents thrown in and perhaps a extra e or something). In my head I'm practicing my high school French ordering "Je voudrais un happy meal cheeseburger..." etc. What came out was ...well.. it was... it was horrible. Whenever I have to actually speak French for some unknown reason it comes out in East Tennessee twang. So phonetically, Je voudrais which should sound like 'zeh vood-ray' come out like 'jeh VOUD-raise". OMG - I was so mortified, I turned bright red and slapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself. The cashier, who must be used to stupid Americans massacring their language, didn't blink but did turn up the left side of his mouth in an uncontrollable smirk. SIGH. Who could blame him?
"mc"'d. Mcparking, McDrive, McToilettes. Okay, I'm not sure about the McBathrooms, but it fits. There is a McDonalds really near where we live in Germany. While it's different than the ones in the states, it's fairly spacious by European standards. The McD's in Belgium was McTiny. At the order counter, there were three registers - all manned - with enough room for about 7 folks to be squished in together. (Of course, I have a personal space issue. My preference for calculation is to take the 24 or however many inches Americans prefer and double it. With cheese. heh. In this particular public space, you were lucky if you got six inches of personal space. Between R, me, the kids and the diaper bag, we were immediately labled American because of our space hogging. As were were being stared down and muttered about (interestingly the translation for idiot in most languages seems to pretty much be idiot with a few different accents thrown in and perhaps a extra e or something). In my head I'm practicing my high school French ordering "Je voudrais un happy meal cheeseburger..." etc. What came out was ...well.. it was... it was horrible. Whenever I have to actually speak French for some unknown reason it comes out in East Tennessee twang. So phonetically, Je voudrais which should sound like 'zeh vood-ray' come out like 'jeh VOUD-raise". OMG - I was so mortified, I turned bright red and slapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself. The cashier, who must be used to stupid Americans massacring their language, didn't blink but did turn up the left side of his mouth in an uncontrollable smirk. SIGH. Who could blame him?
Walking through the tables (they were round cafe style tables and there were LOTS of them all crammed together), I managed to hit at least 10 people with our diaper bag, and I was being careful. There was less space in between the tables which were inconveniently NOT arranged in rows, more like an obstacle course for anorexic...I mean...diet conscious models. So anyone of a normal size, much less a little large, was destined to do some bumping and knocking. And, let's be honest.. how many 'diet conscious' people do you see eating at McDonalds? So, sorry McCustomers, I did the best I could.
Besides, what can I say? We didn't have a Bob so it couldn't be a party!
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