Becoming French

Eventually, yes, eventually, you wake up one day and you realize that it's all not foreign to you any more. I am not sure when this happens exactly.  I mean, I have my favorite running routes nailed down, know what movie theater I like and how to find the movies in English, and know my favorite, absolutely THE best, bread in THE BEST local bakery.

I don't know how to think in Francs, but I can divide everything by 5 real well by now. Ah, that higher math you learned so long ago.

I say good morning in French, when it's really morning, say good evening just whenI am suppose to. My automatic reaction to any situation has becomeeither "pardon" or "merci", even when I am travelling in Germany or Ireland. I try to pronounce everything like the French do .... not that they can understand me when I do, but I try.

Work is still chaos, but becomes some sort of predictable chaos. I have begun to realize that I get tossed on to the real strange issues ...like someone needs to represent Europe at the EC "Life Long Learning"symposium ... not that I consider myself any sort of an expert on "lifelong learning", whatever that might be. I guess if it's a goal of Bill's, it's suddenly my own personal goal ... and hey, I know how to bullshit with the best of them even though I am not sure what I know about Europe's problems in education. Sign me up, Brussels here Icome. Oh, but wait... I have to be somewhere else, back in Seattle, onthe same day. Maybe next symposium from the EC. And then let's notforget the zillion strange mystery phone calls I get from people whothink they should have a real "special" relationship with Microsoft,because they for some reason are "special", have some "special" productthat I just can't live without, or they know Bill "especially" reallywell. I don't know who gives out my number, but I really think I amgoing to stop carrying business cards. It's insane to go to some bigmeeting and then pass them out... oh, please do call and let's just chatabout nothing really "special" for hours. Or better, we can play phonetag in several different languages, with operators who sometimes get thenumbers down right ... or you can call that wonderful voice mail systemI have, just buzzz through your long foreign name and leave me a phonenumber I am not sure how to dial. Mmmm, mmm. But enough about business. Let's talk about the real big news inFrance, which I found out yesterday from someone who called from the US.(It's really quite a problem to not read the newspaper ever ... I meana terrorist bomb could explode 3 blocks away and unless our admins toldme, I would never know. It's a good thing our travel desk is suppose towarn me about any dangerous situation in other countries. Imagine if Ihad my second home in Belfast and not Dublin. Woweee..... Yes, when Igo to Dublin every couple of weeks, the road to Belfast is the armed,guarded, scary-looking road that I don't have much desire to detour on.I doubt I would find myself saying to the taxi cab driver, "Hey there,how about a spin up north. I want to see if anybody is REALLY shootingat each other. You know, just for the pure entertainment." Oh... beingthe passport-carrying, English-accented American, I find that to be areal bad idea. Like hey ya, if you want to make a real strong politicalstatement, just shoot me... or worse kidnap me. Fun times in NortherIreland.) Oh, I still have you in suspense. Over France... tomorrow is the firstof the planned strikes. Close the metros ... close the airports ... weare just going to shut down the city. It's really such a lovely thingto do. Traffic will be snarled endlessly all day... no getting in, nogetting out. Paris, whis is known as the walking city ... will becomemore like the "real long haul" city. I could take my bike I suppose towork ... but wearing all these "girl clothes" I think I will stick towalking. A couple of miles in nice "girl shoes"... I don't know howthese French woman do it... I see them every day just wabbling to workBig black heels... just wabbling along at a pace for me that's a fullrun. It's odd how they plan these strikes. I really do not understand theplanning... big planning that goes in to making a real miserable day foreveryone. It's like, "hey customer you are going to be screwed all dayon Thursday so please just get ready for this. Just plan that you willspend all day trying to get to the office... and what's left of the day,you will spend trying to get home." Mmmm. Wonderful. And let's notjust shut down the Metro... but get Air France involved so it's justreally hopeless. I think it's just all the people who work on thetrains... I certainly hope the little green men don't go on strike. Whowill vacumm up all the dog poop? Now, there's a real disaster... thatwould shut down the city for sure. How could you walk? How could youbreath... all those litttle yappie dogs. A crisis. You don't expectthem to go in the park on the grass? Why not the sidewalk... Really, ifyou think the French are unfriendly, think of how you would feel in thisconstant paranoid state that you are going step in it. I know I keep myeyes on the ground at ALL times. Merci...