You, uh, you speak French?

Our first day in Quebec was simply amazing. We spent the early afternoon doing a walking tour of Quebec and familiarizing ourselves with landmarks. Compared to Mississippi, the weather here is amazing. There's an awful lot of hills and steep climbs. Chloe, Fatima (my roommates) and I decided that we're going to have killer legs after walking around here for three whole weeks.


After the walking tour we got some lunch and enjoyed it on our balcony. When I was in a small deli, I asked one of the workers a question about something in the store. My entire sentence was right, except for one word. Instead of using the French word for "sweet," I used the German word. The woman didn't understand me and I didn't understand why because I knew that what I was saying was right at the time, minus the random German word that did, in fact, mean what I wanted it to. It wasn't until dinner when I asked my teacher about it and realized what I had done. Oh, the woes of being trilingual. 


We went to a very fancy restaurant for dinner. The dishes were all very elaborate and I decided on some duck. It was amazing. Even better, it was free! Thanks, MSU. After dinner, we walked around some more until we were released to do whatever we wanted. Chloe, Fatima and I decided to stick around in the city and enjoy the nightlife. We met a lot of very nice and interesting people. We spoke to most of them in a weird French-English mixture because our French is about as good as their English. I had a nice conversation with a young man mostly all in French. He was patient and explained words when I didn't understand. I was proud of myself and grateful for his help. 


My problem here is that I'm not confident enough to speak to everyone in French. I'm afraid of sounding like a stupid American (in fact, several people told me how they dislike Americans). Last night helped me to realize that I just need to get over myself and SPEAK! I'm not going to get any better if I'm not practicing. However, most of the time when we speak French, the people here respond in English because they can hear our American accents. We have to be persistent and keep responding in French or say, "Parlez-moi en français, s’il vous plaît," which means "Please speak to me in French." Hopefully by the end of the trip I'll be able to confuse some people and make them think that I'm not an American speaking French. I suppose that is the ultimate goal and I intend to reach it.


Today is a free day so later we're going to go exploring and listen to some music and SPEAK FRENCH! I'm excited just thinking about all the French. I love to eaves drop and see if I can understand the conversations of those around me. Dorky, I know. 

I leave you with a photo that I took around 4am this morning: the incredible sunrise view from our balcony.