"You're such a good little foreigner"

That's what a souvenir seller outside of the Paris Opera House told Sam. She speaks excellent French (and according to her, she's better when she's drunk) and she had been in France for four months at that point.

I'm sure he meant it in the nicest way possible, but I still took affront to it. I couldn't (and still can't) speak French. I know just few enough phrases to get me from the airport via bus to the train station and then check into a hotel. I can order food, ask for simple directions, and find my way back to my hotel without Sam to guide me.

But I am such an English speaker that when someone asks me "Do you speak English?", I answer with "No, I'm sorry I don't" when I don't want to talk to them.

That was at the end of March, 1999. I flew to Paris for the weekend to visit Sam.

(I LOVE saying that. "I flew to Paris for the weekend.")

I had a great time on that trip, and it really impressed on me how important language is. When I went over to Paris, I had been studying Italian for three months, on and off (I tried to study French, but do you know how hard it is to try to learn two languages at once? I threw my hands up) When I got back, I redoubled my efforts. I didn't want to stick out. I wanted to be able to blend in a bit.

The first week in Tuscany, when we spoke Italian, we were answered in Italian. People were patient if we couldn't remember the word we were looking for. The less exposure I had to English speakers, the better. In Firenze, I walked out of a pasticceria after having had a short conversation about the North End in Boston with the owner.

The second week, the patience was gone. We were speaking Italian well enough, but not as quickly as native speakers and our sentence structure was on the simple side. But we were answered in English. Perfect English.

As it turned out, the first week that we were in Tuscany, we were in the off season. The second and third week? Tourist season.

I don't want to go through that again. I want to be able to walk into the mask shop in Firenze (or any other mask shop hidden around the next corner) and converse with the owner about the theater, compliment him on his work, and barter for a commedia del'arte disguise and then go back to blending in and finding the real local culture. Okay, so I probably won't be able to blend as well as I'd like, but at least I won't be shunned.

The last time I studied, I used a set of CDs. This time, I'm thinking software. It's time to embrace technology.

It sounds good to me.

- A.M.