Ma Grande Amie

Thus follows the story of Brianna and I in France.

One time, a smallish young lady named Emily and her mother were staying at a lovely beachside town in France, when they happened upon a Spanish traveler and her family who had just crossed the border and were intending to rest a while in said town, Collioure.

You know, this is going to be an awkward story, because a lot of the time when Bri and I get together, conversation just devolves into inside jokes and other nonsense. Thinking she’d be interested in some small Spanish-isms in France, I told her about the boys who I’d come across pointing at your average mallard duck and shouting loudly and excitedly, “Pato! Pato! Pato!” – which, as we all know, means “duck” in Spanish. After just two days, the code word was pato, and we would break into pato chants with very little provocation.

It must be irritating to be around us.

However, the parents bore it well, perhaps (in my mom’s case at least) thanks in part to the delicious hard cider close on hand. Other things we did to switch up the pato routine (OH by the way…does anyone know the saying/cliché that has something to do with a canard?)…yes, other things included: eating at the Copa Cabana (beachfront); swimming/wading/skipping stones/looking at fish/looking for octopi; successfully finding, ordering, and eating crepes, exploring and shopping various markets, watching the French army (no wisecracks, please) do their routine drilling stuff on the water, and general mangling of the French language. So…a lot of eating and lazing about, I think.

Also, we hiked to a castle up the mountain, where we encountered some other tourists. For my grandfather, who asked me to get foreign opinions of America and the French (and I am deliberately misunderstanding the intent behind his request – this comment is in no way political): we ran into an Irish woman with a walking stick who accused the French of being “bloody goats” but who loudly proclaimed, “I love America!”

Ahem.

To keep up the thread of half-hearted whining I seem to have going here, I feel it necessary to mention (in brief) the two misadventures had while in Collioure. 1) I got shat on by a bird…it was especially horrifying, and I do not recommend it. While I was freaking out, Mom asked a Frenchman if he had anything to “clean up the *violent gesturing* ummmm”…Frenchman: “merde!”, which he did, which Mom used to intensely rub said merde into my sweater/arm. Awesome. 2) Mrs. W. sampled the local delicacy – moules frites (mussels and fries…mmm?) – and wound up tasting them twice, the second time against her will. Blargh.

One last random anecdote about Bri before I move along. As I may have previously mentioned, this is FIFA season (!!!). Of course, France is playing, and that means impassioned French in the streets doing their FIFA thing. Also of course, both Bri and I brought our France jerseys – Thierry and Zidane, respectively – and we wore them on the first France game. I’m very proud to say that the shirts have been officially christened by the belle republique; two sets of old men greeted us with fervent “allez les bleus,” and we incited mob behavior in a group of French boys while walking along the streets.