Being Agreeable in French

I speak no French. It's a definite flaw when traveling in France, I know. I hate being that guy who knows absolutely zilch of the language, the one that asks for an English menu and responds with blank stares to the waiter's questions.

But I've been traveling with French speakers and I've learned a few things. I might not be able to say them, but I can hear them in conversation. The French language is quite elegant and soft, even in the most common speech. Here are a few ways to be agreeable in French:

-Voila - French people actually say this word - and really often. That surprised me. I always thought it was just something we hijacked. It usually denotes completion, just like we tend to use it in English, something like "There it is" or "It's done." It can also mean, "Here he comes," "The car has arrived," "He answered the phone," or a million different other things.

-D'accord - Interchangeable with OK, but it sounds a lot more fancy to me.

-C'est bon -It's good; we're ready; it's satisfactory.

Photo taken just a few days ago. Copyright Trevor Williams 2009.

Paris - Not Enough Words

Paris is a conundrum. It's trouble for the writer. So big, consuming, sprawling and impressive yet simple and refined, it's really hard to nail down with just one description. Countless books have tried, praising it's charms as a romantic travel destination as well as its educational value in being an open book of a cityscape.

Being there for three days, I saw a lot of the city, but it just feels sacrilegious to try to cover it in a blog entry. That's like summing up New York City with a post card of the Empire State Building. Any two-dimensional picture my words conjure up will be like a fleeting image on a digital camera.

So I'm not going to try to be your eyes and ears here, but I will give you a taste of some of the things I noticed about the cultural, fashion and commercial capital. Remember, I'm speaking here from the perspective of an awed tourist, not the avid traveler who's going to show the ropes of how to get around.

You can't always trust the movies, but they hit Paris' cafe culture on the dot. I saw one drive-thru on the outskirts of town - it was a McDonald's, mind you - but for the most part, there seems to be a sit-down cafe with a nice ambience on every corner. Unlike my part of America, where free-standing chain restaurants dominate many areas, you can walk most any street in Paris an expensive but delicious place to relax and eat. My boss and I dropped into about four different cafes. I can't complain about any of them.

At the same time though, France is not all glitz and glamour. Paris has astounding historical beauty, but that beauty still rests in the middle of a thriving modern city. That means graffiti, dirty metro systems, poor air quality at times and a general lack of the polish that suburban Americans might not expect.

But any dissatisfaction fades away the monuments reveal themselves. I never took a day of European history class, but I was stunned by the height of the Eiffel Tower, the breadth of the Louvre, the stout mass of the Arc du Triomphe and the mystical beauty of Notre Dame. I'm sure it's even more fascinating when you're not lacking in culture like me. I don't think I've ever given France due respect for its contributions to the world.

Cars are an interesting phenomenon in Paris. They're extremely tiny and apparently must be one of about five or six brands: Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat, Smart Car or Mercedes. With their cars, the Parisians who actually drive seem to value the utility of their vehicle in a cramped city over ostentatious displays of wealth that characterize many of the big cars in America.

I could go on, but there's more to come, so I'll leave now with some bullet points on travel logistics:

-Trains - RER from airport to city is long, especially when you arrive at 6 a.m. and disgruntled commuters are mad that you put your 40-lb. suitcase in one of the seats.

-Metro - Don't expect luxury from the Metro. It has one purpose, to move people, and it does that quite well, unless you're unluckly like me and happen to come at a time when they're renovating one stop you need and closed the other.

-Hotels - Maybe it's because we got set up by a government agency, but Parisian hotels are extremely expensive.

-Internet - Get acquainted with the city's wireless networks to avoid paying 5 euros per hour in the hotels. I wasn't educated on that, and I suffered. Not very many of the cafes seemed to be wireless ready, and plus I had little time to surf.

-People - France is a country of a little more than 60 million people. It gets 84 million tourists a year. The French people were extremely nice and helpful to us. I don't know how they have the patience after seeing people from all over the world trampling on their turf.

-American Abduction? I saw extremely few Americans. Global financial crisis, anyone?

-Weather - During winter, Paris is gray and dark. Spring is coming soon, as evidenced by the nice weather we witnessed.

-Take a spouse or significant other - It's lonely in a foreign city with no one to talk to.

All photos Copyright Trevor Williams 2009.

From top: First visit to the tower; Notre Dame from the inside; Seine River at evening

T Minus 3

Three hours till the plane leaves. For only getting four hours of sleep last night, I'm surprisingly awake. Maybe it's the coffee. Or the adrenaline.

Just got a call from my boss. He's coming to pick me up from the office, and we're heading to the airport to dance through security and work at the gate.

Goodbye with Katy was tough. I tried to focus her energies on thinking of the souvenirs she wants from France, Denmark and Sweden. It wasn't enough to keep tears from flowing. I stayed strong, but I wasn't going to last much longer.

Got some feedback from some of the folks I'm trying to set up interviews with in Denmark and Sweden. Trip looks like it will be a success.

In T minus three, I'll be headed across the Atlantic for my first European journey.

12 Hours Till Takeoff - France, Denmark, Sweden

It's 3 a.m. I'm still packing for a week-long business jaunt to France, Denmark and Sweden.

My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon (or, technically, later today), and as the night slips away, I'm starting to feel stuck in that purgatory between the discomfort of leaving all that is familiar and the excitement that awaits me in strange and mysterious lands on the other side of the ocean.

The bags are pretty much packed, but in some ways, I never feel prepared for an international trip, especially to a place I've never been before. There's always something else I can learn, some linguistic tidbit I might need, some food recommendation that could make the difference between a delicious meal and five hours in the can, some lodging tip that could separate rat-infested inns from trendy hostels.

I've traveled to China five times, but I've never been to Europe before. After my first trip to China, I started learning the language, guessing correctly that I'd be back many times. I don't speak a word of French, and I will land in Paris with admittedly little knowledge about the artistic and cultural treasures the city holds. [Insert jealousy-induced boos and hisses here.] I probably know even less about Denmark and Sweden, although I don't feel quite so guilty about that.

There's something great about being the expert in a place, the one that everybody turns to when they need to know which cultural snafus to avoid. I've been that guy in China, and it gives you a surprising sense of superiority and accomplishment.

But there's a bad side to this as well. If you think too highly about your own knowledge, you'll have little openness to all the new things happening right in front of you. Senses dulled, you'll be so engulfed in your opinion or leading the group that you lose that invaluable attribute that the traveler must have in order to achieve a transcendent experience: wonder.

In three countries over the next week, I'll be writing about international topics like biotechnology, climate change and entrepreneurship and how those reflect. But below the surface of meetings and interviews, my inexperience in these lands will ensure that the undercurrent of awe persists.

God's world is big. He says that he put people in the places where they live so that they could reach out to him and possibly find him. I can't think of anything I enjoy more than to observe how this great cosmic game of hide and seek plays itself out around the world.

Music to Your Ears (I Hope)

I just added the contents of my YUDU library to the sidebar of the blog. YUDU is a site that allows you to publish and sell digital content including magazines, books, newsletters, podcasts, music and more. I'm just using it for music right now, but I might use it for digital publications in the future.

Click the icons on the sidebar to listen to some of my songs and download them from the YUDU site.