Ou est la Bibliothèque?

My sister told me that she ran into one of my high school friends the other day. My sister told her that I was living in France “a ce moment”. My friend’s reply was that I should be getting along just fine with all I learned in High School French class with La Soeur Monique (Sister Monica). It was a “laughing out loud” moment.

It was funny, but not totally absurd, to think that some of that high school French would come tumbling out of my brain almost 40 years later. The way our class was taught back then... each week we had to memorize a dialogue in French. I think they told us that if we could learn some important phrases, then when we need to speak in French, we could just spit out a line from one of those dialogues.

“Oh yeah, that should come in handy...” I remember thinking as I started at a young age to develop my cynical mind. “Alons, debut, ne restes pas dans la neige!” (Let’s go, get up, don’t stay there in the snow!) Considering at that time in high school ... I had only seen snow ONE TIME in my entire 14 years of life in south Louisiana. But just recently, I had an “ah ha” moment ... (thank you Soeur Monique) when we were skiing in the Alps... I fell... and tumbling from my brain was that handy little phrase from my 9th grade French dialoge!

And "que tu es bette mon pauvre petit frere" (You are stupid my poor little brother) - now that was pretty useful because back when I learned it, I could substitute 'sister' for 'brother' and at the time I did indeed use it on my younger sister!

And then there is... "Ou est la bibliothèque?" (Where is the library?). That was another of the dialog lines I remember. One of the first days here, I was looking for the post office and got kinda turned around (as happens quite often for a directionally challenged person like me). I knew I had to ask someone... and suddenly the cobwebs cleared and that old phrase was right there when I needed it. But it’s astonishing to me that the phrase was in the dialogue like that. The French are SO polite and would NEVER walk up to someone and just ask where the library is... One would have to first say hello... then apologize for bothering you... before asking something so direct! I don’t remember if that was in the dialogue.

But I do get asked where the library is quite often. So maybe the dialog writers weren’t too far off. The first time it happened, I really didn’t know where it was. I don’t read French books!! How would I know! So I apologized for not knowing and felt bad for the rest of the day. Paul later told me where the library is... and I tucked the information in a brain-area nowhere near the 9th grade stuff because the next time I was asked... I was clueless... couldn’t remember! So Paul told me again... I got asked ANOTHER time where the library was... and sadly... couldn’t remember, encore. So the next time I asked Paul, “Ou est la bibliothèque?”, he told me and it is in with the 9th grade stuff and I’m ready for the next time!