GDT: Eastern Conference Final, Game 2 Canes v. Panthers 5/22 8:00

[TheBigKahuna]

I spoke enough French back in college to get by in Montreal for several days when I went up to catch a Habs/Flyers game in the forum. Luckily, most folks spoke enough English to make communication a non issue. I think I literally interacted with only a handful of folks who didn't speak much English. I knew how to order beer and food. So I was set. The scalper we traded our tickets with was hilarious. Knew just enough English to ask if we knew where Mayberry was. He was really funny, and a nice guy. One of my college buddies backed out of the trip at the last minute. So we had an extra ticket. But our seats were not together. They were singles spread over 3 rows. So we swapped them with the scalper, for seats together. When we came back to the game the next day, he escorted us into the building, held the door for us, and chased another scalper away from us, etc. We were just glad to get to sit together.

 

[andyt]

I spent 2 different 3 week spells in Antwerp. It’s a NATO headquarters city, so almost everyone speaks English. But the company I was working at was near the Dutch border and the English wasn’t as good. But everyone wanted to try out their English on us and apologized if they got something wrong. People talk about “Canada nice” but the Belgians I encountered were the friendliest people I met in my travels.

 

[dwind]

Here’s what happened when we moved to France.
we lived in a very small village not far from Nice.
we put our son, 4 at the time, into the French preschool and he didn’t speak a word of French. The other kids beat him up all the time and when he fought back the teachers would call my wife and yell at her in French then hang up. She’d go down to school and they’d only speak French to her. Our two daughters went to the American international school The first year. My wife joined hiking clubs and pretty much immersed herself in French. Around spring she spoke fair French but our son didn’t. He spoke nicoise, the local dialect. We couldn’t understand a word he said so the girls had to translate. All the kids that nest him up were now his best friends and since my wife could speak French the teachers only wanted to speak English. The following year all 3 were in the local French school and made lots of friends. The town we lived in jad a walled main area with several entrances. When we walked in it was poof and all three were gone. As we walked through the town stopping at the various shops the owners would tell us where the kids were and what they were doing.