Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending toward the eternal or what we imagine of it.

~ Ceasare Pavese

I cannot think of a more appropriate illustration of the above sentiment than when you travel to a country where you do not speak the language. I have actually had very limited experience when it comes to travel abroad. I have been to England, Canada, Italy and Mexico. The default language is English in two of those countries – though I don’t believe that we actually speak English here in the States. We speak…American (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I see it as a slight dialect). Ask anyone in the UK, they will agree that there is a difference.

When my husband and I went to Mexico by way of a cruise for our honeymoon, I didn’t feel as lost. For one, we were with the cruise line, even when we ventured off the ship to explore a bit. I grew up with a few relatives that speak Spanish, though it was never the primary language at home, and I heard it sporadically. Nevertheless, Spanish is familiar enough to me so that when I hear it, it sounds less mysterious than other languages that I don’t really speak.

My first taste of truly being in a place where I did not understand any of the language was when my husband and I traveled to Italy in 2007. We started off in Sicily, and visited Venice, Florence and Rome on the mainland. I did make a point of looking over phrasebooks, listening to a podcast designed to teach phrases that would be handy for travelers and such. It helped, but it was quite an experience to be someplace and find myself more or less dependent on the kindness and understanding of others. Every time I used an Italian phrase on that trip, people usually responded with a smile and either switched to English entirely, or attempted to meet me halfway, them speaking broken English…me clutching the phrasebook and pointing at stuff. It was comical, but rewarding.

I am particularly looking forward to the Paris portion of this trip coming up. Sure, I have heard horror stories of people being rude to you in Paris when you don’t speak French to them. However, I suspect that the majority of rudeness experienced is likely in response to some rather brutish behavior on the part of the traveler.

With that in mind, I am approaching this trip the same way I did when we went to Italy. I have begun listening to Coffee Break French, a podcast that you can get for free from iTunes. If you want to splurge a little, you can get an enhanced version of any of their foreign language podcasts that come with extra lessons and .pdf guides to each episode.

I have also subscribed to the newsletter for Chocolate and Zucchini, a blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier, whose book Clotilde’s Edible Adventures in Paris will make the journey with my husband and I. I went the extra mile to subscribe to the French version of the newsletter as well, hoping that simply comparing the two might help me become a bit more comfortable around the language, though I never expect to become fluent. I certainly won’t be by next Spring.

Wish me luck, and I’ll likely use a few French phrases* here and there for practice. Just bear with me! You never know, you might pick up a few tips and tricks from me. At the very least, you’ll be able to laugh at my clumsy attempts and delight in my embarrassing stories when I come home.

*If you want to “decode” what I’m saying when I use French in future posts, I recommend Google Translate. It’s quite a handy tool.