Why you insist on reminding us of that? Now I have to spend the entire Olympics worrying about what sort of international incident you’ll cause.
Now in Greece/China/Brazil/Tokyo, I learned about 10 phrases so I could at least attempt to communicate with people. They loved it! I was told don’t even try in France, they hate Americans even attempting.
Actually they just hate Americans in general. Just say "Pouvez vous parler anglais s'il-vous-plaît" Please can you speak English thank you. They will look at you with contempt but they will accept that you know you are a lesser form of human and get on with the conversation. They all know broken English.
I lived in Belgium for 4 months last year - yes the French are super rude and stuck up, by far the worst in the world. We had two little kids and waited for 30 minutes to get our food at a restaurant when over in France. When asking politely what is the food status as well as needing drink refills (by my wife who speaks flawless French but still obvious we're americans) we're told we shouldn't complain and should be grateful they even allowed us into their restaurant. So certainly expect to be looked down on as well as rude treatment. Also expect horrible service, workers that are entitled, trains/airports/etc that have strikes and service disruptions, plus horrible beer. If you like wine and cheese and snails its of course great.
I like this. He'll have different coaches than the ones he's worked with here helping him learn more and he'll be in a competitive situation. I don't think our team will have him playing SL this time around, so this will be a good opportunity to grow his game in a structured environment.
Crazy thing....only the last 2 rounds are in Paris at their super stadium. The first 10 days or so, we are doing games in Lille, France way up north by Belgium. Was hoping to get some site seeing in for sure.
Might want to take a weedeater. I hear French chicks aren't big on, shall we say, "trimming the verge."
Yeah if you have a day off I'd hop on a train and go up to Ghent or Bruges.... both really cool. They're more of the Dutch half of Belgium with tons of bikes, friendly people, work hard, and speak decent English. If you have a couple people could rent a car. I never went to the Lille area but looks like you could quickly cross the border so might be interesting to see whats different over in Belgium if you only have a half day.
