The English - French - Dutch connection...

Here you can see Frans, Rose and cousins Renze & Douwe on top of Puy de Dome, an inactive volcano in the Auvergne region of France.  Sorry to have a gap in pictures, but those will come later when we dig out the camera cord to download again.  Our time in France was another period of language confusion as we spoke our usual mix of English (for my benefit) and Dutch while staying with Ans & Han at the edge of Vollore Montagne/Vollore Ville in a part of France that we sometime describe as forgotten, though very beautiful.  This makes for fine hiking, excellent berry picking, and complete relaxation, with the possible exception of the vertigo-inducing, narrow and winding roads.

One unique aspect of the Auvergne region is that this is a vacation destination for French, a few Dutch and virtually no English speakers.  Thus, one is forced to practice French.  This somehow did not prepare me to visit the bakery and appropriately order one of the 20 different types of French baguette which all have different shapes but taste exactly the same (non- ce n'est pas la meme chose, pas du tout!)

I must confess that my MANY years of French from years ago was no match for globalization.  How does one properly ask to ride "le surf-bike" pronounced "le serfff beeek"?  And what about Nestle's ice cream novelty treat, called "COOKIE"? Americans may know this as a Drumstick.  Is this Le Coooooookeeeeee or La Ceuky?  What about internet (a cognate in French), is this masculine or feminine? Though people seemed to understand my French questions just fine, I could never ask about these American impostors (posted clearly on all the signs) without getting blank stares. None of these words were in my high school and college text books, and Voltaire certainly did not cover them in his writing.

And of course, then when we returned home from an afternoon struggling with French, the conversation returned to Dutch.  In efforts to communicate with my 8 year old nephews in Dutch, I ended up asking baffling questions like "Douwe how is it going with all your rusting? (I had confused the word rust with cough) After each of these mistaken questions, my nephews would simply stare, puzzled, wondering what the right response was.  Eventually, Douwe developed the one-size-fits all response "Geen Idee! or (I have) no idea!"