Destinations

"All Right?"

Travel always brings opportunities to escape your reality...and feel clueless. Part of the appeal of going to a new place is the unpredictability of the environment. The feeling of being somewhere that challenges and surprises you is priceless and hard to reproduce. The standard patterns of life in your usual setting are replaced by immense curiosity and cluelessness. 'What lies around the corner?' and ‘Will the locals be able to give me directions?' Let alone, ‘Will they be able to understand my questions when I ask for directions and speak their language in my broken accent?'

In a city like Paris, with its plethora of historical streets and endless list of destinations (both "touristy" and under-appreciated, unsung places), a sense of direction is crucial, to say the least. Some are more blessed with this sense than others. I (and plenty of other travelers I know) definitely fall in the "usually lost" category.

Besides escaping your normal routine, another benefit of going to a foreign land is the natural acquisition of the country's language that is bound to take place. Even if you studied a foreign language for years, there is still always something to learn about the language if you are in the country where it originates from. From the refining of your pronunciation, to picking up cool local phrases, to the confidence and style with which you'll speak the language, perhaps most importantly. Hearing the language spoken everyday by the country's native speakers makes you realize just how little you know about the language.

Being that languages often have technical differences between them that prevent direct translations, funny translations are inevitable. One of my favorite French phrases involves directions, and it was a phrase I heard often and from many people during my stays in France, particularly during the first few months, when my natural nonexistent sense of direction and newness to the city of Paris made me frequently call on any Parisian within my proximity to act as a human GPS system. This phrase that I like very much is 'tout droit".

The first time I heard this phrase, I was confused initially because the words did not match up with the physical directions that the direction giver's hands were pointing in. When I asked how to reach a certain destination or street, the person would tell me 'tout droit' (which literally translates to 'all right' in English) while pointing straight with his or her hand. Thinking that the words meant I needed to turn right and walk straight all the way, I would then ask "donc… je tourne à droit?” But the person would point with even more emphasis in the same straight direction and repeat "non... tout droit." After several times of this happening, I realized "tout droit" specifically meant going straight ahead, even though it featured the word "right." This epitomizes how French and other languages have complexities that can't be explained, and also shows how language can be learned almost "by accident" in countries where they are spoken.

Other words I learned by accident included 'oopla!', often heard when Parisians were giving me particularly complex directions with twists and turns, and used the word to signify where my arrival would be. One morning, I decided to break my normal routine of taking the 'Line 6 Metro' until the Charles De Gaulle station that connected me to 'Line 2' which took me to work at Bedouk, located near the 'Courcelles' Métro stop. I decided that my normal transit to work had gotten boring, so I woke up a little earlier than normal (to give myself extra time, knowing that I might get lost during my route) and took the Line 6 until Métro Kléber, with the intention of walking on foot to Line 2 Métro station Victor Hugo and taking the Métro Line 2 to Courcelles. Not only would this allow me to try a new route and avoid switching trains and walking in the lengthy tunnels of Charles DeGaulle Etoille Métro (which has a long tunnel leading to the Line 2 platform that has its own daily repetitive built-in soundtrack every morning that is simply and unintentionally composed by professional men and women marching in their loafers and heels on their way to work), it also meant I could discover the neighborhood of the Métro station named after one of my favorite authors.

Soon after exiting the Métro at the Kléber stop, I unsurprisingly got lost (the proximity of the dots representing the Metro stations on the Paris Métro Map can be so deceptive: they should come with one of those warnings similar to those warnings on your car's rear view mirrors: 'Stations on the Métro Map are not as close as they appear!'). I looked around for the nearest person, and found an elderly man who started giving me directions. It was surprising to see a 'cadre' (exec) lose his serious composure for a moment to let out a genuinely energetic 'oopla!' while twisting his hand to illustrate the several turns I would need to make to arrive at Métro Victor Hugo. Apparently, I did not keep up with the rapidity of the twist and turns of his hands, as I briefly got lost again a few minutes later. Luckily, the next local I asked for directions informed me that I was only a few blocks away from the Métro, and I finally arrived at Métro Victor Hugo a few seconds later.

"Tout droit" ended up being the gift that kept on giving, as I learned the phrase and used it when Francophones from other Francophone countries or French cities asked me, of all people, for directions in Paris.