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Cathy enjoying the gardens at Giverny

July 2003: The last time I visited France was on a trip with my husband ten years ago, and frankly I didn’t care if I ever came back. Before I left San Francisco in 1993, I had heard the stories of how the French disliked Americans. I silently rebutted these arguments, thinking: the French don’t like ugly Americans, the ones who arrive demanding a Big Mac and Budweiser in a voice like a sonic boom. However, I will be charming, parlezing le français, and will no doubt be greeted like a long lost sister in the City of Light.

I had been preparing for a Paris excursion since my youth, when I took four semesters of French in college. However, in the years that slipped by after graduation, le français went the way of my encyclopaedic knowledge of world history and geometric theorems. It was still stored on my hard drive, but I no longer had access to that computer. To prepare for my trip I brushed up on the essentials by listening to tapes and practicing at home. “Garçon, encore bouteille de vin, s’il vous plaît!” I felt assured that I would be able to conduct my business in the local dialect.

In Paris my efforts were greeted by a fleet of hostile waiters; their expressions of pain during our conversations were either evidence of a virulent disdain for my mangling of their native tongue, or they were wincing at twinges from a recent haemorrhoid surgery that had left them unfit for their chosen profession. I don’t think it was the latter, however, or else the city was experiencing an epidemic crise de haemorrhoid.

At one posh St. Germain des Prés restaurant I looked around to discover that I was seated upstairs in a section that was solely American. We had been ghettoised. The French dined downstairs, their appetites unaffected by the conversations of the Manglers.

In frustration Kerby and I headed south to Beaune, where an encounter with a waitress had me sobbing to the manager as the whole restaurant looked on. And in Châteauneuf-de-Pape I was inexplicably chased out of an auberge by a chef with a butcher knife.

Needless to say, when Maureen Wheeler invited the Wild Writing Women to join her in the South of France, I was somewhat leery. And I wondered if I received such a warm welcome in 1993, what would be waiting for me during a time when anti-American feelings were at an all-time high? Personally I agreed with Chirac’s attitude toward the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but how was I going to convey that fact? On a t-shirt emblazoned: Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for Bush? Only the promise of a week with Maureen and the WWW on the Cote d’Azur got me across the French border.
But what I discovered was an amazingly pleasant surprise. It seems that sometime between my first and second visits the French government had apprised its population that their attitude was costing them a fortune in tourist and business dollars. A new movement encouraged the French to learn English. And ten years later I must say that never have I encountered such a dramatic change in the attitude of an entire nation. Evidently when the French put their collective minds to something they are a force to be reckoned with.

Alas I had not undergone a similar transformation. I landed in France last month sounding more like I had just emerged from the caves at Lascaux rather than a 747. “Me want food. Me want wine. Hmmm, me like red wine….” I was greeted by friendly, smiling staff at a variety of establishments, who chipped in and helped me out in English on the rare moment when my French wasn’t up to, say, critiquing various vintages of Bordeaux.

Ironically, I discovered a kinder, gentler France. Maybe they feel that any current tourists are “the good Americans,” those who support their political position, as opposed to the ugly Americans they’ve seen on TV boycotting French chèvres and pouring Bordeauxs down the drain. (Alert! Don’t do this! Send any offending French wines to Mme. Cathleen Miller, c/o French Wine Rescue, Paris France.)

According to an American friend living in Paris, the French are not anti-American, simply anti-U.S. government, a sentiment I’ve heard echoed over and over again throughout Europe. They look at the imperialistic tactics of the Bush administration and wonder where they’re going to end. I assured them that many of us are asking the same question.
After a great week in Paris, Wild Writing Woman Pam Michael and I drove south through the storybook countryside of central France, through rolling green hills dotted with white cows. The scenery was blissfully unmarred by billboards, which are forbidden by the French. We even spent a night in Beaune, where we treated exceptionally well. The next morning we bought gorgeous produce at the Saturday farmer’s market, stocking up for our week at the villa. When we reached Provence, we took winding roads through the Vaucluse, stopping in tiny villages, and buying bottles of excellent rosé for about $3 from a small producer. By the time we reached the southernmost tip of France I still had not encountered one single rude person, and I dare say I couldn’t make a trip of that length in the U.S. and come away with the same pronouncement.

Our villa was close to the village of Le Lavandou, a part of the coast frequented mainly by French and German tourists coming to swim in the Mediterranean; in fact we didn’t encounter any other Americans during our week there, but still a couple of restaurants had helpfully translated their dinner menus. One was obviously done by someone with a grasp of English nearly equal to my heady knowledge of French. A dish was advertised as: Salad of small goats run through the furnace.

The result of my return visit is one nobody could have predicted: Kerby and I have decided to spend the summer in Paris. Lord knows what type of international incidents we’ll manage to provoke, but at least now we’ll have fun being part of café society.