Not only was Italy in your repertoire at such a young age, but Austria, Belgium, FRANCE, Liechtenstein, and the Netherlands were under your belt before you were a year old.
Most of the people stationed in Germany seemed to accumulate leave time to go back and visit their loved ones in the States. And everyone there had a pretty dismal opinion about going to France, expressing the idea that the French were none too fond of Americans, and less than hospitable to them. But Dad was impervious to the naysayers, and said we had to go there because I had spent so many years studying French in school. He was taking me no matter what.
The only drawback was that I was pregnant. Emotional. To the hilt. Everytime he wanted me to use my command of the language, for instance to ask for directions, I would start to open my mouth and begin to cry. Then he'd have to come and muddle through somehow what was wanted. Hand motions, lots of pointing. And the French responded so warmly to us. Exactly what we hadn't been led to believe.
One time a woman dragged him home to her home a block and a half away to have her family help her figure out how to help us. We were blown away. Maybe it was the magic of the universal appeal of a child. Who knows? At the Louvre, in front of the Mona Lisa, we had a repeat of our Sistine Chapel experience, when people ignored the art to play with you. In one restaurant, they were so excited to see a baby, they took you back to the kitchen to show you off(not that many tourists running around with babies). Even going up the elevator in the Eiffel Tower, people fussed over you. It made us realize people are pretty much the same the world over. Joy is in the moment. And children bring us to the moment.
Still, 6 or 7 years of French, and once in France I couldn't spit out even one "S'il vous plait"?
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