Life in Bordeaux: Part 1

My inability to speak any French aside from 'oui' and 'non' seemed to continue for the first few days. On my second day in Bordeaux, my new French family took me for a drive to have a look at the sites of Bordeaux, they showed me where the Alliance Francaise was and where I had to catch the bus. They seemed like very nice people which was a huge relief. I had heard of some nightmare stories about host families, so at least that was something I didn't have to worry about.

The next day I attended my first day at Alliance Francaise. It had a friendly vibe and the lady at the reception was very patient with my French and offered to talk to me in English which I happily accepted. She gave me my orientation package and lead me to my class where I met the other students and my teacher. There was a couple from Japan, a guy from Libya  a couple from China, and a few other students from elsewhere in Europe. Maybe about 10 of us in total. For the first time in a couple of days, I could feel myself relax. Although our teacher only spoke to us in French, we were all in the same boat. It was particularly amazing to be in a class with no other native English speakers. Whilst I missed talking (those of you that know me know how much I LOVE chatting) It was an awesome opportunity to practice the little French that I did know.

My relaxation was short lived however as I made my way back to my host family. I decided to walk, partly to prolong the process of getting home and mainly because I had no idea where to catch the bus to get back. As I walked in the door I was greeted by the beaming smile of my host dad. He was SO excited to see me and proceeded to ask me how my day was, I slowly started to respond and he sat there patiently trying to understand what I was saying. After 4 hours of French lessons, and an afternoon conversation, I was exhausted and proceeded to go upstairs and have a nap.

That evening, they presented yet another amazing dinner. My host dad and I managed to start a very brief conversation about wine and he proceeded to take me down to his 'cave' to show me his extensive wine collection. Generally I had no idea what he was saying, but I did figure out in the end he decided it was a nice night to celebrate with a fancy bottle of vintage Bordeaux red. He grabbed the bottle and we went back upstairs to the dinner table where we all sat down to dinner.

Again I could feel the nerves come flooding back as I took my place at the dinner table. The dinner conversation started and I was left to sit there in complete oblivion to what was happening. I remember getting lost in my thoughts and laughing to myself at how ridiculous the situation felt. The table chatter stopped and my Host mum asked me what I was laughing at. Mortified that the laugh was actually audible, I just mumbled nothing and looked back at my food. It was then that the phone rang and my host dad stood up from the table to answer it. Their son ripped a piece of bread from the baguette at the table, then passed it to me. He continued talking to his mother and wanting to be polite I decided to mimic his actions and try to rip off a piece of bread also. As I was fumbling around with the baguette trying to rip a piece, my hand slipped from the bread and with full force I proceeded to knock over the bottle of wine which had only been carefully selected moments earlier.

I watched as in what seemed slow motion the bottle fell onto the table. I let out a gasp of despair and tried to grab it, but it was too late. Half the contents where now on the table and dripping onto the floor. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes and the panic taking over my body. I looked over to my host mum who was already up on her feet on the way to the kitchen to grab a cloth. I sat there mortified, repeating 'je suis desole' over and over again. They didn't seem to mind, they were just more concerned about cleaning up the mess before my host dad came back. She was as swift an arrow and in no time at all the mess was gone and it was almost like it hadn't happened, except for the now half bottle of red wine that is. As my host dad returned to the table we all sat there in silence and instantly he could tell something was up. Everyone was keeping a straight face until finally my host mum burst into laughter. The son joined in and the dad just sat there puzzled looking at them like they were crazy. I can only presume that she told him what happened as about a minute later he burst into laughter also. I managed to muster a smile and from that point onwards my new nickname became 'Maladroit' (or in English - Clumsy)

It took knocking over a bottle of wine to help me finally begin to relax. It was after this incident that I realised I wasn't the only maladroit in the house. It was the icebreaker and my host dad and I spent the next 2 weeks bonding over several more clumsy moments, making it a truly memorable and humorous introduction into my new life in France.