Tour de France

Europe is one of my holiday destinations. I even took up language classes so that I could enjoy chatting with the locals, immersing myself in their cultures. I dream of sipping coffee from the café on the sidewalk. Yesterday I had a glimpse of how my trip to Europe may turn out.

I went on a holiday in France with my family. We walked around beautiful architectures, lovely parks and checked out shops on the cobble stoned street. We came about a shop selling food stuff. Mum took a tomato, broccoli and cauliflower to the counter for me to pay.

“Mum, why are we buying vegetables? What do you want to do with them?” I asked.

“Daughter, Euro dollar is very expensive. We could save a lot cooking our own meal. I’m cooking porridge,” mum explaining her economic theory.

“But mum, we are on holiday. I can’t be eating home cooked food,” I protested.

“Plus, we can’t cook in the hotel, remember?” I reminded mum that we are not staying in an apartment with cooking facility.

‘Don’t worry, darling. We can eat them with oat meals,” mum smiled at her own brilliance.

I paid for the vegetables at the counter. I can’t believe I’m going to eat oat with tomato in my hotel room.

“Combien?” I showed off my newly acquired French skill, asking how much I must pay.

“Huh?” the cashier wasn’t sure what I was saying.

“C’est combien, sil vous plait? I repeated. This time I remembered to add ‘please’ after asking for the price. French are very particular on manners. I thought she didn’t want to answer me because I didn’t say ‘please’ initially.

“Excusez-moi?’ she asked me to repeat.

Oh, dear. Did I pronounced my French sentence wrongly? Shit.

“How much, please?” I asked in English this time. My face was blushing in embarrassment.

“Ah, c'est de sept quinze euros, sil vous plait,” the cashier replied.

“Huh?” my turn to ask. I can hardly understand a word she had said. All I heard was “Gee lee gu lu, gee lee gu lu”. Geez, this can’t be happening to me after slogging myself to learn basic French conversation for a year.

“Cezz, seven fifteen euros, please”, the cashier translated to English to ease my pain. Either that or she was trying to get me out of her face as fast as possible. I know I must be a pain in the rear end for her.

I quickly paid the cashier and took my red lobster face out of the shop. We continued our sight seeing on foot. Before turning into another street, I noticed that my sis was missing. We back tracked our way to the vegetable shop and I found sis at the counter arguing with the cashier. Yes, the same cashier that I wanted to hide my face from.

“Sis, what are you doing? Let’s go. Everyone’s waiting,” I asked trying to get sis out of the shop before the cashier remembers me.

“I want to buy this packet of chocolate. I don’t have any Euros with me. So, I’m paying her Malaysian Ringgit and she refused to accept it,” sis explained.

“Can’t you just pay by credit card? They won’t accept Malaysian Ringgit la. Do you think you are going to accept Tonga’s currency in Malaysia? Duh….?” I tried to talk some sense into my bird brain sister. How embarrassing can this get….?

“Look, this packet of chocolate costs 2 Euros which is about 8 Malaysian Ringgit and I’m paying you 10 Malaysian Ringgit. You won’t lose, do you know that?” sis tried to get back into the bargain with the cashier, forcing her Malaysian currency into the hands of the cashier.

“No, no, no….” the cashier shaked her head and pushed the note back to my sister.

“Please! Can we just forget about the chocolate and leave?! All other customers are looking at us. This is sooooo embarrassing!!!” I pleaded to sis.

I was lucky that I managed to wake up at this point. Any later than that, I think my boiling blood veins will burst.

Lesson learnt? Definitely. Firstly, I have to brush up on my French. Exam’s next week. Secondly, if I do go to France for my holiday, I’m going to bring lot’s of Euro currency with me. I don’t plan to eat porridge in the hotel nor force the cashier to accept my home country’s currency. If I don’t have enough Euros, then I guess the best plan would be to leave mum and sis behind. Hehehe!