Travel Missteps: Lost in Translation

Watching painters in Paris made me want to join them.

Today is my birthday! And 12 years ago, I was spending my 16th birthday in Paris, France. After a long day of exploring the city and visiting museums we were just too tired to head out again. And so we decided to put my high school French to the test, to order pizza by phone.

I thought I was pretty well prepared, but when I called I first asked if anyone there spoke English…just in case I could make it easier. They asked me to repeat the question, I could hear that they put me on speakerphone. I asked again, and could hear laughter in the background as they told me that no one there spoke English. It was a bit insulting to be purposefully laughed at, but oh well.

So I proceeded to order a pizza. I had written out the address, and could easily give it on the phone. I could only remember the names of the toppings I wanted (pineapple and cheese) but hey it was my birthday so I could choose the toppings anyway. Everything was going smoothly. I was expecting for them to give me a time when the pizza should arrive, but they said a very hurried and long amount of words that I couldn’t understand. After asking them to repeat it about 4 times, I panicked and hung up.

We had forgotten that I had gave our address, and so gave up on eating that night. Then around midnight, a loud knock was out the door. I asked who it was, but we couldn’t understand the answer. We were a bit frightened and then my dad cracked the door a bit, and it was the pizza guy! We were very hungry so were we happy to see him. When my dad handed him our last 50 Euro note the driver shook his head no. Eventually we figured out he needed exact change, but that was all we had. After a few moments of trying to see if he had change, he just took the 50 and left. We were shocked but we were leaving in the morning, so just gave in to losing over 30 Euro.

Once done, we went back to bed. A few hours later, we were woken up by a pounding on the door. My dad motioned for us to be quite (it was our first trip abroad and we were a bit paranoid) and we didn’t answer the door. Then we noticed something being pushed under the door. After the footsteps retreated we looked over to see our change for the pizza. The honest pizza guy came to give us change after his shift.

Travel Missteps