si'l vous plait?

Thank goodness for phrase books.  Who knows what kind of interestingness we might have ordered.  Most of the time in the countryside people couldn't speak English so we really did need to be able to communicate in French.  We did pretty decent. 

There were of course the times that I would accidentally mix in some Spanish or have the response to something pop into my mind in Spanish and where Dan would be so timid that he was barely audible.  But did have most of the basics down (we can order coffee and pain au chocolate like nobody's business) and it was fun trying to get better so that we could smoothly fit in.  And no one was rude or too impatient with us; they were quite friendly in trying communicate with our bits of French.

Just don't try to ask us for directions in French... we will look at you like you are crazy.  (True story, we had French people ask us for directions on two separate occasions... and we did look at them like they were crazy.)