Almost French Love and a New Life In Paris

by Turnbull, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9781592400386
• ISBN10: 1592400388
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-08-18
• Publisher: Gotham

Summary

The charming true story of a spirited young woman who finds adventure--and the love of her life--in Paris. "This isn't like me. I'm not the sort of girl who crosses continents to meet up with a man she hardly knows. Paris hadn't even been part of my travel plan..." A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir, Almost Frenchtakes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor. Sarah Turnbull's stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frédéric together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decided to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world's most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite for vichyssoise, the feisty Sydney journalist does her best to fit in, although her conversation, her laugh, and even her wardrobe advertise her foreigner status. But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from life in a bustling quatierand surviving Parisian dinner parties to covering the haute couturefashion shows and discovering the hard way the paradoxes of France today, little by little Sarah falls under its spell: maddening, mysterious, and charged with that French specialty-séduction. An entertaining tale of being a fish out of water, Almost Frenchis an enthralling read as Sarah Turnbull leads us on a magical tour of this seductive place-and culture-that has captured her heart.

Author Biography

Journalist Sarah Turnbull moved to France from Sydney in the mid 1990s. Her articles appear regularly in a variety of magazines, such as Marie Claire, for which she is a contributing editor. She lives in Paris with her husband, Fr+¬d+¬ric.

Excerpts

OneThis isn't like me.The queue for passport inspection at Charles de Gaulle airport surges impatiently. My flight from Romania has coincided with one arriving from Mali and I curse the rotten timing because at this rate it'll take all day. The French police scrutinize the passports from Eastern Europe and Africa, ask lots of questions. The queue isn't really a line but a claustrophobic knot and I am somewhere in the middle of it, surrounded by women in bright headscarves and cumbrous robes, and tall, athletic men. Their blue-black faces shine: it's hot and stuffy. More passengers pour from planes and we squash together tighter and tighter, our clothes and skins sticking together. I'm not the sort of girl who crosses continents to meet up with a man she hardly knows.I'd intended to give the passport officer a piece of my mind when it was my turn at the window-a few helpful suggestions. Like, how about concentrating on the task at hand instead of idly chatting with your colleagues? And haven't the French ever heard of those rope railings that arrange queues in neat, snake configurations? But he stamps my passport with barely a glance, smiling charmingly as he says, "Bonne journée, Mademoiselle," and after all that waiting suddenly I'm through the bottleneck and officially in France. Paris hadn't even been part of my travel plan.I'm in a spaceship. Terminal One is a galactic sphere traversed by transparent tubes that are speeding people in different directions. I take one going up. The impression of breathtaking modernity is dashed by the general rundown appearance of the place. If this is a spaceship, it's a pretty outdated model. At the top, luggage is being spat onto a conveyer belt that keeps stopping and starting. After another interminably long wait, my tattered blue backpack tumbles out. Yet here I am, coming to see-no, stay with-a Frenchman with whom I have conversed for a grand total of, oh, maybe forty-five minutes.Glass doors slide open. I push the luggage cart down the ramp into the arrivals lounge. I wonder if I'll recognize him right away. A couple of months have passed since we met. But to my surprise, there's no one in the crowd who even remotely resembles my mental snapshot. I steer the cart over to an exposed seat near the glass exit, apprehension squeezing my chest. This is mad.The doubts had started festering after a series of bad phone calls, gnawing at my excitement until I'd almost forgotten what had attracted me in the first place: the impression that he was different, unlike any man I'd ever met. The worst was one week ago when he'd called to confirm my arrival time. It had been another awkward telephone conversation punctuated by long pauses and misunderstandings that made me wonder if the problem was deeper than just language. Of course, it doesn't help that his English is pretty basic and my French is awful. We can't even communicate, for God's sake, I'd thought. What are we going to talk about for a whole week? At the end of ten excruciating minutes I'd said good-bye and he'd said, "I kiss you," which made me cringe. What a sleaze! Had I paid more attention during French classes at school I might have remembered that in France this is the sort of farewell you could say to your sister or grandmother but all I can think now is how weird it sounded.The air inside Charles de Gaulle airport is stale and smoky. It's like being in a giant, school toilet after a student smoking session-the chipped white floor tiles are covered in butts. Tired passengers dribble through the sliding doors. I try not to scan the crowd too often. The minutes limp by, my mind relentlessly replaying our two encounters, assessing them from every angle.He'd been sent to Bucharest for a few days in his job as a lawyer. I was doing some freelance television stories there and had