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In a message dated 7/23/2001 8:14:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: << > Will someone else please write the post on the significance of this > French poetry and translate into English ;-) I guess I'll have to do it. >> Perhaps everybody has become intimidated or anxious. I can understand. I studied "French" in school from 7th grade on through college. I then married a man who was born and raised in Paris (the son of an American businessman; he has no French "blood") and who did not come to the US to live until the age of 25. So then, I have a good basis in "correct" French as well as "conversational" French. I remember our first trip to Paris, about 7 years ago. Two of my husband's sisters live in this city and after a few days of visited with them, we rented a room at a hotel on the left bank. After a day of going about, I left my husband to rest in our hotel room while I went out shopping. For some strange reason, he didn't feel like perusing boutiques featuring women's clothing. After a couple of hours and more than a couple of purchases, I noticed that it was getting dark. I became a little anxious as I didn't exactly know my location and going to the woman at the counter of the store, I asked her in perfect French how to get back to our hotel located dans la Rue . ... She smiled at me and told me, but every word she spoke was gibberish. I suddenly knew no French. Fortunately for me, a college girl in the store came over to me and said in broken English that she would take me there. My husband was sitting at a cafe across the street from our hotel and saw this teenage girl leading me like a blind person back to our hotel. I had been but two or three blocks away, by the way. My husband, hearing the story from the girl, laughed and held me protectively. I sat down. By the time the waiter came over, I had recovered some of my composure. Un vin blanc, I said. Later on that night, I would talk with people we met about politics, about Jim Morrison . . . in French. . .