For the record, the Newark International Airport’s Wi-Fi doesn’t support Duolingo. You might be inclined to learn your verb conjugations while waiting for your flight, but all you get is a pathetic image of a crying green owl.
This unfortunate fact is what I found myself using as an excuse for not knowing any French. Well, that’s unfair - I could stumble my way through “pardon, parlez vous englais?” That was the extent of my command of the language.
“Maria, you had all summer to learn,” Montaine would hiss at me after every painfully awkward interaction with a cashier or waitress.
“It was a very busy summer.” And it had been a busy summer, loaded with planning for college, working two different jobs, all while trying to have a perfectly quintessential Vermont summer. Plus, learning an entirely new language doesn’t feel all that dire until you have angry ladies on the metro yelling at you in that language.
This pattern—me being a stereotypically ignorant American, Montaine covering for and then chastising me—continued all through our week in Paris. A week of guilt over forcing service workers out of the comfort of their own tongue. A week of cringing at how blatant the cultural illiteracy of American tourists is, milliseconds before realizing my own ignorance was worn on my face every time I responded to a question with a blank stare. In my mind, I desperately tried to differentiate between them, those awkward honking geese, and me, a visitor taking in all the grace of Paris.
And arguably, I was different—or so I tried to convince myself. I had been brought in by one of their own, shepherded away from the comfort of ice water and sizable portions to this divine mecca of a city. I’d booked my plane tickets two weeks before leaving, when Montaine and I came to the heartbreaking conclusion that if we didn’t reunite this summer, the likelihood of ever seeing each other would plummet. I’ve seen the cycle: exchange students come to my small town, make a ton of friends who all promise to visit them in their respective motherlands, then go home. That’s it, that’s the end. What once was a magical friendship, full of road trips, miscommunications, and non-stop laughter, goes from Facetimes to texts to Instagram likes. I knew too well what was to become of Montaine and me.
Of course, neither of us wanted this to happen and decided this summer had to be the summer. I simply had to go to France. The aftermath of this decision is a blur of booking flights, packing, and attempting to keep my parents from realizing the enormity of what I was about to do. That last bit was successful up until two days before departure, when the blind was lifted and they saw their underage daughter stuffing a duffel bag to go traipse around for three weeks in a foreign country whose language she didn’t speak. I did them the favor of not worrying them with the fact I’d be out of contact and largely alone with another underage girl (who did speak the language, thank God).
“Maria,” my father had said, “Europeans can tell an American from a mile away. I think it’s something about the way we stand. And a young American girl traveling alone is a prime target. Have you ever seen Taken?”
“I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Okay—one condition for this trip. You watch the kidnapping scene in Taken, and you can go to Paris.”
So, a bit shaken by the image of being shanghaied by an Albanian gang but excited all the same, I made it to the Charles De Gaulle Airport. I can actually say I had a rendezvous in Paris.
And soon we were in the Alps, a far cry from the City of Lights—so far, in fact, electricity doesn’t even reach half the rooms in the Refuge de Plan du Lac, Montaine’s family’s hostel. As much as I had loved Paris, one moment on the train station platform at the base of the Vanoise massif made me forget every bit of the cobblestone streets and grandiose architecture. I cannot believe the stone-and-glacier giants bear the same name as Vermont’s green… hills.
The best part of the Alps was not the scenery, but the people. That totally sounds like college essay bullshit, but I swear on the culinary superiority of blue cheese that it’s true. Staying in the hostel, I was finally able to meet the people I had been hearing about for ten months. Montaine’s parents and their employees, who were also close family friends, redefined what I had understood the classic French welcome to be. Montaine’s parents greeted me with excitement that nearly swept me off my feet.
“Alors c’est Maria! Nous sommes ravis de vous avoir visité! Comment aimez-vous la montagne? Votre voyage a-t-il été bon? Et Paris? Montaine a eu tellement de chance d’avoir un ami aussi gentil que vous aux États-Unis…”
I stared blankly at my enthusiastic hosts. US-centric pop culture had subconsciously convinced me that being an English-speaker would entitle me to conversation with anyone on earth with an education. It would have been a convenient truth. However, it was a lie I discovered little by little, as every enthusiastic French host’s “vous parler francais?” was heartbreakingly, quickly followed by their disappointed “I speak not much English.”
The day I arrived at the refuge, Juliet, Montaine’s mother, showed me her album of the refuge through the years her family had run it. My interest was sparked with each new image. How amazing it is, how their business defines European mountain culture… It's so lovely that the only flowers that bloom here are my favorite color… I can’t believe this place is just empty in the winter, free to anyone daring enough to reach it… she must meet the most interesting people…
“C’est beau, j’adore” was the best I could do.
Throughout the course of my time in France, I had kept a list in my phone of all the little quirks I’d noticed throughout the country. How cheese was impossible to find in Paris, for instance. Or how my visual evaluation of whether a door was meant to be pushed or pulled was almost always wrong. Or (my favorite) how the hollow aggression that I had encountered on every Parisian’s face could not be further removed from the open smile of each hiker I passed in the Alps. I was desperate to tell all the people that Montaine introduced me to how endlessly fascinating I found their country, how I was committed to returning with more capacity to communicate, and how I wanted to see every French coastline, mountain, and city.
Instead, I displayed a perpetually docile expression, interspersed with confused glances to Montaine every time I needed translation. In a game of verbal charades one evening, I failed to get my teammates to guess “Harry Potter,” even though I could recite The Goblet of Fire forwards and backwards in English. I stopped just short of holding up Google Translate every time I wanted to say something.
“I was very good at Spanish in school, I swear,” I offered apologetically a couple times, but the excuse sounded more pathetic every time I repeated it.
One afternoon, after I had retreated from the friendly barrage of French to the kitchen, Juliet approached me.
“So, Maria, we had thought of you maybe cooking tonight? We bought the burgers, you know how to make?” she asked in her French accent, one softened by her innumerable interactions with the many Germans and Swedes who passed through the hiking trails.
The thing is, I didn’t know how to cook—but I wasn’t about to admit that. I was already incapable of making conversation. I refused to let on how utterly useless I was.
“I’d love to—tonight?”
“Yes, please. We love to have the American burgers!” Juliet grinned at me. I was filled with an incredible need to make her happy. Her home and family had done so much for me. And though I couldn’t express it, I wanted to show gratitude.
Maybe burgers are my way forward, my talking piece, I thought to myself. Actions do speak louder than words, right? Maybe making the perfect American cheeseburger would be louder than my silence, would say all that I wanted to.
Encouraged by my new prospects, I holed myself up in a small shoebox of an office, the only room with any bars of Wi-Fi. I couldn’t believe I started this trip being frustrated with Newark’s internet service. I begged the internet to divulge the secret to a perfect burger, my salvation. I wish I could say I found it, that coffee grounds in the pan give the meat a delectable color, or that applewood smoke is better than charcoal. The only definitive answer I got is the burger must be eaten upside down - like, bottom on top. Go figure, C-Net.
So I took a leap of faith. I grilled the meat until it looked right, melted cheese over the top (a culinary decision met with much awe by the kitchen employees), and even prepared a dressing whose recipe I found in the New York Times but passed off as my own.
I set a plate of burgers on the large dining table, resisting the urge to declare “voila, les burgers!” These burgers were my gift to this dear family—my apology for my ignorance and my thanksgiving for their hospitality. I could not help but feel the warmth of pride. After ensuring each of my hosts was served, I sat with my own masterpiece and bit into it.
It was, quite possibly, the worst burger I had ever had. Truly terrible—I now profoundly understand the importance of seasoning in cooking. It was awful, even upside down.
And when I tore my eyes up from my plate, I could see the disgust on the faces of my hosts, as they chewed the rubbery meat. To be clear, they were nothing but kind about it; but it was as if their expectations for bland American cuisine had been confirmed by what they were eating. This group of people, renowned for their food and universally regarded as gourmands, sat at the same table I did, trying unsuccessfully to mask their utter bafflement that I would serve something that tasted like this.
“It’s good,” Juliet grimaced across the table to me. She was full of it.
“Just how my father makes it,” I respond, also full of it. He’d weep to know his burgers were compared to this ungodly medley of meat and cheese.
I hadn’t bothered to learn their language, I couldn’t follow an intelligent conversation, and I certainly couldn’t cook. With each bite they took, I became even closer to the ugly American cultural stereotypes that had preceded me.
The next morning, Montaine and I were boarding a train to our next destination. On the drive down the mountain, Juliet stopped the car and leaned out the window. She picked a purple lupine off the side of the road and handed it back to me.
“Put that in one of your books to keep. Remember the Alps by,” she instructed. I was so grateful to know at least one French word:
“Merci.”
After saying our goodbyes and getting on the train, Montaine leaned over to me.
“My mother told me she likes how much you smile.”
With that, I felt all my memories of the past few days rearrange themselves. Even as the landscape flattened and grayed behind us, I found myself smiling.
Maybe the burger didn’t have to say anything.
Discussion Questions
- What role does humor play in this essay? What does it reveal about O'Dea and her attitude to the narrative? Does it have any impact on your understanding of the essay's thesis?
- What would you argue is this essay's thesis? What does it seem to be saying about translation? Or communication? Or the acquiring of knowledge?
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