One of the most aggrevating things about living in a country where you don't speak the language as well as its inhabitants is that when ever one of the natives speaks to you and you don't understand, they automatically assume that you simply don't speak the language and attempt to switch into English (which is almost never any better than your, say, French or any easier to understand). In countries where I don't speak the foreign language, I find this a little comforting, but here in France I find it an insult to my intelligence. First of all, when ever this happens, the French person always gets this incredibly pained look on their face as though I have just extracted their wisdom teeth without any pain killer. Second, it seems impossible for them to simply repeat what they said at a slower speed. They seem to be under the impression that no matter how fast they are speaking, no matter what accent they have, no matter what vocabulary they are using, if you have studied an inkling of French, you should understand them. I really dislike that they assume that I am just a stupid american becauase I didn't understand them the first time around. Do they ever think to speak clearer? Perhaps use familier vocabulary? It is difficult enough to be thrown into an environment where you don't speak the language perfectly, but when people know you are foreign and deviate from familier or book vocabulary, then get upset when you don't understand, it becomes incredibly frustrating to do anything. It's not like we are idiots, and we don't expect everyone to speak English with us, in fact we are sick of them doing just that. Let us speak French! Let us learn! Stop speaking English! I want a day to go by here where I don't get that "Are you sure?" look from a French person when I tell that, why yes, I do happen to speak French.
Conclusion of the day: never base your language abilities on the looks French people give you when you speak.

I went to my first European soccer game last weekend, Marseille vs. Sedan, and boy was it strange. We decided to go early to the stadium figuring that we would be all European and sit and have a pastis or a glass of wine before the game and then get a hot dog later. We go to the stadium and after getting frisked by a french gendarme, walked in ready to have a drink before the match. Go up to the concession stand: no alcohol. Is this France? Is this Europe? Is this anywhere else in the world besides the US? Sacreligious we thought! How could you have a sporting event in Europe without a beer? Heck, they serve it in McDonald's here. Grumbling about what wierdos the French are, we climbed to our seats and took out the face paint figuring that we would fit in better with it on as we had no clothes to support Marseille. Again, we were wrong. We start painting our faces with the marseille flag and the letters "OM" (which stands for Olympique de Marseille, the team name) and soon these French guys come up and ask us what we are doing. We explained that we didn't have any clothes that said OM on them so we were painting our faces. What for? To show support. The French appeared dumbfounded, but they still took our picture. So slowly put surely people started to come and then we discovered why they don't sure alcohol in the stadium. THE FRENCH ARE CRAZY. Before warm ups even start on the field, the French start lighting off bright red flares in the stands and waving different flags in the air (disturbing as it was, we found the most interesting flag flown was the confederate flag). As the match begins, orange smoke just began to take over this one section, who was being led in cheers by a half naked man with a bullhorn. The flares kept going off, fans kept screaming threw bullhorns, flags kept rising in the air, and everytime they scored a goal (all of twice), the French would jump around and kiss everyone in a 10 feet radius. It was great. Then came the fireworks. Not at the end of the came as the Americans are accustomed too, but in the middle of the game, for no particular reason, from the middle of the orange smoke section. I mean it, the middle. I'm convinced the French have never heard of a fire code. Even if they have, they certainly don't follow it at football matches. After that all seemed normal. Marseille won, we all got kissed and the fans surged towards the metro, where, in typical french style, several different groups of guys, ranging in age from high school to late 50s i would guess, attempted to pick us girls up with some crafty french line. We promptly ran away.
Conclusion de jour: don't give a french person alcohol before a soccer match, 'cause you don't want them doing anything crazier than they would normally do.