077: 10 Reasons Why I'll Never Be French (and Why That's a Good Thing)
School of Self-Image
Tonya Leigh
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2016
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
Sweet music wafting over the Seine, a balmy Parisian night, and a glass of Bordeaux. Why, merci, don't mind if I do. Everyone should make a trip to the City of Light and Love, but not to see the sights (although they are gorgeous). "Doing Paris" is about more than finding a great cheese place – it's about finding yourself. I went in with some serious preconceived notions about who I was and how much better I would be if I could be more continental (the oh-la-la kind of continental). In that respect, my journey to become French was a fiasco. I learned that I will never be French. What surprised me however, is why that's a good thing. What surprised me even more is how we can all take a page out of the book of being French, without being French. Or definitely not French in my case. Still visit Paris though. Because…Paris.
Get full show notes and more information here: https://frenchkisslife.com/77
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the French Kiss Life podcast, all about living with more elegance, style, |
| 0:06.9 | and joie de vivre in your everyday life. I'm Tanya Lee, your hostess. Let's get started. Hello, my friend amy, how are you? |
| 0:30.5 | I am doing fabulous. |
| 0:32.7 | I am in Paris. |
| 0:34.1 | I've been here for almost six weeks. |
| 0:36.9 | And I realized once I got here, because I had to |
| 0:39.7 | bring so much over for my retreat and my travels, I did not pack my professional microphone for |
| 0:47.7 | my podcast. So I'm having to improvise. But you know what they say? The show must go on and so it shall. And since I am in France, |
| 0:58.2 | and I know that many of you are francophiles like myself, I thought it was only apropos to do a podcast |
| 1:05.7 | about the French culture. More specifically, 10 reasons why I'll never be French and why that's actually |
| 1:13.9 | a good thing. So let me ask you this. How many times have you said to yourself, if I could just be, |
| 1:21.5 | fill in the blank, I'd be so much happier. That is what I told myself about being French. If I could just be French, I would be so much happier. That is what I told myself about being French. If I could just be French, |
| 1:29.7 | I would be so much happier. Upon my first trip back in, I think it was 2004, to Paris, |
| 1:37.2 | I was convinced that I was a French woman trapped in an American life. And this crazy |
| 1:42.7 | obsession led to some very interesting behaviors on my part. |
| 1:47.4 | I did things like trying to teleport myself into the country by only watching French films, |
| 1:53.1 | like Menon of the Springs and Amelie, getting decked to the nines to will my trash out of the street |
| 1:59.7 | because that's what I heard French women do. |
| 2:03.1 | I would do things like speaking French to the waiters at Outback Steakhouse in South Carolina, |
| 2:09.5 | saying things like la de seignee, which was always received with a very confused look. |
| 2:16.5 | And then I would answer my daughter only in French, |
| 2:19.7 | in which she'd always like roll her eyes and say, oh, here we go again. I would do things like |
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