Version Originale

Over the weekend we were invited to an international luncheon in Versailles. Since the introduction of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU as of January 1 2007, it was a sort of celebration and welcome to the Romanian and Bulgarian friends of the host couple. The formal reason for our invitation was to give an American viewpoint of Europe, but in fact we just served as English practice for some of the guests. Many of them were as shy about their English as we were about our French.

As it turned out, the hostess was a huge fan of England. When she found out that Dave is English (I just had to tell her, I love watching him squirm), she dragged us to her pantry to see all of her English food. Then she started grilling him about his roots. When he couldn't identify the exact neighborhood where his parents grew up, she was shocked and appalled. Oh, us lazy Americans and our disregard for our personal history.

That was Sunday. On Saturday we wandered down to the Champs-Elysées with the rest of the Americans. We had lunch in one of our favorite spots (favorite because of the excellent people watching and bilingual staff) and saw The Departed, or Les Infiltrés, as it’s called here.

Many movies are shown in France version originale. This means that the film’s original language is shown with French subtitles. This way we’ll be able to see almost all of the same movies that are shown at home, only a few months later. Plus the educational bonus of the French translation at the bottom of the screen.

Finding the movie we’re looking for always poses an interesting challenge because the title is often changed. For example, when I was looking for The Departed, I tried the obvious, Les Departés, which probably isn’t even a French noun. I even tried “Les Morts” (The Dead). It took Dave some Google researching to finally find “Les Infiltrés”. The Infiltrators? That’s not even close!