French Expressions for the Intrepid, Outspoken Traveler

My friend Elissa is getting ready to move to Paris, as part of her ongoing job saving the world. Elissa is eloquent, clever, with a strong sense of self, not afraid to speak her mind and knows exactly what to say to get out of a sticky situation. So as part of her farewell I found some French phrases she may find useful in her upcoming two-year adventure. Here’s to Elissa! May she return from France after having many saucepans hung on her ass!

À boire ou je tue le chien!
Bring me something to drink or I kill the dog!

Arriver comme un cheveu sur la soupe
About a remark in a conversation, to be completely irrelevant (literally: “to arrive like a hair in the soup”)

Avoir des atomes crochus avec quelqu’un
To have a lot in common with someone (literally: “to have hooked atoms with someone”)

Avoir les chevilles qui enflent
To be very full of oneself (literally: “to have one’s ankles swell”)

Avoir des casseroles au cul
To be haunted by a scandal (literally: “to have saucepans hung on the ass”)

Avoir un poil dans la main
To be lazy (literally: “to have a hair in the hand”)

C’est le pied
That’s great (literally: “It is the foot”)

C’est une autre paire de manches
That’s another story (literally: “It’s another pair of sleeves”)

Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide
Once bitten, twice shy (literally: “A warmed cat fears cold water”)

Coincer la bulle
To bum around (literally: “to wedge the bubble”)

Découvrir le pot aux roses
To discover a secret (literally: “to discover the roses’ pot”)
Note: This expression does not spell “découvrir le poteau rose” (i.e., “to discover the pink pole”).

Démerden Zie sich
German-like expression for “solve your problem yourself” (literally: “get out of the shit yourself”)

Dire tout et son contraire
To say contradictory things (literally: “to say everything and its contrary”)

Donner du fil à retordre
To make life difficult to someone (literally: “to give threads to twist”)

Enfoncer le clou
To drive the point home (literally: “to drive the nail in”)

Être de mauvais poil
To be in a bad mood (literally: “to be of bad hair”)

Être fagoté comme l’as de pique
To be dressed any old how (literally: “to be dressed like the ace of spades”)

Il en a bavé des ronds de chapeau
His eyes nearly popped out of his head (literally: “he dribbled hat circles”)

Enfoncer des portes ouvertes
To state the obvious (literally: “To break down open doors”)

Être comme une poule qui a trouvé un couteau
To be at a complete loss (literally: “To be like a chicken who has found a knife”)

Faux cul
Hypocrite (literally: “fake ass”)

Il n’y a pas de quoi fouetter un chat
It is nothing to make a fuss about (literally: “It’s no reason for whipping a cat”)

Il y une couille dans le potage
There is a problem here (literally: “there is a ball (i.e., testicule) in the soup”)

Je ne vais pas faire long feu ici
I will be leaving soon (literally: “I will not make long fire here”)

La vache!
Expression of surprise (literally: “the cow!)

Laisser pisser le mérinos
Don’t react to a provocation (literally: “to let the merino piss”)

Laisser tomber quelqu’un comme une vieille chaussette
To jilt somebody (literally: “to drop somebody like an old sock”)

Les bras m’en tombent
I am stunned (literally: “my arms are falling”)

Ne pas avoir inventé la poudre
To be a little dumb (literally: “not to have invented gunpowder”)

Ne pas savoir sur quel pied danser
Not to know what to do (literally: “not to know on which foot to dance”)

Noyer le poisson
To evade an issue (literally: “to drown the fish”)

Pas piqué des hannetons
Great (literally: “not bitten by cockchafers”)

Peigner la girafe
To do something useless (literally: “to comb the giraffe”)

Poule mouillée
Coward (literally: “wet chicken”)

Prendre entre quatre z’yeux
To have an argument with someone (literally: “To take someone between four eyes”)

Quand les poules auront des dents
Never (literally: “when chickens will have teeth”)

Sauter du coq à l’âne
To jump from one subject to another (literally: “to jump from the rooster to the donkey”)

Se faire chier comme un rat mort
To be extremely bored (literally: “to make oneself shit like a dead rat”)

S’en donner à coeur joie
To have a tremendous time (literally: “to give oneself heart joy”)

Sortir de la gueule d’une vache
This is said about a clothing item that looks cumpeled (literally: “to come from a cow’s mouth”)

Sucer les pissenlits par la racine
Be dead (literally: “to suck the dandelions by the root”)

Tirer des plans sur la comète
To build castles in the air (literally: “to draw plans on the comet”)

Tous les 36 du mois
Never (literally: “each 36th day of the month”)

Un peu mon neveu!
Of course! (literally: “a little bit, my nephew!”)

Vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué
To count one’s chickens before they are hatched (literally: “to sell the bear’s skin before killing it”)

To read even more outlandish French expressions, click here.

Paris Is Burning (Part II)

I can’t fully focus on making out with Paris Boy #1 because I’m worried about my small black bag, the only luggage I’ve brought with me to Paris, getting stolen or stepped on. Or who knows what other things can happen to an unattended bag in a gay club in Europe…

I step back and feel another body right behind me. I turn around and see a tall boy with thick, wavy, auburn hair and wearing a loose, black silk button-up. Paris Boy #2. He walks over to Paris Boy # 1, puts his arm around him and whispers in his ear. He slowly rests his forehead on his friend’s head and turns to look at me. He smiles, and I’m almost sure he flashed his tongue. Paris Boy #1 takes a sip of his drink and comes over to talk to me. I’m assuming that Paris Boy #2 doesn’t speak English so #1 has to step in as translator.

“This boy here, he is my boy friend,” he says to me, placing emphasis on the last two words. He wants to make me understand that Paris Boy #2 is not his friend who happens to be a boy; he’s the boy he happens to be fucking. Not a boyfriend. But a boy friend.

I give Paris Boy #2 a genuinely smile, then try to make a joke in my bastardized French. I’ve realized that playing funny is a sure way to show my non-threatening disposition. It’s my last night in France, I’m not going to get involved in a coup d’etat.

But unlike American boys, the French don’t get off on competing with one another, marking territory, claiming possessions. Fucking with each other leaves everyone empty-handed. French boys are more about teamwork and alliance. At least, this is the conclusion I come up with to explain how I went from making out with a boy, to telling jokes to his boy friend to trying to make the couple forget my trespass to what’s happening now: me grinding with both of the Parisians in the middle of the dancefloor. Paris #1 is in front of me with his hands on to my hips and putting his nose up against my cheek. Paris #2 is behind me, grabbing on to his boy friend’s torso and pressing our bodies closer together. Paris Boy #1 is eyeing me like he wants a kiss. So I kiss him, while playing with the back of his neck. I hand him my drink, turn around and place both of my hands on Paris Boy #2’s shoulders, to regain my balance. Then I go in for his lips, slightly higher than mine. I bite his lower lip and then smile while he’s still caressing my mouth with his tongue. I run my fingers through his thick, wavy hair and pull a little.

It’s starting to get really hot, and I can feel my shirt sticking to my sweaty back. The boys and I go over to the bar to get a drink. Paris Boy #2 turns to me and says something in French, something I shouldn’t be able to understand. The sentence is too complex, and the vocabulary is nothing they’d teach me in school. But maybe it’s his body language, getting closer to me with every syllable uttered, or his facial expressions, how his eyebrows rose with excitement after certain words, or his eyes, the way he looked at me and then down at my jeans. I don’t understand what he says, but I understand what he means.

I look over to Paris Boy #1, my original partner, and notice that he too is eager to learn of my response. Yes, these boys are sweaty, sexy. Yes, it would be electrifying to keep playing with them. Ah, a threesome in Paris, every boy’s bubbly daydream.

But no. I have a flight to catch. A flight I can’t miss (again). There will be other sweaty, sexy boys, other electrifying nights, other times to get fully drenched in daydreams. But now, nothing screams reality like starting to get sober and a feeling your watch ticking all the way down on your wrist.

I write down my e-mail address in a wet napkin, and fair the fine boys adieu. My black bag is still where I left it hours earlier.

I wonder if how far we would’ve have gone last night…

“Excuse me, sir? I can’t find your reservation in our system.” And just like that dream is over. The airline attendant at Charles de Gaulle is condescending and British. She’s been having trouble finding my return ticket back to Madrid. But I assure her that she’s oh, so wrong. I mean, how else did I get to Paris.

“I’m sorry, but at this point the only thing I can do is suggest you purchase another ticket,” she tells me.

“But I have a ticket. Here, I have my printed out reservation.”

“Well, it looks like the ticket has been cancelled. I can’t do anything about it here, you need to talk to customer service, I’ll direct you.”

So there I go again– trying to talk my way into a flight back home. The customer representative is even less helpful and way bitchier. She is not going to give me a break. She lives for moments like this. She tells me that since I missed my original, non-refundable flight that my return ticket had been cancelled, and I had no choice but to purchase a new one if I wanted to return to Madrid. The price? 875 euros.

My friends have already boarded their respective flights, I have no one with me, my phone has just died and I have about 35 euros in my bank account. And I’m stuck in Paris.

I go get some coffee to regain my compusure and figure out an escape plan. I have to get on that flight. Boarding is going to commence in a few minutes. No mom, no friends, no money. All I have is this piece of paper stating that I purchased a flight. It’s all on me. I down my coffee, look at the clock above my head, think about the cute Parisian boys, grab my Kenneth Cole bag and stand up. “I’m getting on that flight,” I think and give myself no other option.

With collected bravado, I walk up to the security guard, and flash my reservation and passport. He looks at it, marks it with his red sharpie and lets me through. No questions asked. I wait until the original British girl who denied me my ticket takes her break and find another. She’s brunette and a lot cuter. I give her all my details, and she smiles and says, “Madrid?”

“Si,” I say with the biggest good boy smile I could muster this early in the morning after having my tongue down two cute guys’s thoart (almost at the same time).

“Oh wait…” she says after she catches an indiscretion on the screen, probably a big sign reading: DO NOT LET THIS BOY OUT OF PARIS. And I think, “shit.”

But then she gets distracted by an Italian tourist, bitching and yelling about something. So she steps out for a minute to try to help her co-worker deal with irrational Italian.

And that’s when I see it, my boarding pass. Dangling, freshly printed from my machine. My ticket out. So close, within grasp. I don’t even look around to see who’s watching. I just snatch it and run away.

It’s not until my flight takes off, with me sitting comfortably in my seat, that my hearts stops pounding. I feel like… Matt Damon! I’m a spy.

[Paris Is Burning (Part I)]

Paris Is Burning (Part I)

I walk in to the Barajas International Airport in Madrid clutching my small black Kenneth Cole carry-on bag, the only thing I’m taking with me to Paris. I had heard earlier that the recently remodeled international terminal was currently being used as a location spot for the third Bourne film. I don’t see Matt Damon stunting about. Then again, I don’t have much time to focus on finding action stars. I’m late for my flight.

The night before I had gone out with Chico Rock and his friends to Royal Cool, the largest gay club in Spain. As a result, I’m not only late for my early afternoon flight, but I’m also hung-over. In no condition to be doing physical stunts of my own, instead of dashing, shoving and hectically trying to catch my flight, I accept my fate: there’s no way I’m going to make my flight. Considering it’s pointless to be dashing frantically through the terminal, I stroll.

“When is your departure time?” the airline assistant asks typing some keys into the computer. I look down at my watch, gesture nonchalantly and answer, “Five minutes ago.” She’s a little confused by my lack of concern, but I’m certain that the worse that could happen is that I’m going be put on a later flight, get to Paris later tonight, meet up with my friends at the hostel and continue on my merry way. That was not the worse that happened.

Failing to read the fine print, I did not know that my flight, because it was so cheap, was a one-time deal. No refunds, cancellations or rescheduling.  Damn you, RyanAir! The only thing I can do now is purchase a one-way to Paris for 450 euros, the assistant regrets to inform me. But fuck that!

After about 40 minutes of talking to airline agents and the ticket counter, trying to negotiate a way to get me to France for free, my persistence and their frustration gets me a ride up a secret elevator to the top floor. I’m not sure who I’m going to see, but they make her sound important. I’m kind of nervous? Nah, she’s my ticket out of here and on to Paris. I’m ready.

I walk into her office and see a woman in her early forties sitting in a large leather desk chair, wearing a black pencil skirt, heels, square-rimmed glasses, straight auburn hair parted on the side. She’s looks up at me and doesn’t smile and I think, “Great! There’s no way this lesbian is going to have any sympathy for me and put me on a flight to Paris!”

But she’s actually the most understanding of my situation… no, not that I had gone partying the night before but that I was taking an exam at my institute this morning that had taken longer than expected. She prints out another boarding pass, signs it, hands it to me and this time, she smiles. And 20 minutes, I’m sitting on another Paris bound RyanAir flight.

“Well, I am very glad you made it,” Paris Boy #1 says to me after I tell him the story. It’s my last night in Paris. I have a flight back early in the morning, but instead of sleeping at our dungy, stuffy hostel in Montmartre, swarming with hippies and vagabonds, I decide to pull an all-nighter and use my hostel money to get into an exclusive and much-talked about club at the end of Les Champs Elysee, Le Queen, a recommendation from Chico Rock.

Paris Boy #1 has short, spiky hair and wearing a grey polo shirt. Because I never really paid attention in high school French and I dropped out of my college French class, I’m thankful that he speaks English fluently, even more thankful that he has retained his accent. He speaks softly and in a reserved tone even when he’s talking about the dirty things he likes to do in bed. The 25-year-old law student noticed me clutching my black Kenneth Cole bag at the bar and thought it was unusual… he called it “peculiar.” It’s common for businessmen catching a red eye or something, but I seemed kind of young and kind of unemployed and like I had been living in a cheap hostel for a week, so yeah it was rather “peculiar.”

We make out on the dancefloor to an awful eurotechno song. The lighting at Le Queen shades the club in fluorescent violets and blue hues. There isn’t much dancing, not tonight anyway. The boys stand in place to look, but they rarely touch. It’s my last night, so I don’t care if I break the club’s customary stance. I’m touching Paris Boy #1 all over. Le Queen is not that big, so no matter where you’re standing you can get a good view of the whole place and the hotties bathed in color and motionless like mannequins all crowding inside. But I was so wrapped up in this hottie, I didn’t notice his boyfriend, Paris Boy #2, approaching.

[Paris Is Burning (Part II)]