France

As CalPundit says, nobody in the US likes France. And it’s not just about politics. As a French friend of mine, now settled in the US, jokingly said, “France is a nice place but beware of those French people.” When we were going to France in the summer, everyone we knew told us how rude the French are and that they don’t speak English even when they know the language. That would have been a disaster for us since my French vocabulary is limited to about 10-20 words. We were pleasantly surprised though by the politeness of people in Paris and in the the Loire valley. People made an effort to communicate even if their English was not much better than my French. At the car rental, nobody knew English, but another customer who was French and was laving was considerate enough to translate.

Then there was the incident about a pick-pocket stealing my wife’s wallet at Versailles. Both the tourism office and police were very polite and helpful. What’s more, we got a letter about a month after returning that the wallet was found and we got everything back except for some small amount of cash.