French Lessons

Florent was an exchange student at my highschool, one grade above me, and ridiculously cute.  He couldn't get over when I would ask, "Hey, Flo, what's up?"  He would always look up, like some glob of crap was going to fall down on him.  I'd say through much of our friendship, he was in a near state of panic.
Before he left for his flight home, I took him to an amusement park.  Whalom Park, to be exact, where "you'll have a whale of a time."  I had studied up before hand and informed Flo, "je vous donnerai des baleines cette fois."

This, judging by his confused expression, was to be the beginning of a whole series of language barriers.

Have you googled that translation yet?  If not, here you go: "I will give whales to you this time."
Maybe he thought that was like a specifically American form of Crabs.

Being lunchtime, we went straight for that astronaut ice-cream stuff.  Being French, and clearly classier than I,  he'd never heard of the stuff.  I tried to make a joke of it and let him know the astronauts make it themselves.  I think you already see it coming....that's not what I said.  Not at all. "Ils sont des boules faites des astronautes."

Translation:  "They are balls made of astronauts."

I can't believe he ate it.

Later in the day, we took a ride on The Scrambler.  This was my favorite ride back in the day.  If you are the unfortunate person to be in the outside seat, the centrifugal force drives the other person into you.  It is sickening awesome!  Being the host, I let Florent take the awesome seat.

Whalom Park was in its last season that year, so even though it was a weekend, nobody was there.  The carnie working the scrambler was more than happy to let it run while he ran off to grab a beer.  7 minutes in, Flo started groaning.  12 minutes in, he went really quiet.
6 minutes after that, Surly came back and let us off the ride of death.  Flo whispered to me, "Caitie, I have to kiss you."

That wasn't at all what he said, but I substituted, because I didn't know what he was trying to say.  This was only my second semester of French, and we hadn't yet learned that "dégueulis" meant "puke."

This day of sparkles ended with an enervating ride on the roller-coaster.  A piece of it fell off during the ride and hit Florent in the head.

He wrote a few months later, comfortably in his own country, safely away from all American whales, and told me I should come visit.  In the letter, he told me a phrase I would, "definitely need during my visit," but he didn't include the translation.  It was only last week, when I was proudly demonstrating my awesome French skills to co-workers that I learned what, "J'ai essayé de péter, mais faire caca est parti," really means.

"I tried to fart, but poop came out."

Thanks, Flo.