Yoga En Français

I  arrived yesterday for my long overdue first trip to Paris. I have wanted to come here for at least two decades, probably longer.

One of the first things I noticed is that people, especially those in the service industry, size up English speakers pretty quickly. I was a little bummed by this, mostly because they all immediately assumed I spoke English without trying French. Anyway, it's true my French is far from fluent--but I have been trying to use it. This morning I found my way over to a yoga studio I researched on the Internet. It was a beautiful studio and I managed the basic transaction of paying for the class successfully. I got to the changing area and a man came in and said something to me about clothes. Having absolutely no idea what he said, I smiled politely, put my bag in a locker and quickly went to the studio. During class, the instructor spoke entirely in French--except when she could tell I didn't understand her directions because I wasn't following them. Oh, and she used sanskrit twice. Only twice, and that was a bummer because sanskrit was my backup. It was a pretty good class, and I'm glad I tried it. My broken toe didn't slow me down too much and since I was constantly trying to translate French, I had absolutely no mental surrender, but it did feel really good to move my body after so much traveling and walking.

When class was over, I made my way back to the changing area. All during class, I had the thought that what the guy was trying to tell me was that I was in the men's changing area. Yup, he was. I snuck in quickly after some guy finished changing and grabbed my bag.

On my way back to the hotel, I ran into Kimberly, the owner of Tranquil Space and organizer of the trip. It was great to chat with her and her "beau", in English, about our Parisian adventures.