Night Out In Nancy

Night Out In Nancy

I had one of my favorite nights on tour last night.  There was just a small group of us (Brent, Charlene, Marie, and myself) in a pretty empty dance club.  This is one of my favorite scenarios: fun people, good music, plenty of dance floor.

There was a young looking guy named Patrick, maybe nineteen or twenty years old, with two friends.  He was very friendly and asked us where we were from.  We asked him what he was currently doing in Nancy, and he told us that he was a student.

I asked him, “Oh what do you study?”

He replied, “It is hard to explain. Hmmm, I study electricity.”

Brent then chimed in excitedly, “Do you know Benjamin Franklin?!”

The boy looked a bit confused, said something I couldn’t quite hear, and then answered, “Yes.”

Brent then yelled, “He invented electricity!” and pumped his fist.

Charlene, who is French, stepped away and went to a bar stool.  She stood there trying to compose herself, stifling laughs and wiping tears from her eyes.  Marie and I figured she was just embarrassed, but of French people, American people, or boys, we did not know.

Well, it turns out that there is a popular children’s television show that has a turtle character named Franklin.  What our new friend Patrick had said when Brent asked, “Do you know Benjamin Franklin?” was “Franklin the tortue?”

The equivalent to this scene “back home” I imagine goes something like this:

You are at a local bar on a quiet Sunday night and you see a group of French people.  You want to practice your French a little so you go over and ask the group where they are from, etc.  They ask you what you are doing in the town you are in and after you say you are a student, they ask what you are studying.

You are studying aerospace engineering, but that is a bit hard to explain so you reply, “Space.”

Then a really excited French guy lights up and says, “Do you know Dora the Explorer?!”

And you are like, “Yeaaaah.”

And he yells, “She invented the space shuttle!” as he high fives someone next to him.