When this writer was young, travelling through Paris in the family car on the way to Spain, it came as a shock to discover the Fermeture Annuelle. What was the matter? Didn’t they want our money? We had after all gone to all this trouble to take the car ferry into this strange country. The least they could do would be to keep the shops open in the high season, wasn’t it? The short answer was “non”.

Everyone loves the idea of the South of France in summer. But the reality? The crowds, the traffic, the high prices, the attitude? Not so much. But there's an alternative worth exploring. It's planned to reduce your stress level—and what's not to like about that?

When I was living as a teenager in Spain back in the '70s, the topic of toilets in Europe was never-ending conversation for many Americans, from the filmy tissue-type toilet paper that resembled flimsy wrapping paper, to the strips of newspapers. We’ve come a long way from those days, haven’t we?

You know those days where an over-priced scoop of ice cream is a necessity to keep on keeping on? There have been a lot of those lately. I am practically on a first-name basis with the sales help at my local Hediard on the corner of Rue Nicolo and Avenue Paul Doumer in the 16th arrondissement, and I have only lived here two weeks.

Blame it on that movie “Taken,” about a girl named Amanda getting abducted trying to make her way from the airport into Paris, but I get a bit twitchy about ground transportation upon arrival in France. I recognize that this is an unfounded, irrational fear; as long as one does not abandon her common sense, there are a myriad of reasonable options to get into Paris from the airport(s). Sometimes, though, this means also doing a little homework.

Sometimes I wonder how anyone survives on just two weeks of vacation per year. It seems like voluntary slavery compared to the French philosophy: minimum of five weeks. I look back on the old days like Mandela, reflecting on life in captivity. I was a bug in a cage, staring at a fluorescent light, and now that I've breathed the fresh open spaces and shining sun of a world with ridiculous amounts of vacation, a thought has dawned on me: I can never go back.

On November 6th, 2006, I had a stent placed into my right coronary artery and since then have led what I considered a good life: eating well, exercising, drinking a glass of red wine (usually French) with dinner, getting my blood lipids checked every six months, wondering about the genetic legacy both my parents had passed on (both died of coronary artery disease) and checking in with my cardiologist regularly.

I grew up with five brothers and no sisters. This meant I was destined to be either a tomboy or a priss. I became the latter. I learned French, how to tie a scarf and how to fix myself up with little visible effort put forth very early on. Eleven years of living in Paris followed. The die was cast; I had become a femme du monde of sorts, a well-traveled woman who valued the elegance and refinement a life in France has to offer.

Living life in a foreign language can turn the most articulate in their native tongue into bumbling idiots abroad. In this essay, Toma Haines explores a host of humiliations as she confesses why she will likely never be fluent in any foreign language.