Going to France at the end of July ...

First of all don’t pee in the funny looking toilet, which is the bidet …

Do not stress, that’s one of the friendliest areas of France that you could visit, or at least that is my experience.  Just go with the flow and enjoy it….Make sure you hit the Saturday market at  Place du Capitole.

Cool to hear, Jeng!  Right when you leave I'll be getting there.  Hmmmm, you planned it that way, didn't you?

Are you going to catch any of Le Tour? Take a train up to London to watch some of the Olympics?
That'd be what I would do  

It would be worth seeing if they ride through the area or not if it falls into our host's itinerary.

Taking the train wouldn't work out for our scheduling, but, thanks for reminding me - I forgot about that!

Well, if you aren't busy this Fri., I'll have the beer and pool if you want to bring the pics and family and stop over!

Wow that is great.  I don't know much about Toulouse but we had a similar wonderful experience after hosting a student in 1989 or so.  Laetitia visited and joined in like a member of the family.  The next year our middle daughter visited with Laetitia's family and then their youngest visited us.  And so it has gone for 23 years.  We just saw them this year for the first time in a long while when we went to Paris for our youngest daughter's first marathon.  We stayed at one of the hotels their family owns.  Laetitia is now the hotel manager.  It was wonderful to see her --so mature but so much the same.  I hope your French Connection lasts as long and as well as ours.

TW

Copying and printing some of this stuff off, taking a copy with me, and then will see what the host family has scheduled.  One more week to go before I hop on my first LOOOOOOOOOONG International flight EVAH!

I. AM. SOOOOOOOOO. STOKED!!!!!!

Laissez-les vous frappez autour.  (The Cars got in my head).

You certainly are ready for France...

You should definitely ride there if you can. Some of my best memories are of touring France by bike - people are very friendly in general especially if you are on a bike.

One other thing - if you make an effort, no matter how small or poor, to speak the language you will be better received than if you speak slowly and loudly in english!

Enjoy!

x2 for pretty much the entire post.

To add a couple of things, trying to speak some french goes a very long way. If you do need to ask for directions or help or anything you will have better luck if you first ask if they have a moment to help you and once they reply yes, and they normally will, then ask your questions. 

Also when meeting people it is fairly normal to say hello to everyone in the room individually; you would also shake their hand or go through the cheek kissing ritual (note the number of kisses depends on the region). Basically just follow the lead of whoever you are visiting.

If you do decide you want to order a coke, you should try and remember to ask for a coca (think first half of coca-cola) as asking for coke could easily be misinterpreted as asking for something else. That said, I'm guessing that your accent will give away the fact that you are a tourist so you probably would not run into any trouble.

Have fun on the trip, France can be a lot of fun.

Toulouse is lovely.  Hire a car and see some of the countryside as it's a beautiful place.  The pace is dead slow.  Expect friendly service but be patient - it's slooooow.  Meals are an event not a function.  Don't freak out if you see children with a little glass of red on the table next to you.

Despite your concerns, you'll find all the bathrooms are perfectly modern facilities.

Find some Churches to visit - they are nearly all amazing. Even if you're not religious you can't help but marvel at the architecture.

Of course as a Londoner, my best advice would be to get a train up here - this place is going to be rocking at the end of July.

This. Learn something, anything about the language, and try to use it, no matter how clumsily you pull it off, or not. 

Here's the skinny on the language thing: The French are afraid that the US culture will push theirs to the edge, or out of existence, which in part it might, but you can't tell them that, or behave like it's a given. When I lived there in the 70's, there was a huge pushback against "Le Big Mac" and "Le Weekend" (the french 'Fin de la Semaine' is much longer, hence the desire of most people to use English), to the point that there was legislation to ban people from saying English 'shortcuts' in normal speech, and certainly in advertising. They were afraid that their language, and culture, would slowly erode. However, globalization happened, and the cat was out of the bag....so... 

...the French have recognized this, so now it's not about protecting their culture - it's about protecting their pride. I speak both languages fluently, and frequently ask other US folks that go over what they think....and the overwhelming majority say this: For the first 5 minutes you're speaking to anyone in France (not just paris), try in French.  It's a way of saying you value their culture, on their soil, and that's what it takes to get great service, make a business relationship, not get treated like the foreigner. 

And they also shared that in 99% of the cases, within 5 minutes of having the conversation in French, the French folks will volunteer to speak English to you, even if they never let on that they speak English. The important part here is that they've initiated it. And it goes better in English for two reasons: 1) your french sucks and nothing's getting done, and their English is much better than your French so progress can be found there, and 2) They want to practice their English, as it's the language of business and tourism. But the key is for them to initiate it...it's all about pride and respect. 

Like in the NFL, sometimes coaches come up with a 'script' of plays that they'll run at the start of the game. Inre to language, I might do the same...I'd think of 5 or so common situations you're going to be in 1) arriving at a restaurant, 2) lost, 3) looking for the taxi or train, 4) looking for a bathroom, whichever others you think you might run into, and learn the first three things to say in each situation. Then, you can always say "I don't understand ", which is the invitation for the French folks to transition to English, which they will.  That's what I did in China two months ago, and Bratislava last month, and it's amazing how far that little olive branch will go. 

PS: Learned that lesson 40 years ago. An American tourist was beating the hell out of a pay phone and screaming at the top of his lungs that the phone wouldn't take 'real money'. As I spoke both languages, I mediated his dispute with the pay phone and uncovered that he was shoveling dimes into a French pay phone with no results. No wonder things are the way they are....

I read this post two hours ago and i'm still really aggravated and annoyed.  I showed my wife and she just laughed.  I'm not going to derail a nice thread so won't be replying again but it's astonishing.

Afraid that the US culture will push theirs out of existence??  Interchanging globalisation with US culture?? 

You might speak both languages fluently but you understand nothing.  How ironic.  

I guess we'll agree to disagree, and I'm sorry it annoyed you. There was no disrespect intended. 

My comments were based on living there in the 70's and 80's, and doing business there in the 90's and current decades, not just speaking the language. I bet I've spent 20-30% of my life there. It's my experience and opinion, backed up by about a thousand conversations about why things are they way they are with French citizens, business people, expats, and visitors. Including the CEOs of several large French companies, and living through the transition that France has gone through. I don't think I'm off base, but you're entitled to your opinions, other than it's hard to know what your opinion is, because you've chosen to bash me, rather than have a decent conversation. 

I'd appreciate it if you'd confine your comments to my views, not me personally, and if you'd like to offer anything more about what you don't think is accurate on on target, in your view, that would be much more helpful than attacking me without providing any constructive input.

Thankyou in advance. 

Thanks, everyone, so far, for reminding me to make sure to be on my best behavior, since I like to be smarmy at times (oh, really?).  I have a free Android French translator app since I don't know beyond the basic "Thank you", "Good Night", and a couple of other things, but the host family Father and son do speak very affluent English.  I'm sure they'll poke fun at me at times, all in jest.

My wife and I just purchased a Canon EOS T3 DSLR and I'm learning as much as I can about it so as to take some great shots while out there.

J'adore ton bon mots. Je les souris.

I really don't think it's worthy of conversation, your view is based on a very solid batch of experience and I won't be changing your mind in a couple of posts, we're too far apart and I find your views extremely offensive (which is anyone's right of course, it's ok in this environment of free speech to have views that others find offensive IMHO - I don't expect or want someone not to express a view just because I think it's deplorable)

However, I apologise for the tone of my post, I don't want anyone to think I'm attacking them personally as it's really not my style.

That's cool, no worries.