Please I'm terribly sorry, do forgive me I know this is a touch late, please thanks for understanding. Please.

England is the most polite country I think in existence. Maybe not the security checks, but in the actual ununiformed people surely are.

An actual conversation: (at a Starbucks, also. Not some quaint little cafe with a sweet old woman serving. An oldish businessy looking man and a rumply looking girl.)

"Yes good morning, how are you?"

"Fine thanks, what can I get you sir?"

"Ah grand. May I please have a cup of your very fine home brew, if you don’t mind."

"Yes of course, what size would you like please?"

"Oh gosh sorry, a large if you don’t mind. With some extra room for milk please if it’s not too much trouble."

"Not at all. 3 pounds 95 please. To stay or to go please?"

"To stay, thanks."

"Right here you are thanks, have a nice day then."

"Thanks so much, to you as well."

Even the traffic lights warn you before they’re going to switch to green. "Don’t want to startle you but here we go now, get ready please."

I’d always been made fun of for being overly polite, and I know why it is now. In all the times I’d been to England I hadn’t noticed it before. But when you come direct from Paris you can’t help but laugh. It is a bit ridiculous, the amount of sidestepping and extra words it takes to speak British English.

It worries me a bit that I found it so strange. I don’t want to become Parisian. I don’t want to audibly scoff and turn up my nose to last season’s Prada and cross roads illegally as though it’s my right. Though that last one I do, alright. That’s an Ann Arbor thing though I think more than a Paris thing.

I like Paris, I do, but I am very content being a foreigner in Paris. I don’t really like being mistaken for French. Especially when people talk to me in French and then are shocked when I don’t reply quickly and perfectly.

There’s something to be said for saying what you mean and getting to the point, but there’s also a little thing called tact. And courtesy. Gracefulness. I like these things. I don’t want to lose them in the rush of Paris.

Somewhere in the middle would be nice. Somewhere in the middle is generally a good place to be. Maybe by the time I get back to the states Paris will have balanced out my English and I’ll be perfectly American, in America. That’d be a good state to be in.