The Time I…

Back in college, four friends and I went to France for Spring Break. We found some cheap flights, and a couple of us stayed with my aunt and uncle in the suburbs, so it was a pretty inexpensive trip. (Not sure you can find tickets to France for just a couple hundred bucks anymore.)

Other than touring around Paris and experiencing its nightlife, we took the train up to Épernay in the Champagne region to hang out with a friend of mine. We went out to a nightclub and had a grand old time dancing to songs in French and English. And of course, some guys tried to dance with us. I don’t remember anything about them other than the odd request one of them made of me. Prince’s song Cream came on and this guy wanted me to translate it into French.

“Sure, no problem,” I said.

Silly me. Have you listened to those lyrics lately?

Cream
Get on top
Cream
You will cop
Cream
Don’t you stop
Cream
Sh-boogie bop

Not the easiest lyrics to translate into another language. So, that was fun. I guess I did okay, because the only other thing I remember about these guys is that they invited us back to their place for tea and cookies (really – we had tea and cookies) and they let me drive their car and I kept turning on the windshield wipers when I meant to use the turn signal.

Have you ever had to translate anything into another language? Or had to act as any kind of interpreter? How’d it go?