Parlez-Vous Anglais

Sometimes you need to get lost in a strange place to find your inner warrior...

When adventures go smoothly, they open our hearts in that safe, uplifting way. But the real transformations—the ones that force us to become the heroes of our own stories—happen when things go wrong. A flawless trip is just a holiday. A proper adventure brings challenges that ignite the warrior spark we all carry inside.

I first met my inner warrior the summer I turned twelve, when my dad took a job in the mountains of Alsace, France. One hot July day, the moving crew emptied our Cambridgeshire cottage, and we piled into the car with our golden retriever and a mountain of bags. As we drove away from the village where I’d grown up, I felt like I was floating in someone else’s life.

That village was my whole world. My sister Katie and I knew every secret: how to sneak into the abandoned schoolhouse for hide-and-seek, which tree in the park was tallest for perching and chatting. I’d biked every dirt road through golden oilseed rape fields until hunger called me home. I’d never once been lost.

Now everything familiar was vanishing. Mum called it “embarking on a great adventure.” I’d attend a French school in the Voges mountains. Everything would be different. I wasn’t sad or excited—I just couldn’t believe it was real.

As the houses we knew sped out of view, Katie started to cry.

“Shut up,” I hissed, smacking her. “Stop being such a baby.”

Mum reached back. “Don’t cry. And don’t fight. This is going to be amazing—we have to pull together.”

“But I don’t understand French!” Katie wailed.

“You’ll learn,” Mum said airily. “And people speak English! Just ask for help.” She pulled out her pocket French dictionary. “How do you say ‘Do you speak English?’”

“Parlez-vous anglais?” we chirped together. Our only phrase.

“You see? You’ll be fine!”

For the entire two-day journey Mum quizzed us from her dictionary in her terrible English accent. The French words melted away forgotten like polo mints on our tongues. By the time the mountains of Alsace rose ahead, all we had left was our magic sentence: “Parlez-vous anglais?”

I clung to it as we wound through vineyards, past timber-framed houses with iron baskets of straw on chimneys (“For the storks!” Mum announced from her new guidebook). Petrol stations sold baguettes and beer. Tiny French dogs barked behind ornate gates. The air smelled like wine. Everything was different.

“I want to go home,” Katie whimpered.

“This is home,” Mum said firmly as we drove up the tiny road to Jungholtz—a village even smaller than ours but straight out of The Sound of Music, with geranium-decked balconies overlooking green mountains.

We had ten minutes to explore our new house and fight over bedrooms before the moving truck arrived and boxes swarmed in. As Mum shouted directions, Dad pushed us outside. “Your bikes have arrived! Go explore the village. It’s down the hill. Buy some bread.” He handed us francs and pointed vaguely down the hill.

We’d spent whole summers on those bikes, so we pedalled off like locals—past teen boys staring on a basketball court, up to a beautiful church overlooking the valley and distant Alps.

“Wow,” Katie said. “I can’t believe we live here.”

We sat too long on the church wall, sun on our cheeks, air cold in our lungs, chatting and feeling like professional adventurers. Turns out we weren’t professional adventurers… when we finally headed back, I couldn’t remember the way. I rode confidently anyway—I didn’t want to scare Katie—turning left and right, hoping something would look familiar.

“We’re going in circles,” Katie shouted.

“This way!” I yelled, but it was hopeless. No familiar streets. No one around. I stopped at a bus stop to study the map, but it was a useless string of incomprehensible words.

“I don’t know how to get home,” I admitted, and burst into tears.

Katie smacked me. “You idiot! How are we lost?”

“Well, you could lead us home!” I shouted.

“I was following you!”

An old man appeared, muttering French.

“Excuse me!” I shouted. “We are lost! Parlez-vous anglais?”

“Non,” he snapped, walking on.

“He’s supposed to help,” Katie whimpered.

“Let’s just find the shop,” I snapped.

We wheeled our bikes around for ages until we finally found a tiny bakery. “Bonjour,” I said as we walked in. “Parlez-vous anglais?”

The woman smiled. “Non.”

Katie exploded: “What do you mean non? We’re lost! We’re English! You’re supposed to help!”

We both started crying. The woman studied us curiously, spoke soothing French that made no sense, then called her husband. He didn’t speak English either. They rubbed our arms, confused but kind, repeating “Anglais?” as we nodded furiously.

Eventually the woman picked up the phone. Minutes later a teenage girl appeared.

“You are English?” she said confidently despite her thick accent. “Why you cry?”

“We’re lost,” I said. “We want home but don’t know where.”

She understood and explained to the couple. They laughed, recognising the new “famille anglaise.”

“We know your house,” the girl said. “Follow me.”

She led us home, which was only about three minutes away but it felt like she’d led us out of the distant mountains after a great expedition.

“Merci!” we said, hugging her with relief. “Merci so much!”

“It’s ok,” she laughed. “All is new for you. You are brave.”

As she waved goodbye and disappeared down the hill, we started laughing.

“That’s so embarrassing!” I yelled. “How did we get lost three minutes from our house?”

“All is new for you,” Katie echoed. “You are brave.”

“We are brave!” I said. “And no one here speaks a scrap of English, so we’d better learn French.”

“Baguette?” she said, and we burst out laughing, chattering random French words as we walked back into our new home.

That day, “Parlez-vous anglais?” didn’t save us. But continuing to pedal around that village did. It was the first time I understood: the real warrior magic isn’t about always getting it right—it’s the courage to keep going even when you’re totally lost.