A french guy who never spoke English before decided to travel to the US. What went wrong?

Hey everyone, I'm a French guy, so please bear with my mistakes as English is not my native language. I'll do my best to make this post as interesting and entertaining as possible. Also, it's my first time ever posting on Chambers, so I might have made some mistakes with the formatting or anything else, excuse me for that. Finally, if some of you feel offended by this post, please tell me in the comments, I’ll make sure to correct my attitude for next time.<br><br>I’m a French student currently doing an exchange program in Mexico, so I had the opportunity to travel to the US for Spring Break. I went from March 2nd to March 9th, and I visited Austin, San Antonio, and Houston in Texas, then New Orleans in Louisiana.<br><br>Now you might be wondering how my experience was as a french guy in the US. I’ll be honest with you, it was absolutely great, and I loved American people. I met a lot of lovely people along my road, who were all very kind to me and happy to see a young french dude who wanted to visit their country.<br><br>However, I must admit that I had some hard times finding my way or doing things because of the language barrier. Indeed, as I never spoke English before, it was very hard for me to communicate for the first time. So let’s see what went wrong for me in Texas and Louisiana.<br><br>\*My hotel in Austin was 12km away from the city center. I was quite sure that there was a bus from the airport to the hotel, so I went to the information desk and asked to the lady if I could take a bus to get to my hotel. She answered me in English, and as I didn’t understand anything, I asked her to repeat in a louder voice, which made her angry. It was a very awkward situation, but a volunteer who was here to help students like me helped me to find the correct bus.\*<br><br>\*On my way to San Antonio, I stopped in a gas station to have a snack. I went to the counter to pay and I said hi, but the lady didn’t answer me as she couldn’t speak English. I was very disappointed as I felt like I was not welcome, even though I had a smile on my face.\*<br><br>\*In San Antonio, I wanted to do a guided riverwalk. The meeting point was in one of the many parks of the city, but I didn’t know where it was. I asked multiple people, who either didn’t speak English or didn’t know. I even had to fight against a homeless person who wanted to steal my shoe laces.\*<br><br>\*Trying to find a metro station in Austin to go to the airport. I spent hours trying to find the correct bus that would take me to the station. Finally, the bus driver told me I was on the wrong bus and that I should have taken another one. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know how to get back to the city center.\*<br><br>\*I didn’t know that I had to pay for a toll passage between Texas and Louisiana. Because I couldn’t pay with credit card and I didn’t have any cash, the man at the gate got mad at me and told me the story of his life because he had to print me a fine.\*<br><br>\*In Houston, I wanted to visit the Nasa. I took a shared uber ride from my hotel, and the driver told me that he would drop me off at the main gate, where I would have to walk for 15 minutes to get to the space center. In reality, it was a 45 minutes walk, which made me arrive late for the tour. I asked some guys if I was on the right path and they told me I wasn’t. They called a taxi, who dropped me off at the correct gate, but on the other side of the building. I had the chance to arrive right on time for the tour, but I was almost late because of the lack of communication.\*<br><br>\*In my last hours in the US, I wanted to do some last minute shopping before going to the airport. I asked the guy at the hotel counter to give me a list of the best shopping malls in Houston. He gave me the list, but I couldn’t find any of them on Google maps. So I took an uber ride to the Mall of America, but it was not located in Houston. I arrived in front of a random house and I had to walk 40 mins under the rain to find a quite mall.\*<br><br>\*Finally, I had to wait 3hours for my plane because the boarding gates were changed two times without any notification. I asked multiple employees, who didn’t answer me anything. Finally, a screen showed the correct gate, and I understood by chance that my flight was delayed because of a storm.\*<br><br>Overall, my trip was very hard because of the language barrier, but it was very rewarding. I found that Americans speak very fast and in a different tone than in the rest of the world, which makes it more difficult for us to understand. However, I ate delicious food, I saw incredible landscapes, and I met very kind people who helped me along the way.<br><br>If some of you felt offended by this post, I sincerely apologize. It wasn’t my purpose to show Americans under a wrong light, but to make a funny post about the mistakes I made because I couldn’t speak English. Thank you for reading my post until the end.<br><br>Edit 1:<br><br>Wow, this post blew up. I didn’t expect that so many of you would read my post. I want to thank you all for your comments and your kindness. I didn’t expect that so many of you would react like that.<br><br>To those who felt offended by the title, it was not my purpose to make fun of you. I’m a student, and I didn’t want to make a post that would make you feel offended. I hope you can forgive my mistake.<br><br>To Americans who helped me or who tell me in the comments that they would help me if they see me, thank you so much. Your kindness touched my heart, and I hope I can meet you one day on my way. <br><br>To those who want to help me with my English, thank you so much for your help. I hope I can improve significantly in the next years.<br><br>\~Luly\~