I studied French with a private instructor in Paris. She was a pleasant elderly lady who had lived in Argentina and spoke Spanish, which helped me in difficult situations, as I also spoke Spanish.
She loved art, and there were only two seats in her house that didn’t have art books on them. She had run out of shelves, and there were aisleways created by all the art books stacked waist-high all over the place. She seemed to know where all the books were located because if we touched on an art subject away, she’d go down the aisle to the stack that had the book she wanted.
Along with studying French, I was doing my art study by visiting all the art museums and painting at night. This was back in the day of the cassette Walkman. As I traveled around Paris, I listened to French lessons on tape. While in the Petit Palis, I got a very snarling look from a female museum attendant. I know you are not allowed pens in most museums, but I have no pens. France is very open about photography (without flash) in museums, but I was only listening to French lessons in my headset? She continued snarling as I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong? She finally walked over and pointed to my Walkman and my earphones. Oh, I get it, “je suis mauvais” I’m not to listen to French lessons (a Walkman) when I was supposed to be appreciating French art. Cultural lesson learned!