I studied French with a private instructor in Paris. She was a pleasant elderly lady who had lived in Argentina and spoke Spanish. This helped in difficult situations as I spoke Spanish as well.
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 shelving and there were literally aisle ways 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 and to the stack that had the book in she wanted.
Along with studying French, I was doing my own art study by visiting all the art museums over and over 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 to have pens in most museums, but I had no pen. France is very open about photography (without flash) in museums, but I was only listening to French lessons in my headset? She continued with the snarling as I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong? She finally walked over and pointed to my walkman and to 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!