Vous voulez egg roll avec ça?

Need to practice some French with native speakers and don't have a passport? Take a (long) drive up to Madawaska, Maine, which holds the distinction of  being the Frenchiest town in America, a place where, according to the 2000 US Census, 83 percent of its residents spoke French as their first language (!). These are the descendents of the Acadians, who came from the west coast of France in the 1600s, were chased out of Nova Scotia by the British  before the revolution, and scattered among the coastal US colonies (some ended up in Louisiana, where they became Cajuns), and finally returned after the war to the St John River valley.

I was recently up there, and the French they speak, I was told, is closer to the French of 400 years ago than Parisian French is today. It certainly is weird. I wasn't sure it was even French till I heard a "mais, oui!" But because of their proximity to Canada they also can speak "formal" French, so I had the unique experience of ordering dinner in French in a Chinese restaurant in Maine! (And the food wasn't bad.)