Easing back in

My first several days back in Par-ee consist of remembering. Familiar sights, fuzzy metro connection memories, excavated idiosyncrasies about the French language.

At least twice a day I am struck--I usually begin laughing when it happens. There are lots of French "fun facts" I have forgotten.

1) [A freebie] The French make out ALL THE TIME. I know this one's a give-away, too obvious to make the list, probably, but seriously, it catches me by surprise every time. No age, location, nor situation is off limits. My hotess charmante, Ms. Schnakenberg, took me to the man-made lake in the woods to the west of Paris (Bois de Boulougne), and rowed me around, a page out of a true Parisian romance. In that vein, the real Parisians did not disappoint: it started to rain (Me: "Kate, someday we'll tell our grandchildren all about how we fell in love in the rain, in a rowboat by Bois du Boulougne!"), and we see to our right two adults taking shelter under a very tall bush, Francois Le-Frenchy-Pants et Francine "I'm 40 but maybe this outfit will trick you into thinking otherwise" Le Peu. They are clinging to each other to stay out of the rain, how cute!, I think. Au contraire, they are clinging to each other, probably oblivious to the fact that a torrential downpour has commenced, and they are SUCKING FACE. Not cutesy, lovey dovey smooching but hard core This-Rain-Could-Be-The-End-So-Let's-Go-Out-With-A-Bang (pun maybe intended).

It's not just old folks in natural settings, oh no; on the escalator, en ligne at a cafe, in the middle of the tourist flock at St. Michel, it's like these French people who (on the surface) detest the tourists that bombard their city each summer are determined to give us what we really came for--a first hand glance at what the City of Love is all about. I'm not intending to sound bitter, here, I just... forgot. And was really wholly unprepared. These scenarios turn you, against your will, into some kind of awful voyeur and you just can't look away, and for a moment you feel like it's YOUR fault for being such a creep! But it's not, you guys. Paris is all about the exhibitionism. That's why you came.

2. The French drink (drip) coffee from bowls. Sure, we all know the Parisian coffee shop stereotype, lay down three one-Euro coins, receive a shot of espresso. (Worry not about being short-changed: the stuff will jolt you for hours.) But this particular coffee-consuming habit had completely left my memory. I first stumbled upon the custom when I visited Limoges (of porcelain fame) my sophomore year of high school. Sitting down to breakfast with my host family, I was delighted to see we were to consume giant chunks of steaming hot baguette and was utterly befuddled to see the bread dipped in large cereal-sized bowls. Bread in cereal? Soggy milky bread? What? No. It was a giant bowl of coffee, which was then and is typically consumed black. Kate's favorite cafe in Montmartre (the most Parisian p'tit dej' on the block) strays not from this tradition, and twice now we've jump started the day with bowls of cafe au lait. Parfait.



In the interest of time, this is to-be-continued, but for now...

3) The young people shorten EVERYTHING. I mean, oh wait, totes so do we. But still. Did you turn on the ordi? How's the coloc in the new apparte? It's usually not too hard to put back together (ordinateur-computer, colocataire-roommate, appartement, etc.), but sometimes you can get it wrong. Kate and I concluded that French people, yes, even Parisians, are super kind and forgiving as long as you legitimately try to speak passable French. Non-intentionally, they are even a little insulting when they can't hide their shock at your competence at speaking their language. I thought a vendor would fall out of his seat today when I asked him if his crappy touristy post-cards were indeed 15 centimes each (not too good to be true, as it turned out). Kate's French friend hosted a lovely apero yesterday, and shared with the group, much to Kate's chagrin, her most amusing faux-pas's. Her brother, Kate had been explaining, recently bought a little puppy, un "shee-oh" (chiot), but instead Kate told Olivia that her brother had effectively purchased a crapper ("shee-ot," chiotte) and her story pretty much ended there, to the chorus of riotous laughter.

All for now. <3
Jessie