All by myself

Inspired by my friend’s trek to the Arch de Triomphe yesterday, I decided to forge my own path in search of a park in which to read Caesar’s Gallic Wars. The Jardin des Plantes, Paris’s botanical gardens, was right next to the Seine, and although many of its specimens seemed to be dying, the grounds themselves were beyond extravagant.


Afterwards, I walked along the river. Locals were picnicking, drinking, and playing music. La Mosquée de Paris was just around the corner, so I headed in that direction to get some mint tea and baklava. It was a nice day, everyone bonjour-ing left and right, until a man about a foot shorter than me added a “ça va?” Oh oui, ça va. What a good opportunity to practice my French. He quickly learned that I was a student, and a little less quickly I gleaned that he was a cop, assigned to protect Carla Bruni in the South of France. I didn’t really buy it.

“Urrr, est-ce que vous avez aimé la Sud de la France?”

My French is comically limited sometimes.

He walked me to the mosque and lingered (alarmingly). He asked to see me again, in several different languages, but I replied simply, en francais,

“Non, je suis une étudiante. Je dois étudier. Merci beacoup!”

And went, much frazzled, into the mosque café. Turns out, it is a very good place to relax if you don’t mind crowds of people. It took me awhile to find out that I could just sit down wherever, but once I had, I began to appreciate the atmosphere. It’s very pretty inside, there’s a shop that my mother would love: a closet-space filled with cookware and lamps. I bought a baklava and sat down in the open-air section. A man brought me a small thé à la menthe, which was hot but surprisingly refreshing. I read about Gaul until it the sun started to set, opting to take the Metro rather than walk and risk practicing my French on any more locals.

Exploring in excess

After successfully purchasing an Orange Mobicarte (SIM card) for my phone and finally connecting to the internet, I felt much less communicationally challenged. Purchasing the card was not too frustrating, once I realized the true meaning of the number one rule: always try to speak in French. The rule is not “Always try to speak French, first, then gradually slip into English, hoping that they won’t notice.” I had to try to speak in French consistently. Look, it’s the first time I’m in a foreign country by myself: give me a break.

Many things I did today could be considered French, besides speaking in the cell phone store. For one, I bought a baguette. This is not a cliché, or maybe it is, but with good roots in reality. In the morning, everyone is carrying a fresh baguette. Not everyone can be a tourists. I understood this phenomenon once I had a taste. Baguettes in France are not the same as the baguettes your mother buys in Whole Foods. The crust is crisp, even delicate and the inside is like eating a cloud. This experience loses something throughout the day, as even French baguettes go stale. It’s not difficult to buy them early… the smell coming from the boulangeries is beyond tempting. Not to mention their store front displays. Even the most simple bakery has a myriad of extravagant confections in the window.


It’s easy to believe that the French are very serious about food. At least in the area I’m staying, people seem to be in cafés 24/7. During breakfast, lunch, or dinner there is more food on their plates, but throughout the day they are sitting there, people-watching or sunning themselves. Sipping an espresso or glass of wine, or a refreshing citron pressé. You have no idea how excited I was to find out that things in my French textbook actually exist in reality. Pour example, la citron pressé: DIY lemonade, complete with water, lemon, and sugar. C’est génial!

I guess that it’s only because the weather’s so nice that shops are taking their business outside. What happens to all these open-air markets when the temperature drops? The smells overlap each other; the stands of fresh fish at the poissonerie were invading the sidewalk, as were the goods from a fromagerie. I was very impressed, and not only by their delicious samples of Roquefort cheese, sampled on a dark, crusty bread. Every cheese was paired with its own wine.

I scouted out the park across from my dorm, to see if it was friendly to joggers. It is beautiful. And the ground is littered with chestnuts. With so many roasted chestnut vendors abound, it begs the question: which came first, the vendor or the chestnuts? If I knew what a chestnut tree looked like, I could tell whether the ones on the ground are straight from nature, or a less direct lineage. It seems like some of their spiky outer casings are around, so maybe the former is true; if that’s so I might pick up a few to roast myself. Oh mon dieu, I would wash them!


Last night, I cried myself to sleep, reading about Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. Tonight I went out with friends. We were supposed to get diner at a worker’s collective called Le Temps des Cerises, recommended by two of our guide books and an English couple leaving the place. A one hour wait scared us away; we were hungry and tired, then we found similar waiting times at other restaurants. We settled on an inexpensive place and went to get crepes while we waited. Une bonne idée, vraiment. Le crepe de marron was thick and filled with nutty, sugary flavor, reminding me of the chestnuts I had seen earlier. Une nutella was… as expected.

Our dinner was cheap and salty, but, by consensus, not the worst food we’d ever tasted. My duck confit was crisp, falling off the bone and accompanied by what looked like tater tots and a salad. The water was filthy, but that was fine, since the couple next to us gave us their wine, saying that it was awful and not to judge all French wines by the house variety of this so-so restaurant.

The evening could have been longer, but it also could have been worse. Nightlife expeditions may have to wait until next weekend.

At first sight

It’s hard to fall in love with Paris at first sight. Maybe if your plane landed on top of the Eiffel tower and your French were as flawless as your couture, there’d be a chance for instant amour, but otherwise, there’s going to be some friction.

I don’t think of myself as obscenely self-conscious, but if you met me and my ego just after landing, much less leaving the airport, you could mistake us for an old-fashioned traveling show: rubber woman threatens to collapse and destroy the already miniscule flea circus.

I had to order things by pointing. Once my attempts at French failed, the looks I received decimated my speaking abilities entirely. In the airport, after being one of the last to get my luggage and feeling maybe 60% sure that French Customs called me an idiot to my face, paranoia kicked in. All the Information Stations in the world were in a conspiracy against me, sending me in circles looking for mobile phone stores in order to distract me from my actual mission…

Getting on the subway. By now I’m hoping that someone will understand that I’m confused and not French if I stand and look around dumbly, or if I pace a small area muttering introductory phrases.
In New York, surely because people there are friendly and kind, someone would question this behavior. In France, there are only booths of people who watch you suffer. Until you approach them and make them speak the Devil’s tongue.

I think I terrified some people on the subway. The combination of jet-lag and fear of pickpockets. I look like the Undead.

I made it to the Fondation Des Etats-Unis. People here speak English, but my coordinator thought it was really funny to speak in French all the time, especially after I told her I couldn’t. Oh what? Oh, you just told the front-desk lady that my francais est parfait? Oh merci, merci. Tres bien…

My room looks like a space station, however, with gravity. There are nice spotted curtains.

For a while, I was with a group of students. We went across the streets to learn how to buy subway tickets on the machines that actually use English. My good friend Julia abandoned me, laughing hysterically as I stood in line; I was thinking I might learn something.

Who needs food when you need a SIM card for your phone? In hindsight, I see that the plan had its flaws. An hour later, I was in my room sobbing on the bed, with numb feet. I will break-in these fancy shoes, or they will break me.

Hunger finally sends me out again. Because it was met with such success last time around, I decide to try my favorite French joke in a local tabac. “Excuse-moi, s’il vous plait. Parlez vous Anglais?”
Knocks ‘em dead.
Every. Time.

“Je dois acheter un… SIM card… pour mon… cell phone?” Miraculously, and I do not use the word lightly, a young English-woman interrupts the owner and actually gives me directions! To a store! With a name! She even runs after me when she sees that I’ve turned down the wrong street.

The store is closed, but there are excellent smells coming from a hole-in-the-wall, Middle Eastern deli. There is schwarma dripping, there are sauces stewing, there are fresh vegetables, looking very fresh. This man does not speak English, but when he finds out that I can’t really speak French, he starts to teach me the names of everything in the store! Poulle! Sandwich! Le sauce Aioli!

What’s this?
“It’s good, try it.”
A date?
“A date- I mean, un… dat?”

This makes him incredibly happy and he gives me two sauces on my fries. The world is delicious again as I eat for the first time in Paris.