Day Three: Paris, Part one
Friday, October 17th, 2008Yes, I’m sitting in a McDonalds.
But it’s pronounced McDonalds. Today begins with more shame as we sit on the second floor of a McD’s, drinking prefab cappucinos surfing the web. You do what you have to for an addiction, right? And I’m overlooking the tiny park of the Republic, so I still win. There’s a giant stone Madame Liberte across the street cheering me on, so let’s do this thing.
Josh and I got up at the crack of dawn this morning, made a small breakfast for ourselves and emerged just as light was coming up. I successfully ordered coffee in french — which is good because I fell asleep practicing what I would say, darnnit .
My attitude is better today. I’ve finally embraced the fact that, despite my best intentions, I can only be the stupid American tourist that France expects me to be. I’ll be as polite as I can, but seeing as how I still can’t speak the language, I will frustrate some people when outside the normal tourist spots. C’est la vie.
Some observations so far:
There’s a lot of bikes: thousands of’em. And every rider is 10x braver than I am because there is no way I would take my life into my hands on these streets. Those lines in the road, denoting lanes? Merely vague suggestions of where you could be, if you wanted to drive there, but hey, no pressure. The drivers do what they want. Bikers do what they want, too: and everyone’s got either a peddling bike or some motorized variety — teenagers, businesspeople, old ladies.
Every place we’ve gone has been the definition of efficient. If they’ve got space, they cram every nook and cranny of it. We passed a restaurant yesterday with a tiny little table facing nowhere - they use every inch. Unless, of course, you’re a high end gallery or clothing store: then you flaunt all that excess room.
99.9% of the people here are fashionable. I feel like I’m participating in a Vogue fashion shoot every time I step outside (as maybe the lighting girl, I’m certainly not up the strutting caliber of these ladies). And there’s fashionable dudes, which just delights Josh. On our normal route to and from the apartment, there are twice as many men’s stores than women’s — this is not typical to America. There are a lot of boots and a lot of scarves (thanks for catching up, Paris, I’ve been wearing scarves from Oct to May for years now), oodles of fancy purses and BLACK. It seems like everybody smokes, and everyone’s as skinny as a rail. Josh and I are practicing our strut today in an effort to appear local, even at a distance. This will be difficult, however, since I can’t seem to go more than a block without smiling or giggling at our situation. …and the French don’t smile, at least not as us.
Today is full of possibilities — once we’ve finished up here at McD’s, we’re walking south to the River Siene and then west to the Louvre. Josh would like to avoid the Metro so we can see the city, but I don’t know if we’ll have enough steam by the time we finish the Louvre. We’ll see. Either way, who cares: we’re in Paris!