Because I Like Lists...

I've been starting to find that essentially any question I have regarding all things Parisian has the same answer. Three examples:

1) A few weeks ago, the metro line I was on decided to stop running and boot everyone off at Concorde and I wondered why. Answer: Because they're on strike.

2) Last Tuesday I tried to go to an architecture class at Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, but I showed up to find the building a ghost town and wondering why no one was there. Answer: Because they're on strike.

3) The other day I wondered why I wasn't making any French friends. Answer: They, too, are all on strike.


Which leads me to the conclusion that if America's national pastime is baseball, France's is going on strike (faire la grève). In America, it's three strikes and you're out. In France, it's three strikes and you're just an amateur, but come on back next Tuesday and there's a manifestation in Montparnasse. All the cool kids are doing it. I'm pretty sure that the most effective way of making French friends would probably not be, as suggested by our director, tapping a French student on the shoulder and saying roughly the equivalent of "yo whatup I'm American and stupid, let's be friends,"but instead donning a picket sign and catchy chant ending in "dans la rue" and marching the streets with all the grève-ers. No matter if I have no idea why they're grève-ing (5 weeks paid vacation every year? 35 hour work weeks? Free education? Free health care? Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed, too.) If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Even the police force standing on the side of the road watching the marching masses look a tad bit jealous and unthreatening at best.



Now for a Top Ten Tally of small, everyday victories and corresponding failures:

1) Mastering the French laundry machines (victory) but not managing to figure out how to work the drying rack contraption above the shower (which I'm sure is a close cousin of the guillotine) without risking losing a limb (failure). Lucky for me, turns out the drying machine actually dries clothes effectively without shrinking them (victory).

2) Buying a ballgown (victory) for a ball I will be attending at the Opéra Garnier (victory!!!!!) with a broken zipper (failure) that can be fixed and which I used as leverage to bargain myself into a 15% discount (victory).

3) Figuring out the bus system (victory) but almost missing my stop because the doors closed on me (failure) and I was spared by a nice French lady who yelled "La porte, s'il vous plaît!" so the driver would open the doors (victory for the French reputation, props for that lady for dispelling negative French stereotypes).

4) Being pelted with berries by adolescent French boys whilst sitting in the Jardins de Luxembourg (hilarious failure).

5) Getting a successfull haircut in Paris (decently priced, no mullet action) despite hyper-active French hairstylists thanks to Katherine's gold-medal efforts (victory) at looking up salon terminology on the interwebs.

6) Thinking it would be funny to stage a fake-proposal at a restuarant in Lyon on Valentine's Day in an attempt to get free stuff (would-be victory) and then realizing that no one was going to give us so much as a free glass of wine and that it would be wise to abandon ship and stick to Plan A (making fun of all the sugary sweet couples), only to realize that Santi had asked how to propose à la francaise when he got a wink and a "bonne chance" from the waiter upon leaving (failure times 10 and the second most embarrassing moment of my life, congrats Santi, you win this time).

7) Befriending the owners of the all-night crêpe stand (victory!) by Emma's apartment who feed us delicious crêpes (victory!!) and ward off the semi-sketchy 3 am clientele (victory).

8) Walking along the Seine or exploring the beautiful 16ème getting exercise without touching a treadmill(victory) wearing sweatpants (yes, victory, I've gotten over being judged by the French) on a Sunday only to find that virtually all food establishments are closed except for McDonalds, which in an ironic twist = Gina's 3rd time eating at MacDo in Paris (failure).

9) Eating falafel at the best falafel place in France - L'As de Falafel - three times (victory) but never without managing to escape being awkwardly flirted with (failure) because I look/am mediterranean and ethnic. Even when wearing faux-pas sweatpants (failure).

10) The ability to find a decent bottle of wine for 3 euro at your local monoprix (do I even need to label this one?)


And, finally, my favorite "only in Paris" moment:
Walking back home from a gala/concert/dance party at an aquarium (where you exchanged your entrance ticket for tickets for free cocktails and beautifully dressed French college students milled about amongst floor-to-ceiling fish tanks listening to and occassionally dancing to techno music, swing/jazz bands, and a rock band), late enough for the Eiffel Tower to be in shadow emo-style with semi-snow misting my hair. That was a good enough reality check as any to realize yeah, I'm really lucky to be here.



Until next time, one last list of a few things to ponder...

Things I have gotten used to:
1) not smiling at people on the street
2) the fact that French people don't know how to walk

Things I haven't quite yet gotten over:
1) France's rampant and unabashed love of PDA
2) the fact that the announcements at every train station begin with the first three notes of "Soldier Boy"

I pledge allegiance...

I may or may not have changed the backgrounds on all the Tufts computers to the American flag and other associated patriotic symbols.

Take that as you will.

One day and two classes in a real French university and this is what I have to show for it: a story by the lovely Daymiris Gell (and I quote)...

* * *

"Once upon a time... (17h00)
in a land far, far away... (Paris)
there were four little princesses, Daymiris, Gina, Katherine, and Emily (D, G, K, E)
who were on a quest for knowledge and truth (finding classes).

While on their quest, they stumbled upon a labyrinth-like wilderness (Institute Catholique). All things in this uncivilized world were unfamiliar and confusing to our heroines (!).

However, they were determined to find their way and not let this strange land overtake them. Together, they were a powerful force to be reckoned with.

One day in this horrible forest, D G K + E came upon a cave (room B20) where there lived a terrifying dragondactile (Monsieur Giret). The fire and smoke he emitted from his alien-like mouth (stutter, weird accent, mutter under breath, etc.) blinded the girls (can't understand a thing he's saying) and caused them to choke (we're dying here, let's get out!)

Disillusioned and exhausted, they were stuck in this cave full of hyenas (blabby French kids) until Father Time came to set them free (17h30!!!) Until this salvation, however, they had to stay and were forced to wonder what would become of their futures and their kingdoms (classes?!?!)

Will the four princesses succeed?

TO BE CONTINUED... (À SUIVRE)

* * *

Thanks to Dayday for that lovely contribution. That, and another 5 pages of a combination of note-passing middle-school-style and journal entries, was the fruit of my experience in French education thus far. After being called out as a "nouvelle" (new student) in my morning class, which I was in by myself without anyone from Tufts (and which turned out to be a yearlong class that I jumped into in the 14th week, sweet), it's a wonder I even made it back to the university for another shot at a class in the afternoon. The morning interaction went something like this (in French):


Professor: Look! New student! (points at me and asks a bunch of unintelligible questions)

Me: (Does she expect me to say something? Am I allowed to disappear?) Euhhh... I'm American and I'm here for the semester.

Everyone else in the class: (whisper whisper giggle chatter collective sounds of judging)

Me(mental note): never coming back to this class again. (Then spent the rest of the hour and a half that remained pretending to take notes while in fact jotting down observations about the Frenchies in my class. Exhibit A: girl in front of me is on facebook. Also, the popular myth that French students don't take notes on their laptops is FALSE. There were 5 computer culprits in my class of 30.)


And that was that. Basically, I am pretty convinced that higher education in Paris is an excuse for old, senile men to talk themselves to death and for the chatty French youth to gather and exchange gossip. Which then translates to us unsuspecting American exchange students as torture. Hopefully trying out other classes will prove me wrong.

"But what do you DO in Paris?"

And if any of you are curious as to what I've actually been up to in France outside of cultural musings, here are three bizarre things that have happened to me in the past week:

1) I was on French National television.

2) My host mom and two of the four sisters dressed up as "Africans" and ran around the house chanting in costume as a surprise for my host dad's birthday (brown face paint and afros included, I kid you not, my blond, European host mom looked like Scary Spice). Being PC doesn't really exist in France, évidemment, but we already knew this.

3) An awkward run-in with a rabbit.


I won't bore you with the details now, but ask if you're curious and you might get a story. You might all get one anyway. More updates on life in Paris later.

To "tu-toi "or not to "tu-toi"? (and other would-be cultural mishaps)

No matter how many times people try to explain it, there will always be confusion in figuring out which form of "you" to use in certain situations. The general (read: textbook) rule is that "tu" is informal, used with equals and family, and "vous" is formal and/or plural, used always when talking to more than one person, or if that one person is more important or older than you are. There are some obvious cases, yes (Queen of England = "vous," small child = "tu.") But what about all those "fine-line" situations? This inevitably leads to awkwardness, like "vous"-ing your host family au pair out of politeness until it makes you feel so uncomfortable because she seems more like an older sister that you start "tu-toi"-ing her. And hope no one notices.

Which leads me to the point of this entry: You learn a lot about the subtleties of language when you find yourself suddenly speaking and hearing a different one all the time. I still wake up and have to consciously switch my brain to French before attempting host family interaction (my "je parle français, je parle français, je suis à Paris et je parle français!" pep talk usually does the trick), but I have gotten to the point where it takes a minute to discern whether someone is speaking French or English because the comprehension levels are more or less equalling out. Hyper-cool. Anyways, regardless of all this, I have found that there are an incredible amount of creative ways you can mix up a phrase or mispronounce a word in French that leads to cultural misunderstandings by way of giggles/blank stares/some combination of the two depending on context.

With this in mind, I present to you my Top 5 French Language Mishaps. Consider yourselves warned. People were kind enough to explain the distinctions in advance on some occasions. On others, I learned the hard, albeit amusing way:

1) "Je suis excité" does NOT mean "I am excited" unless you are a small child. At least not in the traditional sense of the term. Think about it. Now never think those words in that order again, unless you're in a relevant situation in which case I don't really want to hear about it. (Thankfully I knew this ahead in time enough to avoid an unintentional awkward personal proclamation. We had suscipsions about this phrase from the get-go, and a waiter at The American Dream bar confirmed the rumors.)

2) A mere mispronunciation of the last sound in the commonly used phrase "merci beaucoup" - saying "khew" instead of "coo" - subtly changes the phrase from "thanks a lot" to "thanks, nice ass." Thanks to the Steve-from-Sex-and-the-City-lookalike bartender at a café for warning us about this one, demonstration included.

3) "Casse-noissettes" does not mean, as literal translation would have it, "break nuts." It took me a little while of listening to my seven-year-old host sister telling me a story and asking myself why on earth she was talking about breaking nuts until I realized she was in fact recounting the story of the Nutcracker. Pretty efficient term if you ask me. Don't think it would really fly in the U.S.

4) "Saucisse" is not the same thing as "saucissons." I thought I was ordering a salami sandwich and was somewhat put off when the entire boulangerie clientele laughed under their their breath (some less discretely than others) only to find out moments later that the owner thought I had asked for a whole uncooked sausage. At this point I had to put on my best sheepish "I'm a stupid American" smile and laugh along.

5) Putting "mon" (my) instead of "un" (a) in front of the word "ami(e)" turns a friend into a boyfriend. Our lovely director had the foresight to warn us about this a good four days after arriving in Paris, thus a good four days too late. It is now not unlikely that my host family is under the wrong impression that I have a) a boyfriend, b) a girlfriend, or c) several. Of each.

This is what they should really put in all those French textbooks. Knowing how to conjugate "avoir" in the subjunctive won't get you anywhere if all the Frenchies are already laughing because you just unwittingly issued a proclamation about your level of arousal.

The Eiffel Tower.

I've gotten through two posts without mentioning it, but let's face it, it's basically the elephant in the room. We'll call it E.T. for short (if abbreves are sweeping the naysh, they may as well be sweeping this one too). For how out-of-place it looks in Paris, it may as well be an extra-terrestrial. I pass by it whenever I get on the metro and I have to catch my breath every time. I know the French hate it, but you can't argue with its grandeur. That tower owns you, and it knows it.

Because E.T. works kind of like a magnet. Attempting to blend in with the French regulars on the metro, I try my hardest to ignore the 7300 tonnes of shining cultural controversy that pop by the window between the Passy and Bir-Hakeim metro stops, but I find my eyes gazing up at it in spite of myself. Today, I gave in. I hopped off the metro at my usual stop (Passy) and instead of taking a left before the pharmacy to get into my apartment building, I veered right and embarked on one of my first Parisian firsts: walking from home to the E.T.

At a brisk pace, of course, alone, and God forbid I whip out a map and effectively brand myself with the giant "T" that makes all wide-eyed tourists so easy to identify. In the end, it took around 7 minutes. That's right. It takes less time to walk to the Eiffel Tower than it does to walk from my house at Tufts to Davis. And I am proud to say I accomplished my mission while walking past more than one of the vendors that creach around the E.T. area (the kind that haunt the tourist hot spots and shove overpriced, plastic E.T. keychains in people's faces if they detect the slightest interest in the looming metal tower in their eyes) without any of them trying to sell me anything. And I only took out my camera once (okay, maybe twice) and snapped a picture so fast before thrusting it back into my coat pocket for fear of getting knowing, demeaning looks from passerby that it turned out blurry. And then I turned right around nonchalantly and walked back. But fear not, my little American friends, I still have 4 months to figure out how to take a good picture of the E.T. without being caught by the public. And we'd better go back to calling it the Eiffel Tower, because I just can't take E.T. seriously. Then again, I don't think anyone who even remotely identifies themselves as "French" can take it all that seriously either.

"J'ai voté pour Obama - achetez-moi un boisson!"

Dear Gina,

What is it like being abroad on Inauguration Day?

Love,
Most-of-the-people-Gina-talked-to-yesterday


I will answer your question with a statement: It was the first time I have ever been in another country and proud to be an American.

Instead of lowering my voice to a whisper when speaking English in public (something I usually try to avoid in the first place), I sang along with the national anthem during the inauguration ceremonies, loud and proud.

Instead of shooting looks of horror and disgust at tipsy, singing Americans, the waiter made a motion with his hand to offer us a microphone.

Across from the grand Opéra Garnier, American pubs sported "LIVE OBAMA NIGHT" signs on the windows. Crowds of expats and French people alike spilled into the streets, jamming the doorways in an attempt to catch a glimpse of our new President or what Michelle Obama was wearing.

1/20/09. A good day for Americans in Paris. And for Americans everywhere.

And tomorrow, it's back to mumbling "Toronto" instead of the truth when people ask where I'm from.*



*This has not actually happened yet. I am tempted.