French Musings

We're in Paris! We're on Rue de Menilmontant in the 20th, near Belleville. The "montant" part of the street name is accurate, since it inclines slightly up from the metro stop, beginning a much steeper climb a few blocks before where we are. It was a considerable slog getting here from Orly, which is south of Paris; Menilmontant is in the north. We took a very crowded, but deliciously air-conditioned bus and then two subways--and then had to pull our bags uphill to meet Salvatrice, who turned out to speak more Italian than English, thanks to parents who emigrated from Sardinia! That would be our last moment of linguistic aptitude, I'm afraid. I told Sean today that I quite like Paris; I just wonder how much more I would like it if I could actually speak French!

It's kind of a shock to go from a country where I had decent fluency in the language as well as what I'll call cultural literacy (knowing how day-to-day things work; knowing what the mores tend to be, to help you figure out how to act in a given situation), to being back at the kid level of pointing to things and saying please! Sean's enjoying his bit of linguistic supremacy over me; it also helps that he isn't fazed by trying to say "l'eau" to a bartender several times before they get that he wants water, where I'm always embarassed. On the plus side, I can at least read enough French to get by (spotted on the bus: a sign warning people that the majority of assaults on public transit come from an effort to steal your smartphone)!

Aside from the language barrier, Paris is a welcome change from Rome! New sights, new tastes (we had Afghani food our first night here, although--Sean's birthday tomorrow night aside--we have very little money to eat out, alas). New weather--it's 20 degrees colder than Rome, saints be praised. I woke up freezing our first night, while our friends who got stuck in Rome and at the Academy for several more days, thanks to American Airlines fucking up, were suffering through 90+ degrees. There's been a mix of sun and clouds every day--I never knew how thrilled I could be to see clouds! From the top of Menilmontant, and even more so from the Parc Buttes-Chaumont, you have an incredible view of the cityscape and the fierce-looking clouds rolling in.

Where we're staying is not downtown; it takes 45 minutes or so to walk to the Seine. Paris is incredibly large, and seemingly very prosperous; it seems much more like New York than Rome, but without the soul-lessness that I found in Berlin. Yes, I like that every corner seems to have a boulangerie done up in colorful wooden panels! The neighborhood we're in has a large population of North African immigrants, and it's also something of a shock going from fairly non-diverse Italy to multicultural Paris. I told Sean that it feels like in Rome, you see the same ten or so Italian "types" over and over again, while here there just seems like more variety of people of all ages. Another fabulous French innovation over Italy is that the ATMs actually ask you what kind of bills you'd like, large or small--and the shopkeepers don't even mind changing 50s if you do have them! ATMs in Italy will never give you a 10-euro bill and they will give you every 50 they can, a bill that almost no one, outside of a supermarket or a busy pharmacy, will be willing to take without a grimace. The French, having apparently enough coins in circulation to make change, also don't expect you to balance your bill for them (as Sean's reminded me, as I was adding change to our restaurant check so that they could just give us back a 20). For contrast: Jinn and David's horrible experience with the Roman cab-driver who outright refused to take a 20-euro bill because he couldn't make change, and who, since his credit card machine was broken, as they always seem to be, insisted on Dave going into Bar G to make change while he ranted at Jinn in the car!

So far, people have been very friendly to us despite our total lack of French; I think if anything, they're more confused, since Menilmontant isn't exactly tourist central. Today we went down to one of the city's largest fruit and vegetable markets at the Bastille, and I was pleased to have successfully guestimated the cost at each of the stands I stopped at so I never had to blindly hold out cash--that is, until I was foiled buying some grapes. I handed over too little, then couldn't understand the guy's response until he said in English "50 more cents!" We had falafel wraps from a Libyan food stand for lunch, and they were great (I also paid for a 4-euro sandwich with a 50, with nary a flicker of annoyance from the cashier). I couldn't understand, though, how this sprawling food market had no trash cans anyway, just the occasional plastic bag affixed to a bench. Sean revealed that Jeremy had told him this is now true throughout Paris, since they're worried about terrorism; the bags on the benches were in fact clear.

The possibility of terrorism has been on our minds, of course, and particularly after Nice (and then the attack in Normandy). I rather assumed, given the strong military and police presence that's been going on in Rome for the past year and a half (in a nation which, although nominally targeted by ISIS, hasn't actually been attacked) that France would be doing something similar, but it's not true as far as I can see. The night we arrived, we walked all through the city, down across the Ile de Saint-Louis, people everywhere occupying the "terraces" outside restaurants and bars, and then sat in front of Notre Dame, without ever seeing more than a handful of police. It's not obvious that a show of force will necessarily deter or prevent attacks, of course, but I was a little surprised not to see more of an effort, even if only as a token. The French probably don't want to live in a police state, of course, and I get that, but I couldn't help but think, as we shouldered our way through the intensely crowded market today, that when you hear reports of suicide attacks in Baghdad and other cities in the Middle East, it's often markets that are targeted. No police anywhere in sight there either, though.

Tomorrow is Sean's 31'st birthday! To celebrate, we're going to dinner at a place he found on his last visit here, called Le Richer, near the Opera. He says that although it looks hipster-pretentious, the food is excellent, inventive, and cheap (hat trick!).