C'est Paris

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I feel like an American housewife in Paris. I woke up watching infomercials in French, Tele Matin featuring American music, a cartoon, and now American shows subtitled. I'm waiting to see if they'll have Days of Our Lives on next (crossing my fingers).

I arrived in Paris on Tuesday afternoon with no problems except for the line of people waiting to buy a ticket for the metro. Mostly tourists like myself needing to get a multi-day pass. Everything is in French! Ugh! I knew I should have made a greater effort to learn it. Too late now. As I stared at the massive metro map, a skinny boy with glasses wearing a baby blue shirt reading "Just Information", said "Bonjour, hello, can I help you?" He was carrying a bunch of metro maps in his hand. I confirmed with him my planned route to Gambetta station where I would meet my first Hospitality Club host, Choukri. Such a helpful thing to have in a subway station! So the "blue boy" was quite busy as you can imagine.

I was to meet Choukri at the town hall building right outside of the station. "I'll be wearing a pink shirt and carrying lots of stuff. You can't miss me." He joked that he would be wearing a pink shirt too. What a sweet guy! After dropping off my bags we walked around his neighborhood to the Bastille, opera house, along the Seine, to Notre Dame, into Rue St. Michele. He was thirsty so we settled on a bar with outdoor seating and ordered some beers. We had to be back by 8:00 because his friend was having a get-together. "Do you like cheese? Do you want to try French cheeses?", he asked. My eyes lit up! Of course! Oh my god, if he only knew!

At 8:24 we started our way to his friend Sophie's apartment with bottle of red wine in hand. I met Sophie (a teacher with a passion for trapeze), Nora (also a teacher with an incredible tan and body to die for), Stephanie (7-months happily pregnant with a girl!, who drank pampelmousse rose instead of wine), and Fabian (the low-key and proud father-to-be) that night. It had been Sophie's birthday almost one month before and she had gifts...a cookbook and glasses. They spoke very little English and explained, "The French are very bad at speaking English." Nora really wanted to learn and Sophie's efforts were well formed. I was impressed. How could I not be? They could communicate and understand me, but I couldn't even make a decent simple sentence. Sophie has an awesome, although distant, view of the Eiffel Tower. A beam of light rotated from the top of it and it lit up like a Christmas tree and "sparkled"! Bienvenue a Paris!

Six cheeses (there was a really good semi-soft one from Normandy), two loaves of french bread, one fantastic salmon quiche, and four bottles of red wine later (not all to myself!), it didn't matter that we couldn't communicate. Choukri had filled my wine glass way too many times. The Jean Matayac was particularly good, or was it because my tastes buds and every other part of my body was deliciously numb? Did I mention that they thought Americans didn't like or appreciate good cheese? Well, I squashed that generalization with relish! If not for cheese, I would be a supermodel, or at least a hand model.

Throughout the night we listened to music by Le Sacre Du Tympan in the background. Sophie's brother, Remi Sciuto, is the solo saxophonist in the group that is playing at the Jazz Festival in the Parc d' Villette in September. Tres cool! We ended the night thoroughly drunk listening to Billie Holiday. I sang them three songs and Choukri broke a wine glass.

The next day, I woke up with a pounding headache. Choukri passed out on his futon in the "living room" (it's more or less a studio...he gave up his bed for me! what a sweet host!). He missed work and remembered very little of the night before. Not even breaking the wine glass. All on a Tuesday night. I've gotta slow down... it's only my first day in Paris! Ah well, c'est la vie!

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