Paris...Part Duck

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Ready for part three?

After the Louvre Evan had class, so I was again free to explore the city. I enjoyed a stroll down the Seine towards Notre Dame. It’s not the cleanest river, but it is really pretty, especially at night when all of the city lights are on and the canal boats are floating down the river. There are these giant boats that we couldn’t tell if people live on them or just use them for lovely little river rides, we don’t know, but they are really awesome. They also have boat tours and night cruises. Evan hasn’t done one, but he highly suggested it because, as he put it, seeing the Seine from the city is one thing, but seeing the city from the Seine is a whole other. When you think about it, it really would be. Every major monument is near the Seine: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, The Louvre, Pont Alexandre III. Many of the sights, minus the Luxembourg Gardens. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to cross that off the list, but again, just a reason why I will have to go back. 😊

One important thing that crosses the Seine is Boulevard Saint Michel, which is the street that has the Starbucks…very important. It was a bit chilly so I ordered a hot chocolate instead of the usual Vanilla Frappuccino, again in French, and this time I finally got the phrase for “I’d like...please” committed to memory. Just for you information, in case you are ever in France, its “Je voudrais…s’il vous plait.” Very handy.

The hot chocolate was able to keep me warm all the way to Luxembourg Gardens. Being there in the evening on a Thursday in October is what I would suggest if you have the option. There were very few people there, it was quiet, the sun was just starting to go down, and not to mention the leaves were changing here too. It was so calm and peaceful. There was just this one little tiny building (and by little and tiny I mean maybe 2 meters by 2 meters) with a single girl in it making crepes and selling tea and coffee. I was pretty hungry since I hadn’t eaten since before our adventure in the Louvre, so I walked over and, again in French, but quite terrible French, ordered a crepe with chicken, cheese and tomato as well as some Earl Grey. She spoke a little English though, so I was able to apologize that I couldn’t speak very well in French. She said it was fine, that she didn’t speak very good English, but she knew more English than I did of French.

A lot of people say that you really don’t need to bother with the language; everyone speaks English, especially in touristy cities like Paris. I don’t know though, even if they do speak English I feel like people appreciate that you at least try to speak their native language to them first, just put in a little effort and don’t assume that other countries will cater to your language barrier. On the other hand though, another thing I have come to realize since my time in Spain, and it even happened to Evan a few times when we were around Paris, is that when people recognize that you speak English, even if they know you are able to communicate in their language, they will speak to you in English so they can practice. So, I no longer will accept the criticism from people that we don’t try to learn about other cultures and languages, because for those of us who do try, we are often met with the challenge that people don’t want to let us practice Spanish, they want to practice English. It’s not always fair that we get stereotyped for being so inconsiderate of other cultures. Now, this is a particular case. There are Americans out there, who don’t care and merit this stereotype, and there are plenty of Spaniards who have been more than helpful in allowing me to practice my Spanish, I’m just throwing it out there that all the blame for terrible international relations cannot be placed solely on Americans, as it often is.

Anyways, I talked with the girl for a few minutes and said thank you then I sat on the steps in the gardens for a good long while until I noticed behind me a small grassy knoll with a sign on it. “You can sit on this grass.” Well, don’t mind if I do. We all know how I feel about seeing real grass these days. I sat down on the grass even though it was wet and I was cold, it was just that important to sit on real grass. I sat there and wrote my parents their postcard (I send them one from every trip I take) that I had bought on Champ de Élysées. It was a little more expensive than the average postcard, probably because I bought it on the same street that Louis Vuitton is on (which you have to wait in a line to get into that store by the way…I would have gone in but it was like 20 people long) but it was probably because the postcard was round. Round! Have you ever seen a round postcard before?! I have not. I thought it was totally worth the 0,30 extra euro-cents to get a round postcard.

As the sun started to set I headed over to meet Evan in the 2nd for dinner, on my way back down the Seine I noticed a small pedestrian bridge with locks all attached to it. I walked a bit down the bridge and saw that the locks had names, sayings, hearts, etc. all over them. Clearly it was some sort of wishing bridge, or love bridge or something like it, and I wanted to leave my mark on Paris, so I went and found a lock and locked it on. I don’t know if the lock falls off when your wish comes true, I don’t know if you’re supposed to give the key to your one true love, I don’t know what exactly the lock is for, but I just put it on there. For some reason I saw all the locks and I just thought to myself, “This is something I need to do.” I didn’t even really have a specific wish to make, I just assumed that when I put the lock on the bridge the lock bridge guardian or something along those lines, would know what I really desire and take care of it for me. I told Evan when I met him that I put a lock on some bridge and he just laughed, “Haha, when in Rome, I guess.” Evan had never seen/noticed/heard of the bridge before, so it was news to him too. I later looked on my map and figured out the bridge is called Pont des Artes and it is right up there with Shakespeare & Co. and Butte Chaumont as my favorite places in Paris.

Evan and I met two of his friends that are also master’s students and RA’s for NYU in Paris for a duck dinner. Evan was pretty excited about this duck dinner. That morning when we went for our run through Butte Chaumont there were ducks in the lake and he goes, “You hear that duck?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what we’re eating tonight!”
He had told me we were going out for duck a few weeks before I got to Paris. “Do you like duck?”
“Honestly, I’ve never tried it.”
“Even better!”
So, duck was eaten. After all this hype, I was pretty excited to try this duck. The restaurant was super neat; I mean they had toasters at your table. Toasters! And not just a tiny toaster, a really big toaster. So they just kept bringing bread and you could just pop it in the toaster at your table, so that way you could take your time eating the toast and you wouldn’t have to deal with just cold hard bread, you get fresh toast every time! Genius. Kate we need to consider that when we open up our Vineyard/Ice cream Shop/Cupcakery.

Allison and Elizabeth met us there. Know I have to try and get this right. Allison is from Boston, but went to George Washington in D.C., but Elizabeth is actually from Washington D.C. and I can’t actually remember where she went to college, but they are both really nice and really funny. I enjoyed hearing all about their class, their professor and the people in their class they had just gotten out of, which was described to me as a class where they are pretty much told how awful they are at speaking French. Sounds like the life of a student studying abroad to me! 😊
We got to talk about other stuff too, including all of the old awesome cartoons on Nickelodeon that we used to watch and times when parents ate the last of our favorite desert. Cough, Dad and the last piece of peach pie at Thanksgiving a few years ago, cough. Yeah, I don’t forget. Although I shouldn’t complain because that particular incident is the reason why Heather and I each get our own peach pies at Thanksgiving now…so I take that back, thanks, Dad. 😊

The other three pretty much took care of the ordering of food, I just sort of pointed at the menu and Elizabeth, who was sitting next to me, let the waiter know what I wanted. Since the other three could speak French really well I think he assumed I could too. Nope. Nope, Devin doesn’t speak French very well, although I was learning just enough to get around. I was actually so amazed at how much you can pick up in just a few short days when you are forced/want to. It actually helped that I got to explore the city alone, because I didn’t always have Evan there to speak for me, so I had to learn to say some phrases so that I could at least feed myself and ask if anyone spoke English. For example, on my way to meet Evan for dinner I still had time so I tried to stop at the National Library to see it, but it was closed. There was a really nice man that tried to explain to me the hours of the Library because it was closed, but he didn’t speak English and I couldn’t understand French, “Do you speak Spanish?” He shook his head. Strike two. Uhg. But, thankfully numbers are the same everywhere and hand gestures get you a long way. He made a gesture with his hands like doors opening and wrote down the time the library opens, then made gestures with his hands of doors closing and wrote down the time the library closed. I was actually super interested how we could communicate without actually speaking at all…sort of cool, huh? It helped, though, that I had a handy-dandy phrase book, which by the way if you ever touring Europe may I suggest Lonely Planet phrasebooks? The ones I have here are for Western Europe and Mediterranean Europe. They are great because they have 10 to 15 languages in them with a lot of the basic phrases that you can/need to use to get around and they breakdown the words and how to pronounce them. They have them for specific languages, which are great too, I had one from them that was specifically for Costa Rican Spanish, and I gave my friend Leigh my Brazilian Portuguese one before she went to Brazil. They have been really good investments on my part.

However since the library was closed, I still had time to kill, and I really had to go to the restroom I continued along until, as if sent down by God, I saw a Starbucks sign. I know they are an evil American restaurant, but come on everyone; they just keep popping up whenever I need them. Plus, this one had a guy that actually knew where Nebraska was, “I’m from Nebraska.”
“Are you from Lincoln?”
“Oh my gosh. Yes, I am! You know Lincoln?”
“My wife is from Wisconsin.”
Small world. Then in order to be a little more cultured, I just used Starbucks for their bathroom and found a French café to sit down in for a while until it was time to go eat duck.

Well, back to this duck. I knew I needed to get duck, but what kind? There were lots to pick from. Duck Confeit was the final decision. Um. I am now a fan of duck. I know this is gross, but the skin really was the best part…it was sort of soft and a little greasy, but not a bad greasy, a super delicious greasy, and this wasn’t a McDonalds greasy place, this was a nice place, so it was classy grease, ok? So, if at Christmas a heard of dogs eats the turkey, I would be fine eating duck. (Ra,ra,ra,ra,ra-ra,ra,ra,ra) It sort of looked like baked chicken, but it was just so much better. Elizabeth got blood sausage, which, I’m not really sure what that is, but it is made with real blood. “It doesn’t taste like blood, though. Well, it sort of does, because it is blood, but it just has that metallic blood taste.” Sounds appetizing, no? It’s actually not bad, I didn’t think it had a metallic taste at all, just don’t think about what you are eating. And for desert… crème brûlée. Uhhhhhhhh…So. Good. Crème brûlée in France is just awesome. Super-duper awesome.

After dinner I again easily passed out, partly from food coma and partly from Paris wearing me out. I only used the metro twice that day, and Paris is a big city – that’s a lot of walking. Evan rode his handy bike named “Rick” that day, so Elizabeth and Allison went with me on the metro back home. We all agreed to meet up for a run the next morning at 8 instead of 7 since they didn’t have class on Fridays. Ah, good call, good call.

Friday was also an adventurous day, but Thursday night sounds like a good place to stop for now. 😊
I hope you aren’t getting tired of Paris. I promise the reason for the detailed-ness will make sense a blog or two from now.

Love and miss you!
Love always,
Devin 😊

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Photos

Canal Boats
I want to live on one of these. Or just have one.

Look at the Trees
I miss fall so much, it is my favorite season, so I thought the trees were just super beautiful.

Grassy Knoll
This is the grass you can sit on.

Grass!!
Look at all that grass! And there are leaves on the ground!! Real leaves!

Pont des Artes
This is the lock bridge where I locked up my lock...I won't tell you where it is, so if you ever go to Paris you will just have to look for it :)

Toaster!
I only just learned minutes ago that that fois gras is duck liver. We spread it on toast we made in the toaster each table has!