Paris in the early days

Okay non-French speakers (that is, the vast majority of my readership), I know you were afraid that you would have to learn a new language in order to continue enjoying my piercing insight, witty observations, excellent taste in music, and gorgeous photography, but not to worry, I really haven’t mastered French at all yet and that post took me hours to write. It’s true that certain changes are taking place – I’m losing English words, as Christian promised, and I am not a huge fan of this fact. Getting to know French is also changing my manner of speech in English. For example, I now say things like “it’s true that” and “it’s bizarre”, not to mention “in fact” – French phrases translated directly to English, ones that I would not normally use very much in conversation. (Annemarie said “we’d profit by” the other day, a truly odd thing to say in English but a fairly common French phrase.)

So, what is happening? Well, my schedule is crazy still. French is going well, work is suffering a little, probably also because what I’m doing right now is really very boring, but very necessary for the project to progress. I am much more comfortable in the language than I was. I’ve finished my first French book and begun another. I’m talking to strangers in French. I still miss a lot, but it’s getting better.

Deirdre and Claire came for a visit and it was wonderful – some pictures here, more on facebook. They loved Paris and we did lots of fun things together…picnicked, met up with Deirdre’s cousin, heard her boyfriend play in a nice bar in St Germain, next day got dressed up, went to a club, went to Basilica St Denis (which was fascinating, all the French kings are buried there, I need to write a post about French vs English history and my understanding of how events 1000 years ago created the differences that exist today), went to Montmartre, had some wine, some beer from a guy selling them illegally there, took lots of pictures, pretty sure tourists were taking pictures of us, slept, went to the Marais, had fallafel and dessert and got to experience rude French waiters, had a lovely picnic at Champ de Mars, went to a bar near the Pantheon and played spoons. All in all it was fantastic, despite some drama involving the cats and plumbing problems. I always think it’s funny how people love Flotsam at first, then after a while realize how annoying he can be, and grow to love the more-intelligent-but-less-friendly Bird more…

This visit followed a surprise visit from Luke and Manny, who I didn’t know very well before but who are extremely cool people and yet another reason to return to Seattle. Right now there’s a pause in visitors, and then a slew, Nodira next week, Nate and Jenny the following, Marie for a couple of nights, my mom and Bill, I go to London, Liz, then I go to Victoria, then Schuyler returns with me. It’s really nice to be able to show people the city. I’m especially looking forward to nice long French lunches and dinners with Mom.

And at this moment, I’m sitting at the bottom of Rue Mouffetard, in my favorite park – favored because it is close to my apartment, has nice benches under the shade, has working free wifi, and has tons of cute kids frolicking in the playground. They remind me very much of my niece, another visit I’m looking forward to, though it won’t happen till next summer. Adorably, the kids are obsessed with the water pipe for washing their hands. Everyone speaks French, of course, and I’m finally starting to eavesdrop instead of tune out when I hear French. A neat evolution. Mais ne vous inquietez pas…I’ll still write in English, I promise.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.