This weekend I met my friend Kelsey. I met her through this assistantship and she's from Denver, Colorado. But get this, we have a mutual friend! I played club soccer and was friends with this guy named Marc when i was 18. Marc moved to colorado the next year and kelsey and Marc met at a rave and ended up dating...or something like that according to kelsey. How crazy is that? Such a small world.
Perhaps its the fate connection or we just really get each other but kelsey and i are going to be very good friends. She's 5'9'' with pale skin, green eyes, and light brown hair. She's very intelligent and motivated. Intimidating to most men i'm sure but i'm not trying to get in her pants so she is just a cool girl to me.
You know those certain people you meet that you just become "insta-friends" with? It's so rare. It's like finding an intact sand dollar on the beach. You get lucky sometimes. It's only happened to me twice in my adult life. My best friends Margaret and Allison. I met those two in college and we will be old and wrinkled and share all the wonders and tragedies of life together. I think kelsey might be one of these type of friendships but only time will tell.
I met her saturday around 4 o clock in St. Paul which is very close to L'Hotel de Ville and we picked a cafe, La Tartine, right next to the Metro. She got a goat cheese, tomato, and some other type of spread grilled on a long piece of toast. This long piece of toast is really popular but i can't quite remember what it is. Anyway, I had a type of cream spread with a hint of herb and topped with salmon. Almost every dish here comes with a salad (not fries :p).
We ate, and talked about everything under sun..laughed really loud...and got stared by an old French couple. We then both had deux cafes. Everyone here has a lil espresso after their meal. I am not a fan of coffee but i decided to try it out, you know being parisien and all now ha. I realized why everyone has one because it diminishes the craving for something sweet, tops of the meal, and gives you a shot of energy to keep going. At the end of our meals in the states, where we eat fries and not salad no doubt, we crave something sweet so we get a dessert and then afterwards, we are so full and tired that we just want to take a nap, and most of the time do.
It is such a different way of life.
We paid for our meal, with no tip since they don't tip here. Which is actually nice. The price on the menu is the price you pay. This is because the servers are paid salary and their well being is not dictated by their tips. However, there is a great downfall to this kind of service industry. Um....there is no service.
I hope you never take advantage of the american service industry, and i dare say that you NEVER complain that your server wont leave you alone to eat your dinner. Because in France, they only come over to your table if they think you're going to walk out.
I could teach them a thing or two about serving. I'd make their heads spin. There would be a party at the restaurant. Everyone would have food and they would be running to the restaurant owner and asking them where is this man from? He is amazing, and they'd be singing the star spangled banner the whole night home with their full bellies. Thats all.
After the cafe we decided to walk. Just walk. We walked from the 4eme to the 16eme, where the Eiffel Tour is. We bought a bottle of 7, 5 euro white wine and sat on the grassy mall by the monument. We drank and got harassed by men who were trying to sell bottles of champagne for 400 euro or something stupid like that...or roses for "free" but they aren't free of course. They kind of ruin the moment if you don't drink enough. Luckily, we did. We drank until the bubbles creeped into our cheeks and to our nose and finally settled in our eyes. We laughed alot. The annoying man now became the object of our amusement. Every time they came and spoke to us ( which was literally every 5 mins ) we would spout of whatever language we knew. Kelsey is fluent in spanish and accosted them in burritos and tacos. I know just the minuscule amount of japanese and i accosted them in sushi and saki. Kelsey knew some Italian and accosted them with pizza and spaghetti, and finally I know a little German and threw out my best wiener schnitzel and saurekraut. It was fun.
It started to sprinkle so we got up and headed to the metro. As we got to the opposite end of the grassy mall, where the platform where you can overlook the majority of the 16eme arrondissement and the eiffel tower, i noticed that the sun had slipped past the horizon and the lights were shining bright through what had now become a proper rain. I stopped, in the rain to look--to take it in. Paris is just as beautiful in the rain.
We were on our way to Centre du Pompidou, which parisiens call Beaubourg because that was the name of the little mid-evil town that was destroyed to make way to the museum. We were meeting a couple, Mike and Sherry, who was also involved with teaching foreign languages here in france. They had contacted kelsey through a thread on facebook and since they had also just moved to france they were looking for some company. Kelsey and i tried to guess what the couple would be like. We settled on "nerdy abrasive." Luckily we were wrong and they were just a sweet couple that had fell in love 5 years earlier. I think mike is fairly younger. He's 25 i found out and his girlfriend is teaching while writing her dissertation, so i would imagine that she is older. She looked older but to be honest mike could pass for a first year college student. We went out to a couple of places and grabbed some drinks and got to know each other. They were from Virginia but i would have never guessed that in a million years. They were soft spoken but not boring.
It was almost midnight which was too late for such a serious couple. They had cuddling to do i imagine...or reading with the lamp on. I just imagine these things. Anyhow, much too early for a pair of 22 year olds. We were ready to see what kind of night life Paris offered.
Drum roll please :) dom dom dom dom
n.o.t.h.i.n.g
Paris shuts down and there are only a couple of bars that sell a beire for 8 euro for us desperate people that would pay anything for a beer. Of course, i'm going to give it another chance .But the saddest thing is that the trains shut down at about midnight on the weekdays and little after 1 am on the weekends. For someone who is used to New York where places don't dare turn off the music and serve the booze until 3am or 4 am and like a proper city, the trains never shut down. In Paris, it's just different. It is much less of a party culture. Perhaps another attribute to their health. I expressed my concern with Kelsey and she responded with the most wonderfully logic statement: "We will just stay out until the trains open back up in the morning." Brilliant.
We finally stumbled upon a place. Solly's i think was the name. I'm not sure because i was distracted from where the Hipster god himself must have floated down from wherever he resides and took a massive shit in the bar. I mean, i cannot begin to tell you how hipster the crowd was. Apparently no sleeves were allowed on the men, how could they show off their Tim Burton, sparrow in a cage, and lyric tattoos. I'd guess the sleeves rotted off from their B.O.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and although i would never withhold myself from a cultural experience because i honestly spend an evening with any group, I think they thought that the only thing my scarf that i was sporting was good for was to hang me with.
Kelsey and i squirmed our way through drunk hugging and kissing and bumping and loud music and shouting and finally made our way to the bar. "Deux Dirteee Blondes." It's a light beer. We did our best balancing act through a mine field of drunkards to get out to the terrace. We overheard this beast of a man trying to pick up the cutest little English woman. She was like the cool niece of Mary Poppins. The beast was embarrassingly enough American. He was a villain looking type with witch like moles. He was probably late 30s. He was ironically from Colorado too and Kelsey and he did the whole "oh you live...? That's next to....Oh I know someone who works at that school....oh small world" thing.
Then before you could finish your beer, the place started closing and we didn't know wether we should stick around to speak with our new American Beasty thing and the cute English girl or go on our way. The warthog made the decision for us as he turned his back to us and we took the hint. He wanted to get laid. Kelsey and i left and said a little prayer for the girls better judgment. "Please don't sleep with this loser just because he has an American accent." He couldn't have gotten a cow back in the states.
We laughed about it the whole way home. We got ready for bed. I was staying with Kelsey because there were no trains remember? We laid in bed and talked about Paris. We are still in honeymoon stage, something i hope i don't lose. It's always the best in the honeymoon stage.
The weekend was finally over and I decided to invite Kelsey to Poissy and show her around my little french town. I was impressed with her neighborhood in the most inner city of Paris, but i have plenty to gloat about my little piece of paradise on the river. I went to the grocery store today because it was my plan to make dinner for my lovely guest. I got some pasta, spices, sauce, mushrooms, and a bottle of wine. I grabbed a chocolate bar and 2 plums for dessert and made my way to the register. No bitch was cutting me today. I took my football stance and was ready to ward of eager frenchman with a bash of my bottle. I went to my boulangerie and got a 90 cent baguette and goat cheese for the aperatif.
Kelsey made it to Poissy and i started to cook as Kelsey sat at the table. I was cooking in the 3rd floor kitchen. Each floor has it's own kitchen and two washrooms and toilets. I realized that i had made more than just for two people. I had an idea. I was tired of not knowing anyone here since everyone escapes to their room before i can finish my "bonjour" to them. I was just going to invite them for food. As people walked by or would come into the kitchen to put away something I projectile vomited my best french at them and invited them to eat. Bad idiom i know. "As tu faim? Je m'appelle Josh et je te presente mon amie Kelsey. Tu veux un repas?"
Thats basically french for "please come eat for me, i'm desperate for friends." They took the bait and kelsey and i sat around with Dalal, Stefan, and Ciede for dinner. Stefan, the guy i had met earlier from Guadeloupe and two new friends from Morocco. I would call it a succes. What was the most shocking thing is that they had all been living there for several months and none of them had ever met.
I could hardly believe that. We all thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and even made plans to do it again next week but make it a tea party.
Leave it up to the American I suppose. I'm going to make this place a party eventually. You just wait :)
Loving your blog.
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