William Speaks Francais

I must admit, getting to Paris from London was a sort of a culture shock, yes even for me! I have been to India, and I guess have never felt a total culture shock because I understand and speak Hindi. However, getting to our hotel was confusing, and trying to approach people was so intimidating that we didn’t. At this point I missed the British and their crazy English, because unlike Brit Eng., Spanish, or even some Dutch, we understood nothing. I mean not even the slightest bit. I was too shy to use French, despite my handy translator because I was aware of my horrible pronunciation. It seems like majority of French is silent letters, almost like they have too many unnecessary letters. Either way, I think it is one of the hardest languages to understand. If you look at it on paper, it is much easier than listening to it! We have met and been exposed to so many Europeans and Euro languages because we are apparently not traveling in the “high season,” meaning that most of the tourists are not from North America or Asia, but just other Europeans. But anyways, even though French sounds familiar, I seem to understand the other tourists more than the Frenchman.

Eventually, I remembered (from my extensive research!) reading that if you are in France and get confused, you should approach a young person, for they might have English education. So, we were easily able to get to the neighborhood we were staying in, but couldn’t find the street and I eventually convinced William to stop some college aged girl. William in magically perfect French, asked this girl if she spoke English because we couldn’t find the street. I was surprised and so thankful when this girl said, “Oui, a little.” She explained where we needed to go and even though William said “ok” and “yes” to everything she said, she noticed my face which basically read: OMFG. She was SUPER sweet and said, “I go this way, you can follow me and we will find it together.” SO NICE. While we walked around she told us more about the Menilmontante area, explaining that we are staying in an awesome side of town, calling it a “melting pot.”

Diversity is everywhere in Paris, you see Turkish, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arab, Jews, and of course white French people. All of this diversity leads to one very important aspect of Paris: Great food! But my favorites include: Chocolate croissants, baguettes, quiches, chicken, mushroom, tomato and Fomaggio Cheese Crepes! YUM YUM. I also really like their pork. GOOD GOD they have great pork here. Me and William have consumed more pork here than we do in a month in Houston. Also, we are staying in a place with a large Lebanese population, so we decided to try out some traditional food. It was a cute little place and our waiter came and started speaking in French. William, again in great French, told him that we didn't speak French and he smiled, brought us a menu and sent us a really pretty English speaking Lebanese waitress. She helped us pick our meals and we had some awesome food. I ordered vegetable cous cous and it came with a bowl of vegetable soup and William ordered Chicken Tadjine. Combined, it was a great meal.



So far we have not had any bad incidents, thank goodness. We have avoided large lines, due to the fact we aren’t here in high season (something you should def. try to avoid) and we’ve had beautiful weather. Paris is gorgeous and I’d definitely suggest you visit all of Paris and not just the main central city.

Au revoir!!
<3 np