During the morning coffee break at work, the ladies started talking about romanticism. And then Maryline, probably about 35 or 40, asked me (quiet and listening) if I was romantic. I was caught totally off guard, not expecting to be pulled into this conversation. I meekly (as I often speak in French, because it’s hard to feel self-assured and certain) replied, “It depends,” essentially a non-answer to draw the attention away from me. Fortunately for me at this point, Jean-Pierre, the only other guy at ICB who’s not an administrator, chimed in and started arguing that romanticism is BS invented by ladies to make guys buy them things and do things that don’t matter in the long run. Maryline insisted that the little things, such as waking early and going to buy croissants for breakfast for you wife/girlfriend, do matter and that’s what defines romanticism. Personally, I disagree with both.
Anyway, later that day, during the noon hour, Pamela, an American who was out teaching at a client company, came in while Jean-Pierre and I were at the front desk. Somehow the topic of baseball came up, and Jean-Pierre said that he really didn’t know anything about the sport, besides that one team hits and another throws to the hitter. Being true Americans and assuming the duty of enlightening ignorant foreign savages, Pamela and I took it up ourselves to explain the rules of the game and gave Jean-Pierre a typical game scenario. I pulled up some scores online to show him each inning is scored, how hits, errors and runs are recorded. He was very fascinated and grateful when we had finished. I found it really interesting to do, because I've never had to explain baseball to someone who knew nothing about it. As an American, I'm so used to being surrounded by people who know that know that three strikes and you’re out, three outs is a new inning and a game is nine innings.
During lunch, I ate with a instructor named Zeke, an Australian, who told me about Australia’s only colony (an idea I found funny because Australia itself was a colony). Apparently in the late 1800s there was a faction of Marxist Australians who were fed up with the current British-style government, so they departed the country to head for…Paraguay, the small, landlocked South American country, of all places. When I asked why these Australians chose Paraguay, Zeke told me it was the only place to offer free land. And the intent of this colony: a communist utopia. But, according to Zeke, the colony was doomed from the get-go: the white Australians where only allowed to mate with each other, but since very few women had the brains (ha!) to join this band of Marxists in Paraguay, a mutiny of sorts occurred and inter-mating began. The inter-race breeding isn’t why the colony was doomed, but was an indication of the lack of real authority and sustainability any isolated Marxist colony in the highlands of Paraguay encounters.
Zeke said he had visited the former colony (it failed generations ago), and it was really, really bizarre for him. In the isolated city in Paraguay, you see many blond-haired, blue-eyed Paraguayans (after all, they were born there) speaking English. And then you see mixed, light caramel with sandy blonde to dark hair Paraguayans (mixed people) speaking English. I could only agree with Zeke: that’s weird.
That evening, my host mother (Marie-Laure, if I haven’t mentioned her name yet), invited me to a gospel concert at her family’s church. Not wanting to turn down an opportunity, especially one with my host family, I decided to go along with her, Alexis and Maylis before I went out on the town (my first weekend night in Paris to go out because I was with Geraldine the weekend before). It was very majestic and glorious in a large, all stone church, but some of the lyrics were unrecognizable because of the choirs noticeably French accent, which made their versions of “Down By the River” and “Amazing Grace” sort of comical and hard to take seriously. After being thoroughly French gospelled out, we split between songs. From there, I headed out alone to meet people and have a fun night.
While waiting for a train at a subway stop, I sat next to a guy who was noticeably American. Much less self-conscious of meeting Americans, I asked him what he was up to that evening. Sure enough he was American (Thomas Lapierre, his name), and he said that he didn’t have plans except for meeting up with a Parisian guy he met on couchsurfing.com, but with whom he wasn’t staying because it just wouldn’t work out, he told me. He told me he had just arrived in Paris the day before and had never been, so had no idea of what to do, but that he friend would know. He invited me to join him and his acquaintance (they had never actually met) for the evening; I was thrilled that finding plans for the evening was so easy.
But the evening ahead wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind.
We got off at Place St. Michel in the touristy Latin Quarter, and we met his French “friend” (Nicolas) at the fountain in the square. I was immediately impressed by his impeccable English (which he claimed to have learned by watching American movies and MTV). We started walking, and as we walked back across the Seine, Nicolas asked Thomas, “So, are you in Paris this weekend for the gay pride parade tomorrow?” I was a little surprised but not bothered; I let the matter be for the moment. Thomas wasn’t in town for that, didn’t even know about it, he said.
We kept walking, and about halfway across Ile de la Cité, I asked Nicolas what he had planned for the evening. He replied, “I like to hang out in the Marais in the 4th arrondisement. It’s the gay neighborhood.” That put any question out of my head about my two new acquaintances’ sexual preferences, and not being bothered by it, I told myself, “I’ll just roll with it; it’ll be an experience.” In passing conversation, I just noted that I wasn’t gay, but wasn’t at bothered by hanging out with them.
I hadn’t eaten dinner, so we stopped at a kebap place, and then we headed to Les Halles in front of Saint Eustache to sit down so I could eat. We talked politics, compared American Congress to French Parliament, Nicolas explained the unthinkable primary election results from a few years ago (a right-wing candidate and a far right-wing, “fascist,” according to Nicolas, candidate made it to the final election), and Nicolas complained. He liked that a lot, and criticizing, I started noticing. He made fun of Sarkozy, cringed when he heard which arrondisment I live in, made fun of the people who lived there (“Oh that can’t be fun because no one there is under the age of 80 or over the age of 10”), claimed Sarkozy was the worst President France has ever had, called the language system in French schools “shit” (when compared to the American standard, I beg to differ), and did I mention that he criticized Sarkozy?
But alas, I'm doing a little complaining myself it sounds like. Really, it was interesting to hear his perspective.
After finishing my sandwich, we kept walking towards the 4th. Once we arrived in the thick of the gay neighborhood, I realized this was the neighborhood I was originally going to live in until I had to switch host families. And when Mrs. Hostiuc (she used to live there) told me that I was guaranteed to get hit on after my mom told her, I could see she was right. At night, at least on weekend nights, it’s almost solely gay couples and singles looking for someone (mostly men, but also some ladies). We passed the type of gay bars people outside the gay community usually think of: long lines of shaved men waiting to enter thumping dance clubs adorned with rainbow flags. But fortunately for me, Nicolas had some taste and preferred another type of gay bar more like normal bars and cafés with some music, but certainly not loud, gross dance clubs. They’re more laid back and less sexual they seem to me.
We met this really interesting and funny guy named Ivan from Colombia who’s working on his masters in Paris. And Nicolas explained to me the proper pronunciation of the Sígor Ros song Hoppipolla. Apparently in Icelandic, before any double consonant besides double L’s you inhale. And when you encounter a double L, the first is pronounced like a T. So when saying the song’s name you inhale just before the double P and pronounce the double L more like “pot-la.” That was a late night, much later than I intended, and when I got home I remember seeing the sky brighten and birds starting to chirp.
