Today l'H meets me after my lesson ends (and after he's had his own little Metro ticket adventure.......you can ask him yourself about that one!) to carry my books home from school - ok, so I don't have any books to speak of but it's the thought that counts........ :-)
We start the walk home together, stopping for lunch at a little bistro where the waiter picks us as foreigners as soon as I open my mouth - how did he do that, I wonder? ;-) - but he's very friendly and helpful and graciously allows me to use my limited French to ask for a table for two ("deux personnes s'il vous plaît" is the best I can do), to order from the menu, to answer his question about where we're from ("Nous venons d'Australie"), and to ask where the toilets are ("Ou sont les toilettes?")! The stress of using a new language "on the fly" is diminishing slowly, helped along by kind French people like him :-)
After lunch we wander through the Les Halles area, which is undergoing a major renovation - unfortunate really, as it's very uninspiring at the moment but l'H remembers it looking lovely when he was here with his beautiful daughter a few years ago. Hopefully it will be as good or better when it's finished but right now it's mostly just an ugly construction site. However, the beautiful Renaissance-built Église Saint-Eustache is worth a visit and we spend a bit of time inside.
It's not only a magnificent church but also seems to be a warm refuge for quite a few homeless who are dozing in the hushed and cozy interior.
On we go towards home, stopping at the window of a taxidermist where there are rats hanging in the window that were caught in the Les Halles area around 1925 - a bit creepy but fascinating!
Some time later, having forgotten about the stuffed rats, we call in to the pâtisserie for some after-dinner treats - les gâteaux très bon - this is Paris after all, so why not?
20/3/13 Wednesday
Today is a full day at school for me as I have a French conversation workshop after my morning class. Before that starts though, I take a stroll down the street in my lunch break and look in the window of a local realtor. I'm amazed at how much a tiny bit of real estate costs. This is the 9éme, and a 185 square metre appartement is on the market for a cool 1.9 million € - no wonder everyone rents in Paris!!!
As if the mental demands of conjugating irregular verbs all morning aren't enough, this afternoon we spend 2 hours conversing with Olivier and each other totally en français! It's hard work but turns out to be lots of fun. Olivier is very helpful and encouraging and everyone enjoys the experience. We role play being the customer and the vendor in a variety of shops, and then we practise being dinner guests at a friend's house. What to bring, how to be polite, what to talk about. And this is what we learn:
1. Take "une bouteille du vin rouge" - toujours, toujours, toujours!!!!
2. Always comment positively about the person's home - "Oh quel bel appartement!" and ask how big it is "C'est quelle surface?" and how much rent they pay "Tu payes combien?", but never (jamais, jamais, jamais!!!!!) ask how they manage to afford it!
3. If you greet one person with a kiss (both cheeks please!) then you must greet everyone that way (so in other words, don't start something you can't finish.......)!!!
4. When toasting each other it's important to do it individually and look each person in the eyes as you clink glasses - "Santé!" - and again, if you do it with one person you must do it with everyone (so you could be there for a while!)
And one last little French secret that Olivier shared with us - le croissant is, in fact, NOT French! It was reputedly imported to France from Austria by Marie-Antoinette in the late 1700s (but many French don't even know this so we didn't feel too bad)!! These, and some other pastries, are collectively known as "viennoiserie" (now there's a clue.......!) ;-)
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