More Socializing in the Beautiful City of Paris!

Tuesday 6/12

The highlight of the day was going out to dinner with Elisabeth and Tiphaine. How did we choose the restaurant? Well, my aunt Berit’s father-in-law, Dominic Andreone (Andre), was originally from Italy, and before immigrating to the United States at the end of WWII, lived in Paris so he has friends here. Some of his friends that are still in Paris own a restaurant called Le Chateaubriand. So I googled the name of the restaurant and discovered that there were two restaurants with this name. One of them only offered a “prix fixe” meal, which is a meal of several courses at a set price, which was a very high set price, so we ended up trying the other one, located on 125 Rue de Tocqueville.

On the way to the restaurant, we stopped at a grocery store to get Tiphaine’s “bonpapa” (grandpa) some yogurts. She said that he had plenty of yogurts in his refrigerator already, but that because of his experiences in WWII, he felt the need to stockpile food. Her grandpa, as I’ve mentioned, is 90 years old and has a very poor memory now…but the one thing that he can always remember is tasks that he has asked someone to do for him!

It was a very interesting place—everyone that worked there was Jewish and wore skullcaps. It was also very expensive, so our choices were limited to appetizers and salads…which were delicious! Tiphaine and I both had “nems croustillants de volaille sauce ravigote” (crispy eggrolls with poultry and sauce). Elisabeth had a salad with foie gras on the side. I had a taste of her foie gras, and while I did not dislike it, it is definitely an acquired taste!

Since, as I’ve mentioned, Tiphaine has American cousins too, we ended up talking a little bit about them. Since their father, who is French, only ever spoke to them in English, they don’t really speak much French—and they certainly do not act French. Tiphaine said that when they visit every couple years, they wear sneakers and sweatshirts up and down the Champs Elysees and sometimes rollerblade there too; “Ils s’en foutent.” (“They just don’t care.”)

Elisabeth’s brother currently lives in the United States and works for YouTube. He had told Elisabeth that work dress is very casual in the U.S. “even for engineers—they were jeans and sweatshirts to work.” She and Tiphaine both asked me if that was true, and I said that that was not so much the case in the 1980s (I remember my dad wearing a suit and tie to work every day), but that now it is extremely casual.

The waiter seemed to want to get us out of there as quickly as possible, probably because he didn’t think that we ordered enough. Near the end of our meal, a large group of American Jews came in. Elisabeth was remarking that it was interesting—they were clearly traditional yet also somewhat “progressive,” because she noticed that one of the women had a relatively long skirt on (no knees showing) yet was wearing high heels. All the men were, of course, wearing skullcaps.

Tiphaine’s grandpa called wanting to know where his yogurts were. She rolled her eyes: “Il me soule avec ses yaourts!” (“He’s wearing me out with his yogurts!”)

On our way to the nearest Metro, we stopped by Aurore’s apartment so that Tiphaine could get Aurore’s opinion on her new haircut. Tiphaine had gotten her haircut that day and she thought that the hairdresser had made the layers too extreme. She said that she thought it was shaped “comme une montagne quoi” (“like a mountain or something”) and ever since has been obsessed with the idea that she looks like this older French singer, Mireille Mathieu. I had assured her that this was not the case. Aurore thought it looked fine too, and when Tiphaine suggested chopping it all to match the shortest layer, Aurore exclaimed “Mais non, quelle horreur!”

Wednesday 6/13

After working in the morning, I went to Notre Dame in the afternoon to take some more photos. I had a lot of fun playing around with the camera...so much that I eventually ran out of battery! I discovered that you can take sepia-colored photos, which make the pictures look like they came from the early 20^th century. Even when the lights blur without the flash on, the picture still looks great (even better!) in sepia. I also figured out how to emphasize certain colors like reds, greens, etc. All the stained glass, the play of light and shadows on the walls, and the nooks and crannies with their different angles presented endless photo opportunities.

Did you know that Notre Dame can hold 10,000 people? Isn’t it sad that such a beautiful church isn’t full on Sundays?

That evening, we went to Tiphaine’s friend Chloe’s apartment. When we were riding the Metro, it was the time of day when everyone was getting off from work and there was barely room to breathe. I tried to look up toward the ceiling to curb my mounting claustrophobia. Even when the bus in Minneapolis is packed, it feels nothing like the metro in Paris at that time of day.  For some reason my mind turned toward the morbid thought “What if someone is carrying a bomb? What if we all die in a terrorist attack?” Yes, that is a very irrational thought, but being in Europe, I fear terrorism much more than I do in the Sates.

Later, when it had cleared enough for us to find a place to sit, I told Tiphaine about my irrational thoughts. She pointed out that anybody on the street could be carrying a bomb, as well as anyone on the metro. Comforting thought, right? “Besides, she said, if someone did have a bomb, we were going to die anyway because we would have had to die. When you die, it’s because it has to open. It’s God who decided it. For example, I know a man who missed his flight. The airplane crashed, but then on the way back from the airport he got in an accident and died anyway.”

We went to her friend Chloe’s house for a glass of wine. Chloe’s boyfriend Nicolas and his cousin were also there. The cousin had lived in England for four years and then in Boston for the past year. He said he’s never been able to lose his French accent in English, but I assured him that Americans love French accents and it’s considered very sexy.

When Chloe and Tiphaine went out on the terrace to have a cigarette, Nicolas was asking me about Americans and their attitude towards smoking. He said when he and his cousin went on a trip to the U.S. in high school, adults who saw them smoking were scandalized and threatened to call the police. Wonder what state that was.

Thursday 6/14

The major event of this day involved shopping at the Galleries Lafayette. We took the bus there and passed through the beautiful Place de la Concorde and by the Opera. Tiphaine was still working on getting her iphone repaired. Meanwhile, I wanted to buy a pair of skinny jeans (I’ve observed before on this blog that everyone here wears them.) I found a pair for a decent price at a Spanish store called Mango. Clearly we were not in America, because no item of clothing went past a size eight.

I still do not entirely understand the appeal of skinny jeans, because only the very tall and thin can pull them off well. So, I still hope it is an item of clothing that is on its way out. But now I do have a “French” item of clothing at least! After all, when in Rome (or Paris)…

Friday 6/15

That afternoon, Tiphaine had an orthodontist appointment. She had braces when she was younger, and then ended up needing them again for about six months. She hates them and clothes them her “crise existentielle” (“existential crisis.”) “Oh,” I joked. “Comme (like) ‘La Nausee.’ [I was referring to existentialist John Paul Sartre’s work ‘La Nausee,’ which I had to read in a French class in college].” She looked at me funny, responding “No, I’m not nauseated.” So then I had to explain my joke, which of course means it wasn’t funny (I thought it was great though!) J

Her orthodontist’s office is located near the Jardin des Tuileries, so I wandered around there while she was at her appointment. I discovered an angle on the camera called “fish eye” where the perspective looks like a fish looking out of its bowl. This was once again a case of just accidentally hitting a button on the camera, so I need to go look up on the manual how I can reproduce that effect.

On our way back from the orthodontist, the subject turned to Americans and obesity. Was it true, she asked me, that obesity was a problem in the U.S.? I said yes, that was true. One of her two American cousins is apparently quite large. In her own words “J’ai peur qu’il s’explose!” (“I’m afraid he’s going to explode!”)

I’m not sure how Europeans, especially the French, avoid this problem, because, while they walk much more than Americans, their food is so good. And of course, in cities like Paris, they have lots of American fast food places. There are Subways, Starbucks and McDonalds all over (the translation of McDonald’s slogan is just slightly tweaked to match the French turn of phrase; “I’m loving it” is “C’est tout ce que j’aime” (“It’s everything I love.”). My own personal theory is that French women tend to stay thinner because a lot of them smoke, which (I’ve heard) suppresses the appetite. I’ve often wondered what the rate of lung cancer is here. Smoking is still considered to have a very sexy, cool flare, so it does not have carry nearly the stigma that it currently does in the United States.

That evening, we went out with Chloe (whom we had seen Monday night) and two other friends, Marie and Priscilla. We met up with them at Priscilla’s apartment where they were having a glass of wine. They were eating pita bread with some kind of anchovy paste from Ikea. It was delicious. As usual, I was the only one not smoking. After pouring a glass of wine for each of us, we did a toast. You either say “cheers” with a French accent or “A ta santé” (“to your health”). However, they told me that when you do it, you have to look the person in the eye while you take a drink, because otherwise it is believed to bring bad luck. They were talking about different friends of theirs and who had gone out with whom, broken up with whom, etc. I learned a new slang word for the night: “pote.” It means “friend” but sounds nothing like the official words “amie or “copine.”

I told them about my new purchase of skinny jeans and we got onto French and American fashion. “Yes,” said Chloe, “the Americans that I work with dress more casual…they don’t dress badly…but they’re just…never sexy.” 

Then we went to a bar for a little bit. On our way out to the bar, one of the girls used the term “cougar” (said with the French accent—emphasis on the second syllable, ‘r’ back in the throat). I laughed and asked if they borrow that term from English, and they said that yes, Demi Moore and her relationship with Ashton Kutcher are responsible for introducing this term to the French language.

It was raining, and we kept passing by bars that seemed to have plenty of seats inside. Then Chloe explained to me that everyone wanted to find a bar with seats outside on the terrace because Parisians love sitting outside under the awning, even in the rain. So that is what we did. I sat next to Marie, who was telling me that she had lived in Illinois for six months and loved it there. Then Chloe’s cousin from Normandy, a newly-divorced, forty year-old redhead from with a loud voice and a raucous laugh, showed up. Chloe had already described her to us on Monday night as being “ultra-sexy” in spite of being forty and divorced. And it was true!

But we didn’t have much time because we had to move onto the next social event which was…the birthday party of Tiphaine’s friend Adeline, whom she knew from grammar school. By the end of the party, it was quite entertaining; everybody was drunkenly singing songs in English. Adeline’s boyfriend forgot a cake so put candles in a pizza instead; “Happy Birthday” was sung in English.

I met a woman there whom I thought might be Norwegian when I saw her—she had kind of small features, palish skin and red hair. When she started talking, I realized that she was French, and I was joking with her that when we initially met, I thought she was Norwegian. “Oh,” she responded, “I’m from Normandy” (like that was supposed to explain everything—I’m assuming she was referring to the Vikings pillaging Normandy?) but then added “My father is from Holland.” Another woman at the party was from Belgium—she was quite raucous. Tiphaine said you could tell she was from Belgium by her accent, but the music was too loud for me to even try to observe that nuance.

Saturday 6/16

Saturday morning, I went to the pharmacy for a mouth sore that had been bothering me for several days. It wasn’t going away, and kept getting inflamed, even though I was treating it with some Borostyrol that was around the house (Tiphaine had a mouth sore too, so we had a twice daily routine of dipping Q-tips in Borostyrol, holding them against our sores, and wincing in pain).

It’s easy to see where a pharmacy is when you’re walking down the street, because the front of a pharmacy always has a large, neon green cross extending out from it. Sometimes even for prescription-strength medication, instead of going to a doctor, you go into a pharmacy, explain your problem and then them pharmacist gives you what you need. (This could be embarrassing depending on what your problem is, because it’s not like you’re in a private room explaining it.) It seems like it’s only hair care products that you don’t have to ask the pharmacist for.) The pharmacist shone a light in my mouth and then ordered the medication on the computer. The medication comes out of a big shoot behind the pharmacist’s desk. He gave me something stronger than Borostyrol, plus a “bain de bouche” (“mouth bath,” not sure how you would say that in English).

That evening, we got together with Tiphaine’s friend Shaherezade (not sure how to spell her name), her husband, Clement Reix and their friend Vincent Millot. All three are professional tennis player. Shaherazade is Franco-Algerian and Clement and Vincent are French. Clement and Vincent have both played in the U.S. Open and Vincent just finished playing in the French Open. He was leaving at 7:00 am the next day to play at Wimbledon in London. When I think of tennis players, I think of the Williams sisters, so I have this stereotype that they’re all Amazon-sized people, but he stood eye-level with me. He’s originally from Dijon (just like the mustard) He spoke good English from having traveled to the United States so much to play tennis and was very interested in speaking English with me. He is 26 years old and was shocked to hear that I was 29.

At one point in the evening, we were talking about the translation of “putain,” a French curse word. The technical meaning is a vulgar term for the female anatomy, and the most common translation of it for it is the f-word, but French people use is much more freely than we do. I explained that in the U.S., frequent use of the f-word makes you either sound like white trash, or like you’re in the Mafia. Vincent’s English was good enough that I could check my French translation of “white trash” with him. He said it would be roughly equivalent “poubelle blanche” (sounds nicer in French, doesn’t it?) To expand on my meaning, I said it makes you sound like you were “eleve dans un camion” (“raised in a van or trailer.”).

Shaherezade was a loud, passionate woman. One minute, she and Clement would be shouting at each other and the next minute they would be making out. When they got into a yelling match about some mundane thing, like what to make for dinner, Vincent turned to me and said “Don’t be alarmed, they’re just very passionate.” “Yes,” I said, “It’s overflowing.” Actually, Shaherezade and Clement said they often have a “quicky” before their tennis matches to relax (yes, learned a new vocabulary word in French!). So I guess now we know the secret to Nadal’s victory in the French open for the past seven years!) J

At one point, Vincent sat in a chair with a weak leg and the chair gave way under him. Good thing he didn’t injure himself as he had Wimbledon the next day! Unfortunately, the chair went back up in its original position, so I accidently sat in it later and a split second later found myself sitting on the floor.


Shaherezade loves to speak English and both she and Tiphaine have mastered the words "anyway" and "whatever" in English with perfect American inflection.

At 1:00 am, we went out to the Etoile club (one of the ones near the Arc). Shaherezade told me that the skirt I was wearing was too long, so she lent me one of her dresses to get in, which I then changed out after entering. Since we were with professional players, we went into the VIP section, where there were containers filled with ice and bottles of vodka, Red Bull and apple juice. Red Bull was a new experience for me. It tastes like candy and 6 to 8 oz. of it feels like you just finished drinking about five shots of espresso. It’s the closest I will ever get to doing speed. But if your evening doesn’t really begin until 1:00 am, then I guess you need a pick-me-up. We returned home and were in bed by 5:00 am.

Sunday 6/17

I attended Mass at Sacre Coeur. I got my work out for the day because I chose to climb all the steps instead of taking the funiculaire up to the top…but I probably still had Red Bull coursing through my veins from the night before.

From the bottom to the top, Sacre Coeur and its steps are like a big circus. Vendors hawk their wares all over. African men grab your hand and try to tie bracelets that they just made around your wrist (I actually read about this in Rick Steve’s guidebook—it’s a tourist trap to make you feel obligated to buy something that has been tightly fastened to your wrist). People are sprawled on the steps talking and playing music. 

Sacre Coeur is not as big as Notre Dame, so if you attend Mass there, you don’t have the sense of worshipping separately from people that are there as tourists. The pews are cordoned off, but because the space isn’t enormous like Notre Dame, it’s like the tourists are pressing in on you in the pews. Just to get to the pews, I had to claw my way through throngs of tourists with their cameras.

I loved seeing, though, that the choir was composed of a community of habited nuns. One of the nuns served as the liturgist who led us in the psalm responses.

Just after Mass ended, I saw a habited nun (from a different order) seated in the pew in front of me whip out her iphone. Although I’m sure it exists, I’ve never seen a priest or a nun with an iphone in the United States. I thought it was a nice marriage of tradition and technology.

Roland Garros Wraps up, etc.

Thursday 6/7

Thursday was a frustrating day, which was mostly my fault. The morning was spent trying to pick up a few things from Elisabeth (camera charger and a couple items of clothing). We had arranged to meet at a certain place near the Gare du Nord (both a train station and a metro stop). However, I had stupidly forgotten to write down the place where we would be meeting! Thus I arrived at the Gare du Nord not knowing what to do next. I looked at a couple maps and tried to remember the name of the place she had given me, but couldn’t recall it. I couldn’t call her because my cell phone was both out of minutes and out of charge (Elisabeth’s other roommate had lent me an old phone, but needed to keep the charger, so I was still looking for one that would work on an older phone). Since I was running late anyway, I thought we had probably missed each other, and I decided that as long as I was at the Gare du Nord, I would continue south to Antony and see if she had arrived back home yet.

When I got to Antony, nobody answered when I knocked on the door, but when I tried to open it, it made enough noise that her roommate Shadi answered.

Unfortunately, Elisabeth was not there. Obviously I couldn’t call her on my cell, but fortunately, they had a landline, so Shadi called her cell with their landline. She had waited for over an hour at the Gare du Nord. She said that now she was on her way elsewhere and would not be coming home; however, she was on the train and would be coming by Antony in fifteen minutes so I should go back to the RER station and she would give me my things.

Shadi kindly walked me to the RER station, claiming that he was still feeling depressed about the break-up with his girlfriend and needed to get out of the apartment. Furthermore, he does some kind of freelance work in film and was short on work at the moment—he hadn’t been able to pay his last rent.

When I got home from this adventure, I was exhausted and all I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball. But when I checked my email, I discovered that this Spanish company for whom I was doing a translation had given me the wrong deadline (had originally told me they wanted the project the following day) and that they actually wanted the project in one hour! I wrote them back, sending them the email where they had given the wrong deadline. I asked for three additional hours. They of course had to give it to me (they didn’t really have much of a choice), but what was so frustrating was that there was no admission of wrongdoing on their part, or any apology for giving the wrong deadline.

This is the same company which waited for several days until I was almost done with a different translation before remembering that oops, they had actually assigned that one to someone else. A few months ago, I finished a large project for them (worth about $1000), only for them to tell me that they had sent me the wrong translation, and that they couldn’t afford to pay for twice the work so would only be able to pay me $600, and was that okay with me? On top of all this, I already get paid only half of what I charge per word…and sometimes I have to wait 60 days for payment.

Needless to say, I am DONE working with this company. I would love to tell them to go take a flying leap (to put it in the most polite way possible), but I will only do that after I get paid.

I was complaining to Tiphaine about this company and she exclaimed “Putain, je deteste les espagnols! Maintenant qu’Hollande est president, on va devenir comme eux!” (“****, I hate the Spanish! Now that Hollande is president, we’re going to become just like them!”)

Friday 6/8

In the morning, I took a walk on the Champs Elysees; the Arc de Triomphe and “the Champs” are only about a fifteen minute walk from where I live! I spent a lot of time being shell-shocked by the prices of nearly everything in the store windows…several hundred euros for a pair of shoes or a bottle of perfume!

I bought a quiche and sat on a bench to eat it and enjoy the people-watching. While I was eating, a beggar girl came up to me and said in a heavy Eastern European accent “Do you speak English?” I said yes, and she showed me a dirty piece of paper soft and worn out from being folded so many times. It had some story on it about her being from Bosnia and needing money. I told her I had no cash on me, which was actually true. All the same, after she walked away, I felt guilty about my response. My fear is that women or people who are very disabled or maimed are working as beggars for pimps, so to speak, who take all the money that people give them (sort of like in Slum Dog Millionaire). It later occurred to me (too late, of course) that a good solution would have been to give her some of my lunch, or to use my debit card to buy her a sandwich—something that someone else couldn’t take away from her later.

That evening, I ate dinner at a café across from the Gare du Nord with my friend Seline whom I knew when I was a student in Rennes. We were both in a class called “advanced grammar for foreigners” and used to hang out together. Several years later, we reconnected through Facebook. She now lives in Lille (with two French men—mixed sex housing seems much more common here than in the U.S., or maybe just my world in the U.S.; Seline says she finds other women, especially French women, to be too emotionally complicated to live with.) But she commutes to Paris everyday on the TGV. She is originally from Kenya but came to France for University because it is so expensive in Kenya. She has her Master’s in something like international business. But the past three to four years, after the economy went kaput in 2008, she has only been able to do temporary jobs for three to four months at a time. And you can’t even begin to apply for French citizenship until you have held a job here for at least one year. Actually, the evening that I saw her, she had been laid off that very day. She said she was psychologically exhausted from constantly looking for jobs every few months. Since that’s been the story of my life for the past three years, I can certainly sympathize.

She was explaining that in France, if you make under a certain amount, the government will reimburse you up to 800 Euros per month. So, just like in the United States, the people that make just above that threshold struggle because they make just enough to not receive government aid.

I always laugh so much when I’m with Seline. It was like nothing had changed over the past eight years. In fact, when she first saw me again she said “You haven’t changed at all; you still look like a baby!” Also, when we first began talking, I noticed she was speaking in English (being from Kenya, she speaks English), which surprised me because when I lived in Rennes we only ever spoke in French. I told her I wanted to speak in French and she was very surprised that I could still speak it after all these years. (Actually, I find her easier to understand in French than in English because her English has a very different accent…more like a British one, yet different).

We talked for about three hours. Then she had to catch the 10:00 pm train back to Lille and I had to get back home to take a shower before going out with Tiphaine. Before entering the Gare du Nord, we both had to stop at a cash machine. I would normally be hesitant to do so, because the Gare du Nord is not the nicest area and has a ton of pickpockets. But with Seline, I felt perfectly safe. I have no doubt that she could easily take down quite a number of men in a fight. In her words “Je peux me battre (I can defend myself).” 

When I got off the metro at Porte Dauphine, rain was pouring down and as usual, I had forgotten my umbrella. Fortunately, it is only a three minute dash to the apartment. After taking a quick shower, I got back on the Metro and met Tiphaine one metro stop away at Place Victor Hugo (yes, this was where Victor Hugo lived and wrote “Les Miserables”).

We went to a family friend’s housewarming party. Two very intoxicated guys there were very interested in trying to speak English with me, which was hilarious. One of them is named William and he kept comparing himself to Prince William. No chance. The other was trying to tell me that his career involved raising crocodiles to make leather purses with. He also told Tiphaine that he loved her dress, was a transsexual and had worn a similar one at one point.

Saturday 6/9

Before heading off to Roland Garros, I ate lunch with Aurore and Marine again; Aurore had stopped by to get Marine’s opinion on some jeans she had just bought. I ended up giving my opinion too. The jeans they wear here are super tight. For example, my normal jeans that I wear here, which I consider to be a “normal” fit, make me look like I am swimming. Lunch was good. They both enjoy kind of disgusting topics—last time we ate together, it was the Canadian serial killer who had cut his victim up into pieces; this time, it was some kind of drug that turns people into cannibals and makes them eat other peoples’ faces. Since everyone in the family had a phobia of seeing blood or wounds, I find Aurore and Marine’s choice of dinner table topics highly ironic.

We also discussed Parisians; they asked me if I thought that Parisians were rude (apparently a lot of people do). It was adorable; they told me “You can tell us the truth; it’s just us.” (According to them, the residents of Marseille hate Parisians and think they’re stuck up. There’s a sort of competition between the two cities, because Marseille is the second largest city in France after Paris. Part of the competition has to do with soccer, too. They said to never drive a car with Parisian license plates in Marseille. Don’t think that will be a problem for me.

I actually told them that I don’t find Parisians rude (but then, I lived in New Jersey for three years, so maybe that’s why Parisians don’t bother me!). In fact, I feel much more at home here than in Rennes (where I lived eight years ago, and definitely not a small city; 206,604), because Paris so massive and there are just so many foreigners that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Furthermore, I like the fast pace of life here. I guess that’s my American nature: I like the fact that there is always something to do, always something going on.

Another funny part of our conversation involved the English word “turkey” because that’s what we were eating. They asked me what “dinde” was in English. I said “turkey” and they were very surprised to hear that it is the same word as for the country Turkey (“Turquie”) in French. They were laughing at “un pays qui s’appelle ‘dinde’” (“a country that’s called a turkey!”).

Then I headed out to Roland Garros. In the metro, an old beggar woman got onto the train. She was fully veiled in her hidjab (which shows the face). She was so bent over that she could only walk at a 90 degree angle. The entire metro ride, she was singing a song. The tune of the song sounded Arab (definitely non-Western), and it resembled some kind of mourning song, because it sounded like a plaintiff wail. When she sang, she mixed French and Spanish words: “Donnez-moi a manger…Bonne chance a toi et a ti familia (Give me something to eat…Good luck to you and your family). The plaintiff nature of the song was certainly an effective method for begging. It had the same sort of grating nature as a baby crying.

When I got off the train itself and was walking through the Metro, I saw another beggar. This one had no arms. I wondered how he fed himself or did anything. Again, I feared someone else was “hiring him out” or using him to beg.

Yseult says that Romanian beggars have become a big problem in Paris. The topic came up when I was telling her that I passed by her workplace, Eglise de la Trinite. There were several beggars stationed outside. She claims that since Romania became part of the European Union in 2006, many Romanians come to Paris for about three months, where they make money by begging, and then bring it back to Romania. A lot of them keep dogs with them so that people are more likely to give them money. She said that they’ve had to wet down the sidewalks in front of Trinity so they stay away, but whenever it dries…they’re back.

At Roland Garros, Tiphaine was busy working of course, so I joined two of her friends (friends that she had met at University). One was originally from Morocco and the other from Syria, but dressed totally Western. In fact, I would have placed her Syrian friend as European because she had very intense blue eyes. When they talked to each other, they would mix French and Arabic, so I could never really figure out what they were talking about.

There weren’t enough tickets for all three of us to access the courts, so they had this complicated plan where I would use someone else’s ticket to get access to a court, then go to two different people and ask if I could borrow their ticket stubs because my little sister or my grandfather or somebody had gone to the bathroom and forgotten their ticket stubs so they couldn’t get back in. Then I would come out and give them the ticket stubs. The reason I was designated for the task, I think, was because I look foreign enough and could speak English and sort of play dumb, as if I couldn't understand any French. It was a very convoluted plan, and ill-conceived from the very beginning, because they ticket stub they gave me to enter said “Henry” something on it. Of course, it is obvious that my name is not Henry, so I couldn't even access the courts, and I thus failed at Step One of the plan.

But we were still able to watch Maria Sharapova (Russia) beat Sara Errani (Italy) on the big screen outside the courts. Besides being an awesome tennis player, Maria Sharapova is so tall (she absolutely dwarfed Errani), that it was no wonder she beat her—she did not have to stretch as far to lunge for the ball!

When Sharapova took the mic to make her speech during the ceremony, she spoke flawless American English—no accent. Apparently, she has retained her status as a Russian citizen but has lived and trained in the U.S. for a long time.

After the match, one of the Arabic television stations wanted to briefly interview Tiphaine's Morrocan friend. Even prior to that, a French-speaking reporter came up to one of them and asked "Who do you think will win: Sharapova or Errani?" I was glad that my opinion was not asked, because I would have been very nervous to say something in French on television!

That evening, Tiphaine and I went out to a birthday party of one of her Roland Garros friends. It was at a bar on the banks of the Seine. Tiphaine was tired so we didn’t stay long…just long enough to have a glass of Sangria, smoke a cigarette (Tiphaine, not me), and chat with her friend. The friend had lived in New York for a year and a half, so after we gave each other “bisous” (the standard French greeting--kisses on each cheek), she asked me in English where I was from, told me where she had lived and then said in perfect English “You know, I’m always bitching about the American concept of dating.” I responded “Yeah, so am I.” We did not get a chance to pursue the subject further…but I would be very interested to do so, because I want to hear what a foreigner’s impressions are.

As Tiphaine and I walked along the banks of the Seine back to the Metro, we sidestepped several piles of vomit from inebriated people on the banks of the Seine. Kind of reminds of when we left the second Roland Garros party (the rave-like one); when we exited up onto the street, we passed some derelict guy laying by the gutter in his own vomit after too much partying at “The Arc.” Between the vomit and the dog s*** (people never pick up after their dogs here!), you have to watch where you step on the streets of Paris!

Sunday 6/10

Sunday, I attended Mass at the Chapelle Sainte Rita again. This time, I rode the Metro next to a Jewish man wearing his skull cap and carrying a bag with three Hebrew letters embroidered in gold. I was trying to sound them out (took Hebrew at Princeton Seminary and loved it), but he turned away from me before I had time.

At Chapelle Sainte Rita, I sat next to a woman originally from the Cote d’Ivoire. She was an enormous woman, wearing a tent-like green and gold dress that looked African in origin. She also had red glasses on. When we exchanged the sign of peace, she reached over and hugged me, either because that’s the custom in Cote d’Ivoire or because she had found out I was American. (When we were chatting before Mass, I asked if she was from the Pigalle area, and she responded ‘Yes. Are you from this neighborhood?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m from the United States.’”) She asked for my number so that she could take me to Mass at different churches around Paris.

That evening, I told Yseult about my new friend. She said that African immigrants in France are “tres croyants” (very devout) and that they often call the parish because they believe they are “envoutes” (“possessed”). Of course, as secretary, she merely directs them to the priest for further guidance.

We also got onto the topic of Islam in France. I was asking what the current laws on religious symbols are, because last time I was here, there was discussion of banning “ostentatious religious symbols” in government-operated schools. This would have affected not only Muslims and Jews, but also Catholic nuns, priests and even lay people wearing crosses. She said that currently, the law says that you can’t a “le voile integrale” (a veil obscuring the face) in public.

“Forty or fifty years in the future,” she said, “everybody here will be walking around with headscarves. Islam is already the most practiced religion here. The trouble with us Catholics is, we don’t dare talk about our beliefs. At least Muslims here dare to say what they believe. We don’t dare.”

Yseult’s brother (the one who married an American) has worked all over the world, including countries in the Arabian Penninsula. She told me that one Christmas, her parents tried to send her brother chocolates with alcohol in them it was denied because of the alcoholic content. She knew a priest there who could not wear his clerical collar.

She said “When you move to a new country, you have to make adjustments. And there has to be a give and take. That’s called ‘reciprocity.’”

That evening, the last match of the French Open, between Nadal Jokovic, was rained out. Yseult and Marine were both cheering for Nadal. (Yseult was telling me that Nadal has won the French Open seven times and that every year for the past seven years, he has celebrated his birthday during it!) Tiphaine was rooting for Jokovic just because she didn’t want a Spaniard to win (see previous entry on her extreme distaste for the Spanish). As for me (and this is typical for me and any sport, even with tennis, which I like a lot), I really didn’t care, or as the French would say “Je m’en fous.” Although, a little part of me was rooting for Jokovic just because I thought someone else besides Nadal should get a chance to win the French open!

The first round of parliamentary elections was held that day. Overall, the Socialist Party came out ahead. However, Le Pen beat Melanchon in the north. Yseult is not a big fan of Le Pen, but she definitely did not want Melanchon to win; she thought he was arrogant. She was crowing with glee when she found out that Melanchon had lost: “Ce sale type! Il etait si sur qu’il allait gagner…Ca illumine mon soir!” (“That bastard! He was so sure that he was going to win…That just makes my night!”)

Monday 6/11

The Nadal-Jokovich match started up again. I was working on a translation project at the apartment; Tiphaine of course was of course at Roland Garros. Ironically, though, during the last hour of the match, she got stuck in a room without a TV. She called me and had me watch it live online, so I could give her a point-by-point update. I felt like a sportscaster “Nadal sert…et Jokovic a manqué…il n’a pas pu le retourner.” (“Nadal’s serving…and Jokovic missed…he couldn’t return it.”)

Tiphaine did not get back until 3:00 am Tuesday morning...she certain worked hard at Roland Garros.

So much to tell!

Friday 6/1

On Friday, I went to the Musee D'Orsay, which used to be an old train station. According to Rick Steves, it “barely escaped the wrecking ball in the 1970s.” It is so hard to believe that they were going to tear it down, considering that it is so beautiful. The ceiling of the main gallery is made of arched windows, so the main gallery is flooded with light. The main gallery has conservative art from the 19^th century, which includes Greek-looking statues and paintings in the classical style. My Rick Steves guidebook directed me toward the Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres’ “The Source” and Alexandre Cabanel’s “The Birth of Venus.” Both of these paintings have very fleshy, nude women—Ingres’ woman is standing up and Cabanel’s Venus is lying down. The best part of the Ingres’ painting was the way he painted the water flowing down from the jug on the woman’s shoulder.

Then, I moved into the Realism section. My favorite part of this was Honore Daumier’s collection of busts “Celebrities of the Happy Medium.” Since he was trained as a political cartoonist, these are essentially political cartoons turned into statues, and meant to mock members of Parliament. They were hilarious…they had exaggerated features and crossed eyes, and their faces were usually twisted and screwed up into ridiculous expressions.

I wandered into the section of paintings with Eastern themes. This was actually my favorite section, which was not even mentioned in the guidebook. One of my favorite paintings was “Esclave d’Amour et Lumiere des Yeux” (“Slave of Love and Light of the Eyes”—my translation) by Etienne Dinet. It is a painting of a man in a turban with his arms around a woman with a blue sari, a red veil and lots of bracelets. Their backdrop is a bush of pink flowers and a starry night sky. Apparently Dinet painted this after visiting Algeria for the first time; he would later convert to Islam.

Then I went up to the Impressionist floor. Without question, my favorite painting was Monet’s “Cathedrale de Rouen.”  He spent an entire day observing the Rouen Cathedral from across the street and would do a new painting of it every time the light changed. There are 18 of these paintings, but the Musee D’Orsay only has one five or six of them. That is unfortunate, because he intended them to go all together. Here’s one description of it:

Changeant de canevas selon la lumière, Monet suivait les heures de la journée, depuis le petit matin avec la façade en bleu ombré de brouillard, à l'après-midi , quand le soleil disparaissant derrière les constructions de la ville, transformait l'oeuvre de pierre érodée par le temps en une étrange fabrique d'orange et de bleu. 

Here's what it means: “Changing his canvas according to the light, Monet followed the day’s hours, from the wee hours when the façade was in a shadowy blue of fog, to the afternoon, when the sun, disappearing behind the buildings of the city, transformed this work of stone eroded by time into a strange mix of orange and blue.”

That evening, I was getting ready for bed after what had been a busy week. But when Tiphaine arrived home around 11:00 pm, she asked if I wanted to go out, and I suddenly felt awake again. We were not just going out to any old bar, but to the Roland Garros VIP Players Party at a club literally right underneath the Arc de Triomphe. There was a catch, however: it was a club “tres classe” and she did not think I could get in without high heels, but that I was welcome to try. I showed her the dress I planned to wear, a halter-top, deep v-neck black dress that I had worn for a bridesmaid's dress in a wedding. When I tried it on for her, she pronounced it “assez classe” (classy enough). I can thank Kristen Highum and JC Penney for having that dress!

We had to hurry, so I did not have time to put much makeup on. When we got to the club, Tiphaine realized that in our rush to get there, she had forgotten her own heels. At this point we were not sure either of us would get in, even with her Roland Garros ID. I was at a double disadvantage, with no Roland Garros ID and no heels either! However, when she showed the bouncer her Roland Garros ID and said I was with her, they must have overlooked our lack of high heels, because they let us in.

I have never seen so many tall, beautiful people in one room before. Even journalists were beautiful… At 5’6 with my black flats on, I felt tiny…but Tiphaine is at least a couple inches shorter than I am and was in flats too, so at least I was not technically the shortest person in the room.

The women behind the bar serving the drinks looked like models as well. Tiphaine managed to get me a ribbon to tie around my wrist that said “Roland Garros VIP Players Party,” which then meant that I could sip Cristal champagne for free all night.

The club was underground, and opened up into an area with no roof, where the Arc de Triomphe towered over us. This was the area where people would go if they wanted to dance and smoke at the same time. My mom remarked that it was too bad I did not have my camera with me, but then commented that “people probably were not taking photos anyway.” But I corrected her: “Actually, Mom, everybody in the room had a cigarette and a drink in one hand, and their iphone in the other…they would take pictures with their iphones.”

We spent the night hanging out with Tiphaine’s journalist friends and even saw some tennis players. The ones she pointed out to me were low-ranked so she couldn’t remember their names…but I did brush elbows with them a few times when it got crowded.

People danced the night away, mostly to American songs and singers, such as Rihanna, Jay-Z and Gotye. I only remember one French song being played. At about 3:00 am, they set off what looked like sparklers on the perimeter of the open-air area beneath the Arc.

It was so surreal...all I could think was "Me, Kirsten Griffin, five-foot six, from St. Paul, Minnesota...I'm at the Roland Garros VIP Players Party in Paris under the Arc de Triomphe! Is this a dream? Did I just step into Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris'? Did I just get transported into a 2012 version of a Great Gatsby novel?"

We arrived home at 4:00 am; it was a night to remember.

Sun. 6/1

At 11:00 am, I went to Mass at La Chapelle de Sainte Rita with Yseult. This chapel is actually an extension of Trinity Church where Yseult works, but it is located in a different neighborhood, the Pigalle area. This area is full of tourists, seedy nightclubs and prostitution. The Chapel is not in a building that looks like a chapel, but rather on the first floor of a building full of apartments and shops. It was built in 1956 and then reworked several years ago by architect Jean Jolivel. It is actually located underneath Henri Matisse’s old studio! Yseult said that not a lot of people are aware of that. She showed me the back staircase leading up to his old studio, which has a large serpent carved at the bottom of the banister. I am not sure what the studio has been transformed into now.

On our way to Saint Rita’s, we rode the Metro sitting next to an Imam. One of those musicians making their living by playing music in the metro cars was playing a Jazz song that sounded like it was from the 1940s, and reminded me of my Grandpa Harley. Yseult was telling me that it is not uncommon for people to make a living playing their instruments in the metro. She said that in the opposite direction of that line, there is a British man who plays all Beatles music.

Saint Rita’s chapel had a mix of people from all over the world. The woman sitting next to me figured out I was not French, so when it came time to pass the peace, she reached over to shake my hand, while I leaned over to kiss her on the cheeks, as the French do. So we ended up doing both, clasping hands while kissing on the cheeks.

Yseult and I returned home to eat Sunday dinner: salad, and steak and onions cooked in wine, and of course, wine to drink! I spent the rest of the day finishing a translation project that I had started on Saturday and was due on Monday. In the evening, I told Yseult that I wanted to go for a walk or a run and asked what she thought of the Bois de Boulogne, which is relatively nearby. She said she thought there were too many prostitutes there and it would not be a safe enough place and suggested the Parc Monceau. It is a gated park, but free to enter and has people sitting on benches, walking, running, rollerblading, etc. And of course, there are couples making out on the benches…it is summertime in Paris, after all.

Mon. 6/4

After a day of translating, I went with Tiphaine to another Roland Garros party, but this one was not as “classe” so I did not have to worry about wearing heels. Actually, this party seemed a lot seedier than the last one…more like a rave (although I have never actually been to a rave, but I imagine that is what it would be like). People packed in tighter than sardines and lights flashing to the point that it could even give a non-epileptic a seizure. We returned home at 3:00 am from this one.

Tues. 6/5

I awoke after three hours of sleep, because I had a translation project to turn in at noon. After I finished, I headed out to Roland Garros, where I was supposed to meet up with Tiphaine and her friends. As it turned out, Tiphaine couldn’t get away long enough to join us, and it was just her friend Gregoire who was there. 

Greg is a lobbyist for the UMP party (Jacque Chirac’s party, center-right). He lobbied on behalf of business interests, both large and small. He studied economics and has lived in both Morocco and Spain. His grandparents were from Italy, but he was born in France. He has a lot of family in Morocco, which is why he ended up working there. He wanted to practice his English, so we had fun speaking both English and French.

Tiphaine and I get along really well as roommates. Even though she gets back late from Roland Garros every night (between 11:00 pm and midnight), if I’m awake she comes in, says hi and we talk a little bit about what happened in our days.

Our rooms used to be one big room, so there is just a thin wall with a window between us. Thus, we can have a conversation and even pass things through the window. The other night, she asked me “Tu veux des bonbons?” (“Want some candy?”) She passed me some kind of gummy bear candy through the window.

The other night, I was just telling her how different this experience feels from the last time I was in France. I was here from January to May 2004, not long after the Iraq war had started, and only three years after the 9/11 and the Afghanistan invasion. When I could get away with it, I would say I was Canadian. I was relieved when people would place my foreign accent as Norwegian or Swiss rather than American so I could avoid that whole discussion. I remember being in Switzerland and after a protest seeing the ground littered with pieces of paper comparing Bush and Hitler. When I was recounting this with Tiphaine, we had a good laugh over the term “freedom fries” that came into being at that time. She said she was actually disappointed by Hollande’s election and wanted Sarkozy. According to her, the wealthy are leaving France for Canada and Monaco. She said that like everyone, she loves her mandatory five weeks of vacation per year, but that she does not think that it is necessarily good for the economy.

Yseult said as much regarding retirement—Hollande wants to keep the retirement age at sixty or lower. She thinks if people are living longer and healthier lives, they should be working longer.

Other interesting things about Yseult..she was telling me that she was born in the Central African Republic and lived there until she was three years old. Her parents had some kind of business there—I think it had to do with printing. Either her husband’s family or her family or both were originally from Belgium, which is why their last name, Desmedt, does not sound French (I originally thought it was German.) She was wearing a ring on her finger with an interesting symbol on it, and I asked her about it. She said it was her “blazon” (means something like insignia or crest), which changes form when you marry.

Last night, when we were eating dinner, we were talking about her father, who lives in the building and is 90 years old (I mentioned him in a previous entry). She said he is forgetting everything recent, but can still tell you all about World War II. His brother (Yseult’s uncle) had blond hair, blue eyes, spoke German fluently and was an engineer, so he actually spent time posing as a German engineer but actually making their planes crash. He was caught near the end of the war and imprisoned in a concentration camp. For years, Yseult’s father tried to find his brother, with the glimmer of hope that he might be alive somewhere. Finally, five or six years ago, he got in touch with an author of a book on World War II and concentration camps, and through this author found a record that his brother had been gassed there. Imagine that—to spend over sixty years not knowing if your sibling was alive or dead. The brother was only 23 when he was imprisoned.

Yseult told me that if I ask him about the war, he will spend the whole day talking about it. So, I might actually go to his apartment sometime and ask him about it, and if it’s okay with him, write out what he’s saying, because there are so few WWII vets left. Besides, I love older people, and I find their French very easy to understand because they talk slower and don’t use “argot” (slang).

After we finished talking about her father’s experience in WWII, Yseult said “The only war I remember was 1968 [1968 was a year of a lot of student riots and protests across Europe.]…that was my war. I was fifteen years old, and even high schools were closed. I remember reading Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone with the Wind’…some things did need to change, but I think that some things changed for the worse, for example, children’s respect for adults.”

Other interesting tidbits:

•     Marina (21 years old), was a “ramasseuse” (ballgirl) about ten years ago at the French Open, so there’s a picture of her with one of the Williams sisters in the living room.
•    Tiphaine has a few days off after Roland Garros (which she definitely deserves!), so we might go up to Normandy for a few days to stay with one of her friends. The Desmedts actually have a house there, next door to the house where Marcel Proust lived! However, a few years ago, it burned down, but luckily, they all escaped unharmed. It is now in the process of being rebuilt (so we can’t stay there).
•       I am living on the same street as one of the Ministers who drafted the constitution for the Fifth French Republic. I am also in close proximity to the residence of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Yseult said that she was once at a daily mass at a German church in this neighborhood and saw him there.
•     I just finished eating dinner with Aurore and Marina (Tiphaine was at a meeting for Roland Garros). Aurore stopped by after work and made dinner. Those two are so entertaining together—they should have a show. They are so animated and I feel very comfortable talking with them. They are obsessed with this Canadian serial killer who recently escaped to Paris, was seen in Aurore’s neighborhood, and thankfully just got arrested in Berlin. So that was the topic of discussion tonight. Marina is studying film at the Sorbonne, and I asked her if she knew about the Cohen brothers. She knew about them, but has never seen “The Big Lebowski (a favorite of mine), so maybe I’ll have to see if I can find a version of it here!
•    Yesterday I finished a translation for the Department of Defense in the Kingdom of Morocco. It was actually incredibly boring, but it sounds cool to say, doesn’t it?
•     Tomorrow I am meeting Elisabeth at a Metro stop to pick up my camera charger and cord, which I left at her place in Antony…so I should be able to upload photos soon!

The Past Three Days

Tuesday 5/29: Elisabeth still wasn't feeling her best, so she had one of her students come over for a lesson so she wouldn't have to travel (she teaches private English lessons). The student was petrified of speaking English, and I found it hard to see why, since Elisabeth is so friendly and outgoing! Near the end of the lesson, she asked me a few questions in English about American culture so the student would have the benefit of listening to a native speaker. She told her student she could ask me questions as well, but of course the student was too shy to do so, so it ended up just being a conversation between Elisabeth and me.

I also helped gave Elisabeth some advice on a cover letter she had to write for the Sorbonne. She wants to do her Master's in teaching English, because it's hard to get as much work teaching English as she would like without having a degree in that area. That program requires a cover letter in English, and it has to be handwritten--not something we are used to in the age of word-processing. That means every time you make a small error, you have to start over, because whiteout would look very unprofessional. She had a few questions, mostly on English prepositions, that she wanted to check on to make sure that she wasn't writing in "Frenglish" (when the construction of your English sentences starts to sound more like that of French, or when you use cognates that don't actually have the same meaning).

That evening, Elisabeth's boyfriend Jonathon came over. Like Elisabeth, he has one French parent and one American parent so he speaks English as well as French, but with a very British accent. We stayed up late talking; I also got to Skype with my mom that night and assure her that yes, I was getting enough rest and yes, the Metro was safe to ride by myself at night.

Then Tiphaine called and invited me to Roland Garros: The French Open! I was in such a state of disbelief that I asked "Will I get to see them play tennis?" She laughed and said "Yeah, of course!" I arranged to meet up with her, her mom and her sister at Roland Garros the next stay, at which time we would also discuss when I would move in.

Wednesday 5/30: I woke up not having slept very well, since I was so excited about the French Open!

While I was in the shower and Elisabeth was still asleep, Jonathon had gone to the bakery and gotten fresh "croissants au chocolat," "croissants aux raisins secs" and something like an apple turnover (can't remember the term right now). He had also gotten orange juice at the grocery store and had coffee ready for us too! He made coffee the French way, meaning extremely strong, which I loved.

I took the Metro into Paris to wait for Tiphaine to call and make a second attempt to buy a pass for the Bibliotheque Sainte Genvieve. There was a line outside so I went and bought a sandwich while waiting for the line to diminish. I also found a good place to eat: the courtyard of the Sorbonne Faculte de Droit (Law School). The courtyard is full of statues. Many students were eating their lunches there. I felt like such an intellectual eating there!

Then I went into the Eglise Saint-Etienne-du-Mont across from the Pantheon to have a look inside. Tons of students from the Sorbonne were sitting on the steps eating lunch but of course nobody was inside the church. I went inside, where there is a side chapel with Saint Genevieve's relics. There was also a picture of John Paul II with a bunch of young people, because during World Youth Day in 1997, he led a mass at this church.

While I was venerating the relics and reading the Litany of Saint Genevieve, Tiphaine called and said she would meet me outside Roland Garros in half an hour, so I headed over there. I met her mother, Yseult and her younger sister, Marina (21 years old).

When we entered, Marion Bartoli (French) was playing Petra Martic (Croatian). Tennis is one of the few sports that I both understand and enjoy watching. Never having seen more than high school tennis matches in St. Paul public schools, it was amazing to see the professionals play! Martic beat Bartoli; of course, most people there were cheering for Bartoli. I asked Tiphaine why the French player had an Italian last name, and she said it was because Bartoli was from Corsica. She was very impressed that I knew Napoleon was from Corsica!

Professional tennis matches seem like such distinguished events; I half expected to see some royalty (such as Prince William or the Duchess of Cambridge) there. The rowdiest it would get was when one portion of the spectators would sing "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" and another portion would respond "Ole!"

The match we saw was between Joel Wilfried Tsonga (French) and Cedric-Marcel Stebe (German). During this match, we were surrounded by Germans. They all looked like they were from Minnesota so I felt right at home. Unfortunately, two sets into this match, it got rained out.

Tiphaine's iphone had broken that day, which she was stressed about because since she works in the media, she needs it in order to do her work. So she turned to me and, trying out her English, said "I am in the big shit." I corrected her and said, "No, you need to say deep shit." She wanted to know why she couldn't say "big" and I explained that it was just one of those many idiomatic expressions that doesn't translate word for word between the two languages. After getting her to say "deep" instead of "big" I had to get her to drop the definite article, since she kept saying "I am in the deep shit." So once I had gotten her on the right track with the grammar and vocabulary of that expression, then she started to say "I am in the deep ship" and then I had to explain that there's a big difference between "ship" and "shit," that "shit" = "merde," "ship" = "bateau," etc. We're obviously going to need to fine-tune that expression during my stay here! :)

Thursday 5/31 I moved in to the apartment with Tiphaine, her mother and her younger sister. The building was built in 1860 and has been in the family since her great-great grandmother. Her mother has lived in this building for 50 years, and because it goes back so far, many of the people in the building are their distant cousins. Actually, I met her grandfather when I was trying to figure out which apartment was theirs. He's an older man (90 years old), losing his hearing and slightly confused. I was shouting as loudly and clearly as I could that I was looking for Tiphaine Desmedt and that I was subletting from her, and he kept saying "Mais ca c'est ma petite fille...De quoi il s'agit??" ("But that's my granddaughter...what is all this about?") Finally, Marina (Tiphaine's little sister) came down and assured her grandfather that it was alright and that everything had been taken care of.

The apartment is lovely, especially the living room. I'll be posting some pics later, probably on facebook.

Another girl walked in yesterday and introduced herself as another sister, Aurore (26 years old); it turns out there are actually four sisters (not two, as I had originally thought). The oldest is 31, married with two children and lives outside of Paris.

The mother, Yseult, works at L'Eglise de la Trinite (Trinity Church) in the 9th arrondissement. It is a very active Catholic parish, run by priests from the Emmanuel Community (the Emmanuel Community is a worldwide Roman Catholic community of priests and laypeople devoted to evangelization). Yseult is the priest's secretary. She's an incredibly sweet lady. Her brother married a French woman so her nephews are American and she is very fond of them. She has offered to bring me to work with her next week when I have time so that I can meet some of her co-workers.

This morning I saw Tiphaine for a few hours on her break from working at Roland Garros. She will be insanely busy until that is over, but I am looking forward to hanging out with her more in the future. I think I mentioned in a previous entry that we are nine days apart in age--oh, and she, Marina and I are all left-handed (this came up during the Tsonga-Tsebe match because Tsebe's a lefty, which can be an advantage in tennis).

This afternoon, I visited the Musee D'Orsay...but I'll save that for another entry.

Bonne nuit!