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.