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.