Hurricane

The way I see it, there are two kinds of people in life:  those who run to catch the Metro and those who don’t.

The way the Parisian Metro works (similar to those in London, Prague, and Vienna) is that a medium to rather annoying high pitched blaring noise sounds right before the doors automatically close.  Similar to the yellow light at traffic sections across the States, this blaring sound doesn’t mean slow down or go faster.  It simply means “decision time.”  Will you gun the engine and make it through the intersection?  Or will you calmly put your foot on the breaks and roll to a driver’s education approved stop?  Will you – who are twenty feet away from any open door on the train – will you run to make it to a door and then sacrifice your body in the event that the doors close before you can make it all the way into the train car?  Or will you slow down and walk nonchalantly by as if you didn’t care whether you have to wait three, five, or nine minutes for the next train to come by.

One of my favorite stories from Paris involves such an incident.  Being an excellent people observer (raised by the best – thanks Mom!), I always enjoy a solitary Metro ride because it affords the time to study my fellow human beings in their natural – or rather unnatural with regards to the plethora of shoeless hobos – environment.  That is how I came to coin this dash-or-no-dash-to-catch-the-train-door theory of mine.  When I voiced this idea to a friend of mine, she told me this story:

Once, while my friend was taking the Metro, she was comfortably placed inside the train car when the warning-the-doors-are-closing sound went off.  Suddenly, a woman in four in heels breaks out in a dead run at least twenty feet from the door.  Seeing she isn’t going to make it, the lady throws her shopping bag into the train car.  The bag gets stuck between the closing doors, leaving just enough time for the woman to catch up to her shopping, shoving the bag and herself into the car. 

My friend and I have gone over this story several times trying to understand how the woman knew the precise moment to throw the bag so that it would stop the doors and not actually enter the car, leaving her stranded on a train platform sans expensive shoes in shopping bags.  Regardless, whoever that lady is, she is my hero.

Like I said, there are two types of people in the world:  those who run to catch the Metro door and those who don’t.  I’m happy to say that I am a runner.  I’ve got the bruises to prove it.

Recently, I was sharing a Métro ride with a friend when we had an interesting conversation.  Well, more like a one-sided conversation.

Being the youngest of three children, I’ve never had the experience of living with little kids.  I was always the one forced to take the uncomfortable middle seat in the back of the car.  I was the one who was made fun of when I refused to give up hope in Santa Claus.  Even when, every Christmas Eve, our parents would pack us into the car while they mysteriously took an extra thirty minutes to get in and buckle up.  “What do you suppose Mom and Dad are doing inside the house?” my older sister would agonizingly hint.  “I have noooo idea!  They certainly aren’t putting out presents!” my brother would answer.

This is the first time in my life I’ve shared the same house, been part of the same family as two little girls.  I was surprised to find how many childhood memories are awakened just by the proximity to their monumental daily tasks:  four homework exercises in French!  The dreaded class photo!  Forced daily showers and underwear changes!  OH MY!!
 

But without a doubt the best part of living with kids is the music.
 

My petite souris has music classes three times a week:  a private lesson, orchestra class, and learning to read music class, known as solfège.  Because I spent seven odd years playing clarinet, I am able to help her as she learns to wade through increasingly complicated rhythms.  But when it comes to reading the notes, French children are taught the “Do Re Mi” scale as opposed to the actual names for notes.  Names like F A C E.  So when my little mouse is reading a new piece of music, she sings, “Fa So La Do” and so on.  (To this day I still wonder when they decide to teach the children the real names for the notes).
 

Back in the fall when I first encountered this cultural difference, I was reminded of – what else besides that classic – The Sound of Music.  This led me to eventually by the DVD for my petite souris as a Christmas present.
 

Of course, she didn’t show much enthusiasm for the gift, but me, being the stubborn stick in the mud that I am, eventually wrote out the words to the “Do-Re-Mi” song and we sang along to the DVD one day as an English lesson.  Pretty soon I had them both hooked – they needed to know what happens to the Van Trapp family and whether or not Maria finds love with the Captain and how cute is that youngest girl, anyway?!  Just simply adorable!  For weeks after their introduction, the girls couldn’t get enough of “Ze Sound of Musik”.  We sang the songs during dinner, while getting ready for bed, even in the car on family road trips.  One of my favorite memories in France is the day I first tediously explained each word of the song and sang along to “Do-Re-Mi” with my mouse.  Her eyes were glued to the screen but mine were fixed on her tiny features.  My eyes filled with tears as I watched her own eyes grow wide with happy anticipation and sheer joy.  I will never forget that first time pressed “Stop” after Maria had finished singing and she turned to me pleadingly, “Can’t we please just watch a little more?”
 

Though The Sound of Music definitely remains the all time favorite in the house (and has made it to the top of their favorite movies list, surpassing Pretty Woman and Crocodile Dundee), I’ve also been surprised at how many childhood songs I can suddenly recall.  Songs like “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt”.  And the Batman and Robin version of Jingle Bells.  I even recently remembered a favorite “Miss Susie” chant my girl friends and I would sing at recess in third grade.  (Yeah, we were the cool kids).
 

Yesterday was the little Mouse’s tenth birthday.  After picking up the girls from school we stopped by the grandparents’ house for a snack.  Her grandma revealed one more present for her to open.  And as she ripped the paper off the children’s cookbook, I suddenly found myself singing, “Happy birthday to you / you live in a zoo /  you look like a monkey / and you smell like one, too!”

She was actually offended by the song, though she was slightly mollified when I asked her if there were any other versions of “Joyeaux Anniversaire”.  There were.  She sang them.  And we both agreed that mine was way funnier.

Every weekend, the French newspaper Le Monde includes an eight-page selection from the New York Times.  Needless to say, this little publication has kept me informed on what is happening back home and around the world.  Recently, I`ve realized it is also helping me prepare to re-enter that fair land of the free and the home of the brave:  where one must walk on one`s tip toes to avoid making a politically incorrect statement and getting sued.  Ahhhh, the good ol` U.S. of A.

Dear France,
 

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I never wrote a month eight news letter.  There were one or two incredibly optimistic days when I had every intention of actually writing it.  But then I got lazy again.  And honestly, I enjoyed those three weeks I spent that month without the internet as well as the two relaxing weeks I spent on spring holidays traveling to Prague and Vienna with my sister.

Castle, Prague

In a fit of reflection, I’ve spent the last two months contemplating the overall reason for my visit:  language.  Language acquisition.  Nuances in dialect.  Verbal fluency.  Having studied French since I was twelve, I came here to improve my speaking skills because when it comes to a foreign language, book-learning will consistently fall short.  Of course in all that time of studying the language, culture, politics, geography and innumerable breathtaking monuments and sites, I did learn that many of the French, mostly the Parisians, are rather unfriendly to foreigners.  In the months leading up to my departure, I secretly looked forward to this general unfriendliness as I assumed I would fit right in with the locals.  I specifically remember a shopping trip to Target with my mom where we stocked up on airplane approved toiletry items and the check out girl couldn’t help but ask where we were headed for vacation.  I looked at the girl, wondering if I should respond or just pretend like I hadn’t heard her.  But my mom was polite and friendly enough to respond that the destination was Paris, the stay, about a year.

Ice cream!

What has been bothering me for the past nine months is not, perhaps, how abrasive the French are in personality, but how standoff-ish they are when it comes to their language.  There are thousands who come here to learn the language from the lowliest debutantes who can only say “Bonjour” or “Parlez-vous Anglais?” to those who have spent the last ten years studying (such as myself).  Whatever the case, as foreigners, we’ve come to learn.  But our reception couldn’t be colder.  If you politely attempt to ask a question to a store clerk, they answer you in English or snobbily pretend that they cannot possibly understand what you are saying.  Even after nine months, and everyone in the family and extended family proclaiming that I speak the best with the best accent of the last five au pairs, both my French parents give me a confused look when I speak and then wait a few seconds to process what it is I’ve said.  My French dad in particular is unlikely to understand what I’ve tried to say:  he focuses so hard on listening that he doesn’t actually hear.  On one particularly low day, my pre-teen lapin and her giggly friends proceeded to make fun of my French AND English.

Castle, Vienna

Back home, if some foreigner were to stop me on the street to ask for directions and they politely apologized – “Excooz me, my Eengless, it ess not vewy gud” – I would never respond by saying, “You’re right.  It sucks.  You might as well give up now.”  Yet that’s how foreigners are received in Paris:  If you can’t speak, you might as well go home.  And if you can speak, it definitely isn’t good enough.  As my Irish friend, Sarah, says, the French shouldn’t be surprised that their language is dying; they don’t allow anyone but themselves to speak it.

One of the many ways that my second semester professor far-outstripped the previous was by letting us choose our essay topics.  Writing in a foreign language is important to progressing and it is also an area in which I have excelled in the past.  As the last week of classes approached, my professor reminded us all to hand in one more written assignment.  On the third to last day, I finally got around to finishing my essay.  In it, I openly talked about my frustration with the French and their inability to accept foreigners into their country to learn their sacred language.  On my very last day of French class EVER (fingers crossed), my teacher pulled out my essay from her stack of papers and bluntly asked if she could talk about it.  I was relieved to see heads nod around the classroom as she quickly outlined my ideas.  It’s not just me.  Nor my Anglophone friends.  Russians and Asians and Scandinavians – we’ve all been emotionally and verbally abused for trying to learn French in Paris.

Sacre Cœur from inside Musée d'Orsay

At this point, France, you might be thinking, “Bon.  Good observations, you crazy American girl, but what does it prove?  Where are you going with this?  We’re not going to change.  Especially not for you foreigners.”  But don’t worry, France.  I never expected that.  What I’ve learned, besides an unshakable exasperation with the French language, is that I am not alone.  This time it’s not just me being cynical.  Because there are others who agree.  Scores of others.

Despite all of this, despite knowing that you don’t want us to be here trying to speak French, we still love Paris.  How could we not?  The architecture, the cathedrals, the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, the museums, the friendships, the memories…  No matter how unfriendly the French are, any foreigner is proud to call Paris “home” for however short or long that time may be.

Beaches in Normandie

Recently, after a very long night, my friend Tanja and I were sitting at her apartment window watching the sun come up.  The streets remained calm as the artificial lights were put to rest and the still-invisible sun dusted the sky and pale buildings a deep rose.  “Look where we are,” she inadvertently blurted out, “It’s Paris!”  And even though this exclamation may seem a little cliché, I knew exactly what she meant.  Anyone living in Paris would understand.  Despite the seemingly endless lists of complaints, I’ve still fallen head over heels for this city.  And this last month, my last month in France – comprised of the usual thirty odd days – it couldn’t be long enough.

Wedding

Love,
Hurricane

I apologize in advance to conservatives everywhere for posting this link.  But I especially apologize to my Dad who will disagree with every word that is said and will then email me about ten stories saying how Obama is really possessed by the devil (Yes, Dad, I do actually read those).  But come on, people!  Primary fever!  From four thousand miles away!

The song`s not bad, either.

Yesterday was Wednesday.  I know I am stating the obvious here, but I really don`t like Wednesdays.  Wednesdays are by far my worst day "on the job."  When I have to get up extra early to ride my bike to the market to buy fruits, vegetables, and fish, come home, unload the groceries, take one little girl to gymnastics, then have about five minutes to get myself ready for class and frantically rush downtown.  When I get home in the afternoon, I usually have to run little girls around town once or twice more besides being reminded that I am supposed to fit in some quality English learning time.

Monday means English lesson.  Yes, the dreaded English lesson.  The lesson I`m instructed to give to two little French girls three times a week usually amounting, on a good week, to four lessons total.  Yes, FOUR.  Instead of the intended SIX.  This is mostly due to a certain eleven-year-old pre-teen girl who hates learning English and isn`t afraid to let me know it.