Well according to Victor Hugo I am a Parisian now. Today was our first free day to do with it what we wanted and I didn't do much of anything. It started out late and will probably end early. Although I did loaf around it wasn't what I would have expected to do in terms of loafing in Paris, I didn't even get to a cafe.
The day started late because the night before ended very late. I spent the evening hanging out with other students on the trip. We were typical college students and ended up talking about our areas of study and arguing and explaining intelligent and sometimes not so intelligent things. So it was quite late when I finally crawled under the covers but it was the most I slept here which was nice since I have been having trouble with that.
Now onto today. It was a lazy shopping day that didn't start until after one o'clock. A group of us went to an open air flea market in our arrondissement. It was very crowed but it had a lot of interesting things. It was not very touristy to that was nice, but most if not all the venders I spoke with spoke English. So that was nice but not ideal. I would really like to speak only French to people in the service industry but I think that that will be impossible. I swear every French person has a sixth sense and it is being able to know you are American. But I and becoming very good at only ordering at carts an little shops like boulangeries and pâtissers. I am still working on sit down restaurants but hey its only been five days.
Now back at the flea market I meet some interesting people. The first was a vender that was originally from Michigan. But I did not like her, she was very much a harden old lady. She had originally come to Paris as an art student and then everything went downhill from there. Now she yells a random people that she is not a Madam and tells us that learning the language will make France lose its charm and that basically France sucks. So I wanted to get away from her as soon as possible but I think she was happy to speak English so she didn't let us leave for a while. I was very disheartening to listen to her.
The second most interesting person I met was an Arabic man. Now I knew that there was a very large Arabic population in France I just hadn't been faced with it yet and it hit me quite abruptly seeing as have the stands were run my Arabic people and most of their items catered to Arabic/Middle Eastern tastes. This man was selling make-up and other beauty products and as I walked by he grab my attention by tell me that I am so white and that I need his bronzer. He said: "You are white like a white women," and I though congratulation you found me out, I'm a white women. And then proceed to say that I needed face and body tanner which was one for a black women and said, "You are white like cheese," That I believe will be my take away quote from not only the day but maybe the trip. He was nice but so very weird and kinda insulting.
After the flea market it was time to loaf again. Eventually we found our way to the nearest park and walked around and found a pretty pond that had both black and white swans. But we think the pond was segregated because we never saw them together. After we left the park it was time to explore the neighborhood a little bit, however Sunday is a really bad day to do this since most stores are closed or they close early. I have yet to have my day to just get lost and enjoy the city alone but I plan on having most of day to myself if not the whole day.
Well it was a very uneventful day however I did eat and éclair au chocolat on a French street so that's another thing to check off the list of things I always did in skits in French class. So got me! Well I hope your day was fun. Leave a comment if you want about anything I'd love to hear from you.
Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice
éclair au chocolat
Puces de Vanves- the open air market
Dance for me swans, dance!
Parc de Montsouris at 9 pm
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