Paris

I, along with most of the class, just spent the weekend in Paris. What can I possibly say about Paris that you haven't already heard a million times? More or less every cliché you've heard is true. The city is beautiful and overwhelming. There are dogs (mostly tiny) everywhere. The food is fabulous. The pastries alone would be enough to make me want to move there if I'd been able to find a decent cup of coffee while we were there, and any city where you can expect to find mimoletta and a couple of varieties of blood orange juice in almost every grocery, no matter how small, has my number.

Fortunately, one cliché that I didn't find to be true is the rude Parisians. I actually found people to be nice, polite, and helpful. I'd been told by a number of friends that if you try to speak French, people will generally be nicer, and, contrary to rumor, they won't make fun of your awful accent. This is only logical; if you had people coming up to you all day, every day simply expecting you to know a foreign language without asking, it would probably get pretty old pretty fast. And, thanks to my classmate Alesha, I found out that you should always start with a bonjour (or bonsoir) to be polite in service situations--basically, the rule is that you are expected to be a good guest if you want a good host.

So, I tried my level best to conduct every transaction I could in French, and to at least ask if the other person knew English if my question was too complicated for my limited French. I was rewarded for this with friendly responses, and luckily, it truns out that my French is a little better than I thought it was. More or less, everything went smoothly, though I often got responses in English (my French isn't that good.); to the gendarme in front of the Assembly Nationale who did give me directions to the Museé d'Orsee in French, merci, and I swear I did understand every word. Oh, and I'm trying to embrace the fact that I am, for sure madame rather than madmoiselle now, but I haven't quite gotten there.

I will say that I did get the feeling that Paris is, currently, a rougher city than London. I saw a lot more graffitti, there were more beggars, and the Eiffel Tower area is thick with scam artists preying on the tourists. The Marche au Puces (supposedly the world's largest flea market, though this is a bit of misnomer since a lot of the "stalls" are permanent indoor stores) is in a neighborhood I didn't feel entirely comfortable in, and I've worked for Legal Aid in some of the rougher parts of Los Angeles. I wouldn't be in Saint-Ouen at night for sure.

Still, the city is lovely, and full of art and life, even in a place meant to commemorate death, like Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.