A Very Satisfying Day in Paris

Even though I am on vacation and tell myself that I should be relaxed and stress-free all the time, it hit me yesterday that the fact is that stress is an integral part of the travel experience, particularly where you are trying to learn a foreign language and integrate into a foreign culture.  Indeed, to an extent the stress and the difficulties are what make the experience interesting.  Nevertheless, the stress seems to have gotten to me the last few days.

For someone like me, who  prides himself on being extremely competent at whatever he does and whose command and use of language is a key part of his life and work, being in a situation in which you cannot even speak the simplest child-like sentences correctly is painfully, painfully humbling and embarrassing.  I hit a particularly low point in my French class Friday morning.  Even though I can comprehend almost everything that is said in class, and even know I know most of the grammar and vocabulary and can read very well, my speaking abilities are pathetic.  My accent is (it seems) a caricature of an English accent in French, and I forget while speaking the most basic phonetic rules of French pronunciation.  It doesn't help that when we go around the class with the students reading or speaking, the teacher always seems to have pronunciation suggestions only after I speak.  So I find myself sitting in class thinking, 'I've got a college degree, and a professional degree, I'm relatively successful in life, and I sound like a complete idiot to everyone else in the room.  As I said, humbling.  I came away from class feeling exhausted and discouraged (although I did receive for my week's efforts a very, very impressive, handsome, and official-looking document certifying that I was, in fact, humbled in class for 15 hours last week).

In addition to feeling like an idiot in public all the time, we have had some difficult times as a family.   As mentioned previously, our apartment has very, very old hardwood floors, laid out in a herringbone pattern, and we have difficult neighbors below, who called us the first day we were hear to complain about the noise we made while walking.  So we have been very anxious about making noise ... not a good situation to be in with a 200 pound, 6 foot 3 inch 15 year old and a very active (albeit smaller) 13 year old.  This plus all of the other stressors of being in a new situation (dealing with the government about our residence card, living in a small apartment, sharing one bathroom, etc.) has resulted in some intra-family conflicts (to put it politely).  The kids often drive us crazy, and we often drive them crazy, and the crazy-feeling sometimes erupts in anger, frustration, and pissiness.  (Although, thankfully, Suzie and I don't seem to be driving each other crazy.)

So coming home from class on Friday, I was feeling discouraged and low.   Yesterday's beautiful sun and warmth had been replaced by coolness and clouds, and it was threatening to rain.  Blah.

But the rest of the day was absolutely perfect, probably the best we've had in Paris.  The boys had bought a basketball and were desperate to shoot hoops, so after lunch we took the tram to Parc Montsouris (about 3/4 miles away) to search for a court.  We got off in front of the entrance to the International City University of Paris:



We entered the park and found the basketball court, an odd, fenced-in thing with a strange soft (yet bouncy) surface and a "net" comprised of strips of leather hanging down (not a bad idea, really, much better than chains and more durable than a regular net).



The only really negative thing about the court was that the hoop itself was double-rimmed and very, very tight, so that it was impossible to ever get a "shooter's roll" -- you pretty much had to swish it to make it.  We fooled around for a while and played a game of horse (Will won) while Suzie walked through the park.

After the park we had planned to do an important chore:  Buy a runner of carpet for the hallway in our apartment, in the hope that the carpet would reduce the sounds of our walking and placate the downstairs neighbors.  We knew of a carpet store close to our house, which turned out to be an enormous warehouse-like space filled with hundreds and hundreds of carpets, throw rugs, types of vinyl and fake-hardwood floors, and other floor-covering related items.  A daunting task, to find what we needed.  Fortunately, we were assisted by an extremely helpful man with whom, although he spoke no English whatsoever, we manage to communicate exactly what we were looking for.  And ... much to our surprise, we found something perfect for our situation at a relatively low cost (our landlord is letting us deduct the cost from our rent).  On the way home, Suzie remarked that in general the service in France is much, much better in our experience than service back home.  The man in the carpet store was a good example; even though we obviously were going to buy the least-expensive thing we could find, and even though given our situations we were obviously not going to be repeat customers, he spent about a half hour with us showing us the various options.  Quite excellent.

We were concerned that because the carpet we bought was the cheapest and thus also the thinnest, it would not work well to dampen the noise, but when we rolled it out down the hallway and walked on it, we were amazed -- there was a very significant reduction in the sound.  This gave us a feeling of pride and accomplishment greatly in excess of what we'd one actually merited.

Suzie and I went shopping then, for burgers and fries, of all things, and were successful at finding everything we needed, including, surprisingly, hamburger buns (which were awful).  We had a little excitement and the checkout stand; the lady there seemed to be in the middle of some sort of breakdown or personal crisis.  She was alternately shouting and speaking quietly to herself, and finally the lady in the next stand came over to try to calm her down or comfort her, which didn't seem to work.  We did our whole transaction without her saying a word to us or, I think, even looking at us.

The burgers were great, except for the buns, the fries were tremendous, Suzie bought rice pudding for dessert and that was yummy, too.  After dinner, we decided to be tourists in Paris for an evening.  So on to the Metro and to the area around the Eiffel Tower.  We walked all around it, mostly on the other side of the river, and took pictures and stood in tourist-like poses, and bought ice cream and got home just as it was getting dark.  It was a great evening -- the air was calm and cool, the sky was dramatic, everyone was calm and happy to be in Paris.  The photos pretty much tell the story, and there are a few more on the Flickr site.



Finally, I thought all might be interested in seeing the outside of our apartment.  Our apartment is the one on the next to the last floor, with the large open window and the two balconies.



Monday is Bastille Day, a national holiday akin to the 4th of July, so everything including the school is closed.  It seems funny to say, but we are very much looking forward to our three day weekend.