This is my ham sandwich face. Can one subsist on ham and cheese alone? Breakfast and lunch here are difficult because the French don't believe in protein. Breakfast is generally just some sort of bread and coffee. Lunch can be anything but it's generally a small meal as well. Eating overseas is not easy. I'm hungry a lot. Oh wait, I'm always hungry...
Les Invalides looking ominous.
Why? Why not? Waiting in line to get to the top of the Arc de triomphe.
Eiffel Tower? Oh look! A Lamborghini!
The obligatory shot.
We had dinner at a jazz club. They set all the outdoor tables looking out. Some psycho lady came and started singing right in front of us at midnight. I have video of it. If it's any good, I'll be sure and upload part of it.
Random Thought:
What is with French people refusing to speak French?! I can't understand your English. If I wanted you to speak English I would have begun the conversation in English. They finally get the point when I speak back to them in Spanish or overhear me speaking in Spanish to my mom, but some persist. I don't think my French is all that bad given my total lack of practice but necessity drives ingenuity and I've pulled out some pretty clutch vocab from who-knows-where (Madame Dorfman to the rescue -- scary). Broken English and pointing seems to be the communication method of choice for the angry, unhelpful ones. The nice old ladies all love speaking gentle, easy to understand French. They even tell you the same thing a different way if you didn't understand it the first time.
Example #1:
Emphatically pointing at the chair in front of me (from my point of view, this bartender could have been pointing at anything) and saying "feet, feet feet!" doesn't mean much to me. I didn't even know she was talking to me at first. After getting my attention and saying "quittez votre pieds sur la chaise", I could follow directions. She didn't want my feet on the chair. Got it. Her earlier dance routine was cryptic and made her look retarded.
Example #2:
I attempted to order a quick snack from a Chinese restaurant down the street from the laundromat (my current location -- gotta love washing clothes in Paris). I made what I thought was a perfectly logical and grammatically correct order in French of a chicken and rice plate. "Un plat de poulet et riz, s'il vous plait." I didn't even have to come up with it since it was on the menu. What I didn't take into account was that neither I, nor the Asian woman behind the counter would be able make top or bottom of the other's accent. The French guy next to me even got frustrated enough to try to explain it to her himself. Clearly, he understood what I wanted. After the painful and laborious ordeal of specifying which kind of chicken (at one point I just said "ne m'importe pas quel type de poulet, lequel c'est bien/it doesn't matter to me, whichever is fine", but she wouldn't have it, I had to choose...and of course I chose the wrong type...out of two types) I had to go through the same ordeal for which kind of rice I wanted. There was even a freakin picture on the menu of what I wanted, which led to a fruitless attempt at pointing and speaking english! SEE FRENCH PEOPLE! THE POINTING IS USELESS!
At least the French guy next to me could commiserate. Lucky for him, he got to have the younger daughter take his order. She was fluent. BLAST!
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