“Oh, C’est Chouette, Le Guignol!"

Today I went to Paris. It’s so fun being able to write that. I went to Paris this afternoon just to walk around. I started off with a few of my map cards that have little walks on them. I started at the Arc de Triumphe and walked down the Champs-Elysées until I got distracted by little parks and streets. Eventually, I ended up in the Jardin des Tuileries, where I had fun watching the little children poke at toy boats with sticks in the boat pond. In New York, we also had a boat pond, where there were toy boats with motors and remote controls. Until yesterday, I would have said that children would have infinitely more fun with motorized boats, but it seems that I would have been wrong. Children appear to have just as much fun waiting for the wind to push a wooden boat close to a pond’s edge just so they can jab at it with a pole and send it back toward the other side of the pool.

Beth (comma) you will be happy to know that I also saw the home of le guignol! Mais oui, le vrai guignol! He was not performing. I bet he is saving that for when you come to visit.

Having written this, I realize it reads as if I am having absolutely no directional issues, which might be surprising to some of you who have traveled with me before. Here’s the deal – Cergy Le Haut is the last stop on the train so I really can’t go wrong in getting on any train in town because it will most certainly be heading toward Cergy-Préfecture and Paris. The rest has just been luck. I’ve been sticking with my NYC-developed plan: read sign to the best of abilities; get on train; cross fingers; work out the rest later. It seems to be going alright so far.

Last night I followed the advice of three Francophiles and watched French tv . . . in an attempt to improve my French. Right. I’m sure I subconsciously picked up on some things. Things I definitely picked up: The Simpsons are just a little bit off in French – Marge is real scary and Homer doesn’t sound nearly as dumb (Krusty Le Clown – pronounced “kloon” – however, is pretty spot on), European commercials are still as disturbingly confusing as they were when I lived in Edinburgh, and French soap operas look like they could be just as wonderful as Latin American telenovelas. The last presents a good case for learning French as quickly as possible.

I finished my television adventure with two movies: Coyote Ugly (translated Coyote Girls) and Blue Crush. Since I hadn’t seen the first, I think I missed some important plot developments which might have explained more clearly why LeAnn Rimes was singing on the bar at the end of the movie. Blue Crush is just as good in French as it is in English, which probably means all of the dialogue is horrible. I still like it. Fortunately, the word for pipeline in French is essentially the same (pronounced "peepline") so I might be able to whip that out in a conversation and look sort of extreme sport knowledgeable for a second.