Then I helped my friends get phones. Which was good but also depressing because I realized if I'd spoken English when I got my phone he would have sold me one with better rates to the US. Now my friends can call home for free and each other for free and I have to pay. But it's too expensive to be worth it to get a new one. Grr. But at least if one of us gets lost again we can call each other! I'm pretty sure they guy who sold me the phone thought I was German or something, because that would explain why my phone was initially in German! Oh well...
We then wandered around the Latin Quarter for a while. Cultural observation: there were lots of Christmas lights, but all of them were pretty and tasteful and not garish and ugly as they often are in the United States.
Classy.
Considering it was a Sunday and also Three Kings' Day, there was a fair amount open. We wandered nearly to the Eiffel Tower and back and finally I got dinner: another crêpe! Then I was still starving so I ate some fries with Andalusian sauce, which I will skip next time because it is too spicy for me. But at least I tried something new.
The reason I only got a measly crêpe which I had to augment with fries was the man at the Turkish food stand was super rude and aggressive. This is my very first bad experience with French people, reader, and it wasn't even a French person! It is possible that due to cultural differences this was just his manner of poking fun and kidding around, but it felt aggressive and condescending to me. He corrected my friend's French and went on a long rant about all the different ways she could have articulated her request for a crêpe because he misheard "Puis-je avoir une crêpe" as "Puis-j'avais une crêpe," all the while interjecting with "S'IL VOUS PLAIT" to emphasize that she had forgotten to say please. I asked for a specific sandwich (which apparently they were out of even though it was not written anywhere) and then he proceeded to slap every menu item on the menu with his spatula and tell me which they did or did not have. So I gave up and got a crêpe. Rude.
Then some aggressive lads yelled to us to ask if they could eat our food (in English) and waggled their eyebrows. Apparently everyone on the planet can tell we are American without us even opening our mouths. We were even practicing our French scowls and avoiding talking so we could blend in. Is it because I wasn't wearing all black? Also a middle-aged man made a kissy face at my friend and waggled his eyebrows. No one was smiling (which we were warned not to do as this could be interpreted as a sexual advance) and no one was dressed at all provocatively, so perhaps if you are female this just happens.
The trip back through the métro was successful but when I bought my Navigo card I couldn't hear the man behind the desk so he immediately switched to English. Failure. I resolve to speak with nice people as much as possible so I can speak without being humiliated. It wasn't his fault, but after the Turkish food man, this was a crushing blow.
Luckily I am exhausted so hopefully I will actually sleep on French time tonight because I have a bout of meetings and such tomorrow. Being in a program like this can be frustrating, because I am technically with MICEFA but ACCENT is doing my housing. So if there are conflicting meetings, it is difficult to figure out which to attend. Which is what is happening tomorrow. But on Tuesday I will meet my home stay family, which is exciting!
Today I have learned to navigate the métro, my cell phone plan, creepy sexual advances, aggressive shopkeepers, and the Latin Quarter. Hopefully I will continue to learn to navigate many more situations. But until then:
Bisous,
La vache espagnole
Wow, a lot to navigate!
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