Sunday, July 15, 2007

September 29, 2006

I dreamt of mattress pads last night. I kept remembering those egg-carton pads people use for camping beds, and I wondered how many limbs that would cost me. Of course, in France, it’s ‘les yeux de la tête’ that get the most. What I mean by all this is that our bed, a bunk built head-height above the floor, hardly passes for one. When we had our sièste yesterday, we were too tired to notice much. I wake up with William at ten a.m., as refreshed as a board of wood. I feel rested anyway.

No one is home outside our bedroom. The kitchen just across the hallway from us looks as small in person as it does in this picture. Ingrid had instructed on how to use the espresso machine the night before, so I negotiated with it to get a couple of cups out of it. I used the micro-onde to heat the milk, which did not to be refrigerated as it’s super-duper ultra-pasteurized. Breakfast is laid out on the kitchen table, a veritable cornucopia of starch, sugar, and milk in various combinations. There is Flakes Frostés à la française, wheat and white bread for toast, preserves, the aforementioned milk, and—the staple of future breakfast, lunches, and desserts after dinner—Nutella. Only it is almost always generic Nutella. I don’t recall what I ate that day, but my usual breakfast was a Nutella and preserves sandwich with toasted white bread and a cup of café and chocolate milk that we called a mocha. This last was an attempt on improving upon the absence of said drink in every one of the cafés we would come to haunt.

William takes a bath after I have washed up and shaved. Then we headed out to explore the environs. We walked up and down rue de Clichy, which runs perpendicular to the little rue that we live on, André Antoine. It just so happens that our street, which is hardly more than an ally, dissects the city from the Red Light District. The Sexodrome here is mere seconds from our immobilier. (I took this picture from the top of Sacré Coeur.) At the corner of André Antoine and Clichy, there was almost always someone there, man or woman, to preposition people to come to a club or sex club. You would think these people would get to know that, although we were foreigners, we were living there for the time being. But they never learned. Worse, as they changed from time to time, their advances were often rude and incorrigible.

It is Sunday; France is closed. Luckily there are enclaves of non-French (read non-Catholic) origin. We stop at one such enclave, an Arab grocer, to buy some canned juice: two for three euros, such a deal! The whole time we spent walking around, we scouted out a pharmacy where we hoped we could find Lactaid for William. We were silly enough to forget that at home. The day turns up nothing, five or six pharmacies later. Actually, this wild goose chase ends up in our first transatlantic argument. At the third or so pharmacy, I asked for “quelque chose qu’on prend pour pouvoir manger lactose” (something to take so you can eat lactose). I couldn’t think of how else to describe lactose in my limited French. How would you describe it in English? In my description of the desired item, I asked for something that worked “contre” lactose. William took that moment, in the middle of my plea, to correct me, suggesting that lactase is the scientific name, thus defying the language barrier. I ask the pharmacist if she is familiar with lactase; she isn’t. I thank her, we leave and fight in loud, obnoxious English right outside. I felt William had undermined and embarrassed me in front of that woman, who had the gall to snicker at our inability to communicate with her. He felt that I had made him look stupid. There was general misunderstanding between us which culminated in my first crying session on European soil. William didn’t realize that I was so stressed about putting out my miniscule knowledge of French out for all to condemn—which people in Paris go out of their way to do at times. I cried that I had eaten duck liver, real foie du canard, which admittedly was tasty, even topped with duck fat that looked deceptively like lemon meringue. I had also kept my complaints to a minimum in hopes of proving both him and our German friend Nik wrong: I could adapt to living in Paris/France/Europe and not end up hating it. William apologizes and I stop crying.

Then we search for some café that Ingrid had recommended for its wifi, Le Sancerre (which, I presume is named after this place or someone from it). We go too far up Montmartre trying to find it and really should have given up, considering what it turned out to be. Le Syndicat d’Initiative, something like a tourism bureau in Place du Tertre, was friendly and helpful. Le Sancerre is near the defunct subway arrêt at Des Abbesses. Of the two bartender/waiters there, one feigns to speak English. We are offered menus in either French or English, our choice. I pick French. Big mistake. I ordered un sandwich au SAUMON FUMÉ (smoked salmon); William had one au jambon, the wiser choice. What I got was a sandwich with some meat that looked raw on it: chamon, it turns out. I asked if it was salmon. He said it wasn’t and that I “should’ve ordered in English.” He hastily takes back the mistake and returns fifteen minutes later with my saumon fumé, which is raw, however smoked. And seriously salty. I eat a quarter of it before giving up. I am still hungry, and my picky side gets the better of me, so I crossed the street to the charcuterie across the street. A charcuterie is a place that specializes in different manner of prepared meats, mainly pork. I see a rotisserie chicken in the window still on the spit and go inside hoping to take that one. The woman there is a real bitch. I ask for le rôti dans la fenêtre” (the roast in the window). When she doesn’t understand, I say le poulet in the window. She informs me haughtily that the chicken in the window was, in fact called poulet rôti. To make matters worse, she gives me a stone cold half chicken. Robbed of my French competence and only mildly relieved that I’d only spent $5.50 on half a rotisserie, I returned to Le Sancerre. I had been expected to pay ten euros for the sandwich I didn’t eat. Luckily for me, the waiter finds it pertinent not to charge me for his mistaken order, so my portion ends up being free. I eat the chicken in all haste.

William had stayed at Sancerre to use their wifi, which had turned out to be a real headache: access required a card whose password expired after thirty minutes. William was already on the second of the three they’d given him thanks to some coaxing on my part. I read until he’s ready to leave, getting cold in the process and all around discouraged. A cold September breeze in blowing, though it had been quite a bit warmer when we were looking for the bar/café. Paris’ disposition has been generally sunny, however frigid her inhabitants. Fortunately for me, William needs to recharge his laptop, so we go back to the immobilier, planning to rendezvous at Le Chao Ba before six p.m., so he can make his stand-up meeting.

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