How I survived the Quatre Cent Coup
Well, I sit here in London Heathrow awaiting my flight back to San Francisco. I only have about thirty minutes, so there's no way I can tell you everything, at least in this email.
First off, Paris was amazing, Germany was amazing, Europe was amazing. Ask me how it was and you'll get that dull "processing... processing.... processing..." stare I'm so famous for when my mind starts racing wondering how in the hell I can sum up 8 amazing days. (Jonathan, Daniel, Kevin, you know exactly what I'm talking about.) I just have to go over it day by day.
First off, Paris was amazing. My hotel was so incredibly close to everything. I bought a "carnet" (kar-nay, a set of 10 Metro tickets) and only used three. I walked everywhere. I lost about 5 pounds on this trip. I walked and walked and walked. I walked through shops, around Quatres (neighborhoods), from pub to pub, through museums, and walked and walked and walked. After I left you last, I went off to have my first meal in Paris. It was a horrifying experience. Knowing such little French, I walked into a restaurant unbenown to me that catered to Americans. As soon as I stumbled on the question "fumar or nonfumar" (smoking or nonsmoking, which I had been told there are no nonsmoking restaurants in Paris, unless it's for tourists, which living in SF, I know to go where the locals go). The waiter handed me an English menu. I felt like I'd just been handed a kiddie menu. I may not speak a lot of French, but I certainly can read it. There's a huge difference between being helpful and being condescending, and this was exactly that. (This story gets way way better.) He asked me every question in English. It was a lovely dinner anyway, but I felt every bit of studying French I crammed in the weeks leading up to my trip failed me 100%. I felt awful.
So I walked shortly over to the Bear's Den. I needed a beer bad. Sadly I walked up to the bar and said "un verre beer, sil vous plait". Waiting for my order the person next to me turned his head 180 degrees, looking at me and said: "You're from San Francisco!" I was startled at 1: The question was in English and 2: Uh, yeah! It turns out he recognized my face from when he used to live in SF. He was visiting from New York, and was there with several friends from Chicago. I had never been so glad to hear the English language in all my life. We sat around being obnoxious Americans, talking way too loud and annoying the Parisians with our rambutious American ways. Ya know, it's a stereotype, but "je suis mais je suis": I am what I am. We laughed, we were obnoxious, and that's what we were. I had never felt more American in my entire life, and I felt good about it. Oddly, the bar had English shows (Friends and French & Saunders). The sound was off, but they had French subtitles. Ya know, something really gets lost in the translation every time Phoebe said "Oh my god!" and the French subtitles say "Mon dieu!" It totally just isn't the same. :-)
So we went off into the night. We hopped from bar to bar, accumulating Americans along the way until we were a force to be reconned with. We walked into a late night Greek deli. Someone wanted french fries. ("Pommes frites" I translated for him.) "What French for mayonaise?" "Um, I think the word mayonaise -is- French," I said. We looked around for Rue du Jour street (my little joke: get it, "Rue the day".... it killed at 3 AM with way too many beers in us :-) ). We closed out 3 different bars. At 4:30, we finally headed back to our respective hotels. (Mind you 4:30 AM is about 7:30 PM San Francisco time.) The French have a saying: "Le Quatre Cent Coup". ("luh kat san koo") It's an idiom. It literally translates to "The 400 blows", but it basically means paint the town red. And that's exactly what we did to Paris.
The next day, I hit a wall. Too many beers and jet lag and too little sleep finally hit its toll. The maid woke me up at the bright hour 2:00 in the afternoon. At this point, how to say "15 minutes!" in French failed me. I did go to a nice little cafe, ate an omlette and a cafe au lait. I managed to hit the Musee D'Orsay. A beautiful museum, but I was just slightly underwhelmed. It's not that large, and two of the collections were American, one from the New York Museum of Modern Art, and a Georgia O'Keefe collection. Several other pieces I had already seen on loan to other museums I'd been to.
Anyways, I gotta run and catch my flight. More later. Man, amazing, amazing, amazing.
First off, Paris was amazing, Germany was amazing, Europe was amazing. Ask me how it was and you'll get that dull "processing... processing.... processing..." stare I'm so famous for when my mind starts racing wondering how in the hell I can sum up 8 amazing days. (Jonathan, Daniel, Kevin, you know exactly what I'm talking about.) I just have to go over it day by day.
First off, Paris was amazing. My hotel was so incredibly close to everything. I bought a "carnet" (kar-nay, a set of 10 Metro tickets) and only used three. I walked everywhere. I lost about 5 pounds on this trip. I walked and walked and walked. I walked through shops, around Quatres (neighborhoods), from pub to pub, through museums, and walked and walked and walked. After I left you last, I went off to have my first meal in Paris. It was a horrifying experience. Knowing such little French, I walked into a restaurant unbenown to me that catered to Americans. As soon as I stumbled on the question "fumar or nonfumar" (smoking or nonsmoking, which I had been told there are no nonsmoking restaurants in Paris, unless it's for tourists, which living in SF, I know to go where the locals go). The waiter handed me an English menu. I felt like I'd just been handed a kiddie menu. I may not speak a lot of French, but I certainly can read it. There's a huge difference between being helpful and being condescending, and this was exactly that. (This story gets way way better.) He asked me every question in English. It was a lovely dinner anyway, but I felt every bit of studying French I crammed in the weeks leading up to my trip failed me 100%. I felt awful.
So I walked shortly over to the Bear's Den. I needed a beer bad. Sadly I walked up to the bar and said "un verre beer, sil vous plait". Waiting for my order the person next to me turned his head 180 degrees, looking at me and said: "You're from San Francisco!" I was startled at 1: The question was in English and 2: Uh, yeah! It turns out he recognized my face from when he used to live in SF. He was visiting from New York, and was there with several friends from Chicago. I had never been so glad to hear the English language in all my life. We sat around being obnoxious Americans, talking way too loud and annoying the Parisians with our rambutious American ways. Ya know, it's a stereotype, but "je suis mais je suis": I am what I am. We laughed, we were obnoxious, and that's what we were. I had never felt more American in my entire life, and I felt good about it. Oddly, the bar had English shows (Friends and French & Saunders). The sound was off, but they had French subtitles. Ya know, something really gets lost in the translation every time Phoebe said "Oh my god!" and the French subtitles say "Mon dieu!" It totally just isn't the same. :-)
So we went off into the night. We hopped from bar to bar, accumulating Americans along the way until we were a force to be reconned with. We walked into a late night Greek deli. Someone wanted french fries. ("Pommes frites" I translated for him.) "What French for mayonaise?" "Um, I think the word mayonaise -is- French," I said. We looked around for Rue du Jour street (my little joke: get it, "Rue the day".... it killed at 3 AM with way too many beers in us :-) ). We closed out 3 different bars. At 4:30, we finally headed back to our respective hotels. (Mind you 4:30 AM is about 7:30 PM San Francisco time.) The French have a saying: "Le Quatre Cent Coup". ("luh kat san koo") It's an idiom. It literally translates to "The 400 blows", but it basically means paint the town red. And that's exactly what we did to Paris.
The next day, I hit a wall. Too many beers and jet lag and too little sleep finally hit its toll. The maid woke me up at the bright hour 2:00 in the afternoon. At this point, how to say "15 minutes!" in French failed me. I did go to a nice little cafe, ate an omlette and a cafe au lait. I managed to hit the Musee D'Orsay. A beautiful museum, but I was just slightly underwhelmed. It's not that large, and two of the collections were American, one from the New York Museum of Modern Art, and a Georgia O'Keefe collection. Several other pieces I had already seen on loan to other museums I'd been to.
Anyways, I gotta run and catch my flight. More later. Man, amazing, amazing, amazing.
posted by Joe Carlin at 4:05 AM
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