My funny little French story. I was sitting underneath the L'Arc de Triomphe waiting for the crowds to thin out when an elderly French gentleman of about 60 years old sat beside me. About a minute later, I heard a loud and deadly fart coming from the man's direction. I turned to look. He smiled, said "pardon," then got up and left. About 5 minutes later, the man returned and sat next to me again.
A ceremony to celebrate French war veterans had just taken place, hence the crowds. As the veterans began to leave, the elderly man tapped my arm, pointed to one of the men and said "mi papa" with a beaming smile across his face. Since I know no French, I just nodded and smiled back. Then, in French, I think he said that his father was stationed in Korea, China, Vietnam, and India (or that's the story I made up in my head while he was talking to me). I asked him "Parle vous Ingles?" afterwards where he promptly responded "NON!" This led to some awkward silence. Then man got up quickly when he saw that the people had cleared, grabbed my arm, and gestured the "take a picture of me" motion.
So, I went. (There were plenty of police around so I didn't worry too much.) He took a picture of me. (Ok, well, half of me. I think his eyes are bad.) Then, he took me around the monument, again giving me the commentary all in French. After my personal tour was over, he turned to me and said "Cappachino?" Thinking about all my past brushes with strange guys in foreign countries and since I had nothing else better to do, I went with him. (Again, I made sure we were in a very public place.)
We headed off to a French fast food place where the gentleman got me caramel ice cream and orange juice. (He pointed at the wall of the restaurant and said "no cafe.") We sat there in more awkward silence. He kept staring at the lady at the next table who looked like she was going cry. I kept flipping through my Paris guidebook, hoping there was French survival phrases I could use. Finally, after pulling all my neurons together, I finally remembered how to say "my name is..." in French thanks to my 1 day in French class as a freshman in high school. I said "Je m'appelle Helen" (my alias). He smiled and said "Je m'appelle Daniel." Slowly, we had some form of a conversation as I read through my guidebook while the man corrected my pronunciation.
After we were done eating, we left the restaurant, I thought it was time to say goodbye. I kept looking at my watch (and making sure he saw that I was looking at my watch) and chimed in "metro" every other minute. When we got to the Metro stop and as in the middle of my "au revoir", the old man asked "Arc de Triomphe. Up?" I hesitated a bit. I really did want to go on top of the monument to get a view of the city. And the sun was setting on a clear day. And it did cost €8 to go up. So, what do you think I did?
Yes, I went up with the guy. And we even took the elevator up so we didn't have to walk up 284 steps. He showed me all the different places that can be seen from the top of the Arc de Triomphe... the Louvre, the Orsay, Norte-Dame, the Opera House, and Versailles, off in the distance. It was pretty cool. 30 minutes later, I decided that it was time to end it all. I kept fake-yawning to make it look like was really tired. And when we got to the Metro stop again, I said "merci" and "au revoir" and quickly ran underground without looking back before he could say anything else.
For the record, I did NOT go on a date with an old guy, even though Annie says otherwise. I was just meeting a local and he bought me ice cream. That is all. I learned a lot. It was an enlightening experience. Now, all I want to know is why do all the weird old guys talk to me?! Blah, I say. BLAH!
