PARIS - Day III

I have one thing to say to Ernie Caso right now: “… you were right.”

When I first told him I was going to France for some time, he told me that I would be in a whole lot of trouble. “Cute little American girl like you with an accent – oh they’ll eat you right up.” (And then, like the good person he is, he plagued me with warnings of BE CAREFUL. Those European men know each other’s sleezy antics well, I guess… ; )

But everywhere I go, I can’t be left alone. While at first I considered being hit on by gross French men a great way to practice the language, it’s getting old… fast. Most are sleezy and just want to pick it up, many want to take me out on some ridiculous date, some just wont take no for an answer, and very few are actually interesting. All encounters leave me feeling extremely proud of myself that I struggled through yet another embarrassingly terrible conversation en français.

One of the more interesting I met today was an older man and his young son at La Défense. Upon discovering that I was an American, he insisted that we continue our conversation in French so that I can learn. He spoke English when I lost him in his quick sentences and corrected ALL of my mistakes. And sitting on the far side of La Grande Arche, looking toward the city, he told me (in French) this charming little story of Paris that I love (mostly because I love discovering the little secrets of cities that most do not know…):

“If you could see forever, you would have quite the view standing at La Grande Arche. On a direct axis, perfectly lined up with this colossal arc, the Arc de Triomphe stands some 50m high and some odd number of kilometers away. Still closer to the heart of the city directly in the center of the Napoleonic arc, on that same straight axis, stands the 3,200 year old obelisk in the 18th century Place du Concorde. Directly beyond that stands yet another arc, the Arc du Carrousel, on the far side of the Tuileries gardens. And looking directly through the centre of that arc, the perfectly straight line ends with the Louvre’s Pyramid. Interesting quirk, n’est pas?”

Aww, neat!

And rather than bore you with photos of all les autres choses que j’ai vu aujourd’hui, here are my favorite du jour:

(yes that is a statue of a thumb in La Défense)

I thought this was fun, to. It reads (en français):
"All men are created without knowledge as he breathes, but the artist yearns to create his deed, encouraging all of his being, his beloved sorrow, strengthening him."