Au revoir, Paris
On Sabbath, I went to church with Jenny, Yann and the girls. They belong to a church plant that tries to tailor itself to bring in people unfamiliar with Adventism, much like New Creation in Lincoln. And like New Creation, they have a talented praise team who sometimes write their own music. Also, like many early Christian churches, it meets underground, literally in a sub-basement, albeit a somewhat futuristic sub-basement.
They share the facility with a more traditional Adventist congregation, which lets them afford a pretty plum spot in Paris, right on Place de la République. Now I’m sure you’re saying, “Wow, that sounds like it would be difficult to find a parking space.” Yes, indeed it would be ... unless you’re Yann. There’s a Gendarme station right next to the church building, and since Yann is a Gendarme, he can park there without any problems. I’m guessing most everyone else takes the metro.
For Sabbath School, I attended Jenny’s kindergarten class, and even that was stretching my French comprehension. The lesson was about the gift of the Holy Spirit and the apostles preaching in tongues, so Jenny worked my presence and English speaking into the lesson. Also, I hadn’t brought a pen or paper for doodling, so I was rather glad to have coloring time.
The sermon went through five chapters of Acts to make a point that could have been established with one text in five minutes or less, but I often feel that way about sermons. He had a very thorough PowerPoint presentation, which normally I would complain about on principle, but it really does help when you aren’t good with the language.
After church, several of the single 20 and 30-somethings from church came over to Jenny and Yann’s apartment, and we had a picnic outside. I really couldn’t follow most of the conversation, but occasionally someone would fill me in or attempt to converse in English.
I don’t remember everyone’s names or what they do, but one in particular stood out for two reasons. First, he’s a professional graphic designer who said, “I not use the Mac.” Graphic designers using PCs are few and far between in America, but I’m guessing the additional cost of Macs in Europe may make it more tempting to be a Microsoftie. Secondly, I swear he looks like Napoleon I. Yann says he doesn’t see it, but when I first saw him I thought of a portrait of Napoleon we’d seen at Versailles.
After eating, we played petanque. Horseshoes is the closest game to which I can relate it, though curling might also be helpful. Basically, you throw a small wooden ball some distance from you, preferably in a sand pit. Then you throw steel balls at the wooden ball, trying to get your ball closest to it. Whoever has the closest ball wins and gets to re-throw the wooden ball. You get one point for each ball you have closer than the nearest opponent’s ball. We were playing in teams of two and each person had two balls, so the most points you could get in a round was four. We played to 13, but I got the impression any predetermined number will do.
At first I just sat on the sidelines and watched this strange and, quite literally, foreign game. But when I did eventually join in, I did pretty well. Years of bean bags with Daniel really came in handy. There was some discussion of a cheer for me being “biscuit” as a pun of “be Scott,” which took me a while to understand, but at least Napoleon I was entertained.
Before we’d even started playing, Jenny had left us for another appointment. She went to a neighbor’s apartment to improve her skill as a sushi chef. So after the church friends left, we joined Jenny to eat the results of her lesson.
It was good. I particularly enjoyed the avacado-based sushi.
The man of the house is a captain in the Gendarmes, and Yann’s direct supervisor. All evening he kept saying, “MaXImum” (with that emphasis), which apparently is an inside joke referring to someone he and Yann work with. The wives didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as their husbands.
His wife is a Kosovar and currently pregnant with her second and his fourth child. It seems like no matter where I go, there’s talk about pregnancy and newborns. I’m sure it has something to do with being an integral part of the human life cycle (and most everyone I talk to is human), but those subjects do seem to keep coming up more than they used to.
I was tired and still not completely used to the time zone, so I left early and went to bed. That brings me to today.
After a leisurely morning (well, leisurely for me, since I wasn’t the one feeding and bathing small children), we went out to eat in the Latin Quarter at a restaurant advertising traditional French cuisine.
I had raclette, which it turns out is a baked potato served on a hot plate with a rack to melt cheese under it. A potato in France is still just a potato, but combined with the right melty cheese, heating contraption, and a name like “raclette,” it can be a meal to remember.
Afterwards we went to the Eiffel Tower and walked up the stairs to the second platform, at which point I continued to the top in the elevator while everyone else waited below.
I don’t know if I should try to describe the Eiffel Tower. Before I visited it the first time (10 years ago), I always thought it was ugly, referring to it as the “Awful Tower.” I was firmly on the side of the Parisians who protested the project when it was being built who thought it would ruin the Paris skyline and secured a promise that it would be temporary. It wasn’t until I stood under it that I understood its appeal. It seems to be so effortlessly enormous, almost weightless and yet towering. To me, it’s now more awe-inspiring than awful.
Anyway, that brings me most of the way up to the present. I’m currently typing this laying on my miniature bed on the way to Barcelona. My cabin is pretty quiet. There’s a college-aged guy from Korea already asleep across from me on the top bunk, a German under him who has done little but read the newspaper since leaving Paris, and a Spaniard in the bunk under me who hasn’t done or said anything of note, just makes an annoying sound every once in a while that I think is his way of trying to suck out something stuck in his teeth. I’ve considered offering him floss, but 1) I’m not sure that would be considered polite and 2) it’s packed. (Update: the sucking sound was denture related.)
In contrast to my sedate cabin, next door a Spanish family sounds like they’re having a grand time, and it’s kind of getting on my nerves.
Labels: Eurotrip
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