Linguistic Escapades: In which there are few pictures, many words and a very happy language nerd

Yesterday, I spent wandering through the malls, metros and midways of Paris intent on several missions. (Today, my feet look upon me as no less than a gulag jailer and have been begging for reprieve.  They didn't get it.)  I needed to get a new power supply for my laptop.  Nick and I have been making do with one between us for many moons now, little did I know that he planned to take his laptop to work every day for the duration of our stay.

We live within about a ten minute walk of Les Halles.  Formerly the central market place for Paris, it is now a multi-level, underground, labyrinthine commercial center (ie mall) which exists on top of an even more confusing, sprawling and enormous metro station.  I'm fairly certain that somewhere buried deep in the deepest, darkest corner of the whole thing, the Minotaur is still hanging around and cursing that France doesn't have Netflix.  Picking up a power supply was fairly painless though.  I'd seen the place I was going before and got in and out pretty quickly, if not particularly cheaply.  I did experience my first linguistic snobbery for this trip while checking out.

When I walked up to the cashier he asked me something that I didn't understand.  My go to response is, "Je parle un petit francais," or "I speak a little french," (don't judge me for my spelling) because I can frequently understand people, it's just producing language that is hard.  Regardless, the gentleman didn't give me the time of day.  He rolled his eyes, bagged my purchase and generally sent me on my way feeling inadequate and burdensome.  Joy.  It was not how I had hoped to start my day.

Luckily, later while on a mission for the "tourist" market, Rue Mouffetard, I stopped for lunch and had a much better experience.  I was able to let my waiter know that I spoke little French, to understand the French he spoke to me and had a delicious meal of chicken tikka massala.  I cannot thank that waiter enough for his patience, especially given that he was extremely busy and did not have a lot of time to be helping foreigners.  I got my bill during a quiet moment and was even able to inquire, in French, how to request the check.  Another gentleman stepped in and exuberantly explained it to me for which I thanked him and then walked off down the street with my brain flooding with the endorphins of a successful multilingual interaction.

This has nothing to do with the post.  I'm just trying to break up all the words a bit.  Brains like visuals.

I have no idea if this happens to other people, but when I get the opportunity to communicate with someone while speaking another language, no matter how broken or stilted it may be on either side, I walk away with my head and heart lit up like hot air balloons in the dark.  It is perhaps the most amazing natural high that I know.

After lunch, I headed for Rue Mouffetard, which my guidebook says is where locals send tourists , while they send travelers to Rue Montorgueil.  The street that we live on turns into Rue Montorgueil in about two city blocks and it is the most beautiful, messy, wondrous market street.  It will get it's own blog post soon, but I needed vegetables and wanted to see the more "picturesque" market at Mouffetard, just for something different.

Perhaps it was because I did not get there until later in the afternoon, but even had I had my camera, I probably would not have taken many pictures.  Mouffetard was picturesque in a sterilized, clean, empty and particularly boring way.  While Montorgueil is constantly crawling with Parisians, Mouffetard was rather empty and felt like a diorama that had been set up for show.  I did stop at a stall and get some vegetables for dinner.  This time, my cashier was a kid, I'd guess 15 or 16.  He said something, I told him that I don't speak much French and then asked if he spoke Spanish or English.  To both he laughingly replied no and then, through gestures, the French I know and his providing words when I couldn't quite remember them, I managed to explain that I am here because my husband is working, I do have two bags with me and thank you very much for your help.  The lights went off in my head again as I wandered off.

Tomatoes and rosemary from the stand, fresh bread from a bakery and a can of beer that I plan to use in chicken tomorrow, again left by our Norwegian friends.

I've used Spanish a couple times when people didn't know English.  In truth, I would rather speak Spanish than English and will sometimes ask about that first.  I had one poor gentleman speaking both English and Spanish to me.  Apparently, in my faltering French, I had unwittingly slipped in some Spanish, but I think he could tell that part of my accent was English.

 Right now, my head is a complete unordered mess of words, accents and grammar bits, so if these posts are even remotely intelligible in any language at all, I'm counting it a net win.  We won't even talk about spelling.