Part 28: Je ne parle pa Français

Toursting as a local and the longest weekend yet

Coming Up:

• Cold Intro: Love France, Hate French

• Tourist Local, Local Tourist

• Books and Stories

• Impressionism Impressive Impression

• Get the steak rare

• A Parisian Night Out

• We don’t do these things cuz they’re easy

• We Love Green

• My Feet Hurt

Cold Intro: Love France, Hate French

My love for France has grown from my time in Paris.

My hatred for French has grown from my time in Paris.

As is canon with me going to a new country, I decided to learn a bit about the language. Naturally, I started French Duo Lingo. What on earth is wrong with these people?

Almost every word, you don’t pronounce the last letter. Sometimes they add an additional letter after the word, so that the last letter, which was previously not pronounced, is pronounced.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Pretty rich coming from an American who only speaks English, critiquing another country’s language as illogical. Yes, it’s true, a lot of the frustration comes from the lack of a 1:1 with pronunciation from English to French, but I contest that my complaints are valid. That being said, after traveling, I am very impressed by people who speak 1+ language fluently, and they retain the right to bash on my takes with their bilingual (or trilingual or polyglot) superiority.

Back to me bashing on French. What happens when you don’t pronounce 1 or more of the letters in a word? You don’t hear them when someone speaks them. I’ve found that when someone tells me the name of a location here, it’s utterly hopeless for me to imagine how it’s spelled because of what I like to call the “secret letters” at the end of the word.

Example please.

Sure. Take the word “to speak” and let’s see how it’s conjugated in French. I speak = je parle, you speak = tu parles, he/she speaks = il/elle parle, and they speak = ils parlent. Parle, parles, and parlent are all pronounced the exact same. Why? WHY?!

Oh what was that you ask? What are numbers like in French? They must be pretty standard because I mean their just numbers right? Nope! The way to say eighty in French is essentially just saying 4x20.

Yeah, English has a bunch of issues with it (1 goose = goose, 1+ goose = geese, 1 moose = moose, 1+ moose = also moose?), but the French language has gained a new enemy.

That being said, I enjoy a challenge and am saving French as my language to learn later in life. Back to the show.

Wednesday - June 4th, 2025

One of the benefits of traveling slow is that I get the chance to play both tourist and local. I got most of the tourist play time out of the way in my first few days in Paris, so now I had the chance to just live in the city for a few days. Playing local can mean a lot of things, depending on the person. What it means for me is checking out neighborhoods, eating things, caffeinating, and spending time on my computer at cafes. Things I would do if I were at home. Radical, I know!

Today I went to the Oberkampf area in the 11th Arrondissement. It was lightly raining in the morning, but not in a way that ruined the mood of a day. I spent the first half of my day dutifully eating pastries and drinking coffee. For lunch, I met up with Iris, a Paris local and a grad school friend of my college friend Maddy, who set us up to meet. Iris had a thick French accent and was very friendly and unafraid of giving Paris recommendations (which I was in need of).

Gorgeous, darling

After our lunch, Iris went back to work, and I walked to a nearby neighborhood, Le Marais. Le Marais was another area that impressed. The area has a rich cafe culture and has no shortage of shopping options, ranging from thrift stores to luxury brands for those interested in partaking in the fashion culture that defines the city.

What did I do at night? Nothing. I did some exercise, watched tennis, and wrote a blog. Ahh, the pleasures of traveling slow.

Thursday - June 5th, 2025

Another day, another neighborhood. I took a train to Pont Neuf, which is the oldest bridge in the city. I wouldn’t have known that just seeing it, but I’d learned about it in the Paris history museum I’d gone to. The area is near some of the universities in Paris and has a young population, along with plenty of cafes.

One of my stops in today’s agenda was Shakespeare & Company, a bookstore right on the Seine, south of the Notre Dame. I was initially put off by the bookstore as it had a line and felt to be just a trendy spot that had become a tourist attraction. After going in my opinion changed as it was a very nice old bookstore. I personally love going to bookstores. I try not to buy anything since I’ve already purchased too many books in the past that I’m due to read, but I enjoy looking at the titles and seeing which books are popular and presented in the front.

Randomly, I had finished the book I was reading that day, and later started a new book I had been saving for Paris. It was an Ernest Hemingway memoir, A Moveable Feast, about his time living in Paris in the 1920s, that I had originally been assigned to read for high school reading 10 years ago. I didn’t start reading it until later in the day, after the bookstore, but there was a chapter titled Shakespeare & Company. Hemingway used to borrow books from the store, becoming friends with the owner, and wrote about how James Joyce used to also spend time there.

I went to the D’Orsay museum in the afternoon, which is another art gallery south of the Seine across from the Tuilleries Garden that connects to the Louvre. One thing I discovered from the museum - I like impressionism! I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what impressionism was before I went to the museum, or even be able to point out an impressionist painting if I saw one, but now I can, and I think that’s why it’s good to go to museums. Even if you don’t like art or history, you won’t know what will pique your interest without exposing yourself first. I’d say I like the art in this museum more than the Louvre. Here are some pics of impressionist, post-impressionist, and neo-impressionist paintings. Want to know the difference between those types? Don’t ask me!

Picture of pictures... quite meta of me

Friday - June 6th, 2025

Paris is a city known for its culinary excellence. And it’s deserved. The food I’ve had here is made with care and precision, it feels like (maybe except for the kebab paninis I’ve had). For lunch, I went to a steak and frites joint that multiple people had recommended to me. It did not disappoint. The place was filled out by the time I arrived, right after opening. The tables were set up such that there was no space to get in and out, and the waiter had to pull the tables in and out for you to get to the booth. There was only one thing on the menu, and that was steak frites. The only option you’re given is your drink, and whether you want the steak medium or rare. Life is too short - order the steak rare. You start with salad and some bread, and then the steak comes drenched in its sauce with fries filling the rest of the plate’s surface area. After clearing space on your plate, the server comes back around and reloads the steak and offers you more fries. Recommendation: make the dishwasher’s job easier and use the bread provided to sop up the leftover sauce.

Friday night, I went out with my lunch-friend Iris and her group of friends. Europeans, man. I don’t know what it is, but they operate on a much different going-out schedule than Americans. The night doesn’t start until 10 pm, and I’d heard stories of Europeans going out until the early morning, and normally took it as hyperbole. Later that night, I found myself walking up the stairs from the disco club at 6 am, being greeted by the first light of the day. I guess the Europeans weren’t lying.

Saturday - June 7th, 2025

I guess a solid part of my Saturday happened in the previous day’s chapter. The day became offset by the late hours of the night. I slept until 4 pm.

So, what now? That was a big night, I should probably take it easy the rest of the day. Ahh, if only life were so simple. One of the reasons I came to Paris the time that I did was to see one of my favorite bands play at a music festival this weekend. So while the rest would’ve been nice, I got dressed and trained to the festival being held at Bois de Vicennes, a former royal palace and garden, and now a park in the southeast part of the city. We don’t do these things because they are easy.

Going music festival alone? Bold choice. Luckily, thanks to today’s wonder of the internet, it is very easy to make friends! I found a group chat of people going to the festival alone on Reddit and met up with a group at a pub right outside the park before the day’s shows. In the group, there were people from France, Morocco, Israel, and the US. I sat next to a girl, MK, from Wisconsin, who had just finished a post-grad year as an au pair in Cognac, who ended up becoming the concert bestie for the weekend.

French festivals are much different than American ones. The crowds? Very pleasant and calm. Crowds wouldn’t fill up for a performance until the show started. Beer prices? Pretty reasonable. Ticket prices? Much cheaper.

We saw three bands perform, Ezra Collective - a very dancey and jazzy band with a horn and a sax, Parcels - the coolest men alive, and Charli XCX - have you ever heard of what the kids these days have been calling brat? A lot of great music and a lot of dancing. My feet hurt at the end of the day, and in typical music festival fashion, it was a nightmare getting out. Everyone left at once, and by the time we got out, the subways were closed and festival goers were packed into the buses like sardines. That is, if sardine tins were made of glass and were so hot that the glass had condensation all over it. I ended up taking an Uber home after accepting defeat on the public transportation option.

Sunday - June 8th, 2025

After a 3 am night following a 7 am night, I again spent most of the day resting. I got up around 11 and remembered I was in Paris. I celebrated this newfound geographical self-awareness by going to a pastry shop and living as one should.

I spent the rest of the day resting before meeting up with festival bestie MK for day 2 of the action. Both of us lamented being sore and tired from the pervious day (I’m getting old), but being very brave, we went into the action. Today was a much slower pace with nice breaks between shows. We saw shows by The Dare, Beach House, Fcukers (please excuse the language, Noni), and LCD Soundsystem. Another great day of very dancey music. The dash to the exit wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous day, and we were able to make the trains before they shut down. I made it home an hour and a half earlier than the previous night, which was a relief to both me and my feet. What a weekend.

See ya later team,

Jack