Later that evening...

I’m in the transition between the vacation portion and the work phase. My colleagues from the States are not yet here, so I ate dinner by myself in the restaurant, reading a book and chatting with the wait staff. Everyone is so kind about letting me stumble my way through a sentence, correcting me gently but cheering me on with their eyes. It’s true that if you try to speak the language, it’s appreciated.

Worked on my presentation tonight, taking into account the recommendations of my local advisor, Sophie Mottin. Sophie is a saleswoman with the company, based in Orleans, and she was kind enough to give me an overview of the team + some suggestions about my PowerPoint presentation. I made some changes and tried to see the words and phrases through the eyes of someone who isn’t American. For instance, I took out references to the Boy Scout motto and high school, although I know there are European equivalents of both. I think being here these past few days has helped me see where I made cultural assumptions (I knew the Boy Scout reference wouldn’t fly when I wrote it but also thought it would work for the North American sales force, which it did).

I keep having flashbacks of all the people I saw on the Metro this past week. Diane and I both observed the flair with which people (especially the women, but men, too) dress. Even the littlest child is dressed with a certain “je ne sais quoi”—casual ease, seemingly careless but it comes together like high fashion. The little girls wear jewelry and carry handbags. Women dress in layers and everyone, it seems, even the men, wear scarves artfully wrapped around their necks. The young girls, jeunes filles, are wearing brightly colored tops that look like dresses worn over black leggings. Most everyone is thin and a lot of people smoke.

One thing I noticed is that people rarely talk on their cell phones, especially when they’re sitting with other people. They enjoy each other’s company, facing the street in the cafes so they’re sitting side by side, which is what Diane and I learned to do. That allows you to watch people as they go by while talking and drinking and eating. Such a civilized country! In Chicago three out of four people are walking down the street talking on their cell phones, and it isn't unusual to see someone take a call while sitting across from someone at lunch. Now I know why Hemingway and the gang adopted this country as their own.

On Friday we climbed to the first level of the Eiffel Tower... Diane thought the sign that said “escalier” mean escalator, but it means "stairs." I should have known. At the second level, after catching my breath, we took photos, admired the view of Paris and stopped into the restaurant to see if we could have dinner, but apparently they are booked weeks in advance—mostly, it seemed, with large tours. We sat at the bar and had a glass of wine and when I asked the gentleman bartender in my tortured French what Kir is, he gave us a complimentary drink of Kir and champagne. What a treat! It tasted almost like a Pom-tini. I love zee French.

Then we got more tickets and waited forever for the ride to the next level--the view from the top was magnificent. When we came down, we took the boat cruise and watched the light show on the Eiffel Tower from the Seine. We had to wait until nearly after 10:00 for the sky to get dark enough to enjoy the lights, and so by the time we took the Metro home, it actually closed on us while we were making our last connection! We walked the rest of the way home.

Other kindnesses: on the first day when we came from the airport via the Metro, I was struggling on the stairs (more stairs!) with my two suitcases, and two gentlemen stopped to help me. Diane laughed to turn around and see me come up with stairs without my bags, followed by two men carrying one bag each. She told me later that one of the men held up two fingers with a look of disbelief and said “Two.” Yes, I packed two bags, too much and next time will find a way to stuff everything, including my laptop, into one carry-on. Diane only brought one suitcase and managed to cram in an amazing amount of stuff. But, did I mention, I love zee French?

In fact, I almost missed her at the airport because I waited for her in the baggage claim area. Our flights were less than an hour apart and I watched everyone from Miami come and go. When I approached the man from the airline, who had told me the flight was coming in, he thought I lost a bag. “Non,” I said, “mon amie!” I lost my friend! He looked her up in the computer and said she hadn’t checked any baggage, so I wandered out into the terminal and called her on her cell phone. We found each other within minutes and had our first of many café stops in the airport.

We had a television in our room which we didn’t even turn on until the last night we were there, and what should come on but a French-dubbed episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. My addiction for Law & Order follows me to France. Right now I’m watching CNN, channel surfing between the one English-speaking channel (two, really, including Bloomberg which has limited entertainment value) and the movies which I can discern the plots of based on my limited vocabulaire and the acting. Last night I couldn’t sleep so I watched a Clint Eastwood movie that had dubbed French subtitles. A good way to learn French, according to the waiter at the Bistro Amelot, next door to our hotel, Les Jardins de Marais. My eternal gratitude to Bev and Bob Jones from church who recommended our hotel.