Segment 6: Three Anecdotes
Day 1: Today in French class, to stimulate conversation, we had a class debate. We were split into two sides and each side was given one side of whether or not cars should be allowed in the city. This is a big topic in Paris right now. I was put on the side that was anti cars in the city and our team worked to come up with our argument and the numbers to support them and then, it was on. Our teacher asked who would like to start the debate, but there were no volunteers. She chose our team and everyone immediately looked at me. To be very clear, I am certainly not the best French speaker on that team, but my confidence must have made up for that, because there I was, making the opening argument. I told our teacher from the beginning, what our team might be lacking in reasonable facts, we would make up for with passion. And that we did! The sole man in our class was on the other team, and he has no qualms about speaking up. He has a fairly powerful voice, and after observing him speak over a few of my team members, as one does in a debate, I thought, “I can play this game. This opera singer did not come to class today to be spoken over.” Oh boy- it was a fun debate!
One reason I am good at debating is not that I have all the facts, or even that I am necessarily passionate about the side I have been placed on, but rather the fact that I am very good at convincing myself just enough that my side is right and then I fight tooth and nail to win, or at least convince a few of my side. Our teacher was amused by the simultaneous debate that commenced until at last one person would back down and be forced to listen to the point I was trying to make, which usually wasn’t a great point, but I persisted and I was loud.
My two favorite moments were: while our dear male classmate was making a case for the auto industry's positive effect on the economy, he kept saying, “The auto industry generates... jobs, it generates... cars, it generates (fill in the blank).” So one of those times, I snuck in, “The auto industry generates… pollution.” That got some good giggles.
The other moment was when one of my teammates had a wonderful point about the children who have to mine for specific metals and our male classmate said something in response (I don’t even know), and I just said, “Marco, les enfants! Les enfants!” (the children, the children!) and he suddenly stopped and said, “Les enfants… c’est vrai.” (the children… that’s true!)
Day 2: I am on the train back to Paris after a long weekend in Berlin. On the way to Berlin, I had booked an overnight train that included two transfers in Germany, but a long stretch (for sleeping) from 11:00pm to 5:30am. The first transfer went off without a hitch and the second train was staying on schedule, but got slowed down a few minutes right outside of the station in Cologne. The transfer period was only a couple of minutes then, so I rushed along with the others transferring from our train to the train to Berlin. As the first of us reached the platform, we see a train departing. I assumed it couldn’t be our train because it seemed like we still had a minute to catch it and why wouldn’t they wait a minute or two for those who were transferring from the slightly delayed train? Alas, I had my first negative encounter with the glory of the Deutsche Bahn. I regretfully followed the other passengers who had missed the train down to the information station and waited while the professionals took over the matter. After waiting about 45 minutes, eight of us who were headed to Berlin were swept into a taxi and driven, in a taxi, for 6 hours from Cologne to Berlin (opposite sides of the country, my friends… in a taxi). For all of my resolve to finally invest in a train instead of a bus and to even have paid extra for a larger seat so I could sleep more easily, I still ended up crammed into van with eight other people for the overnight trip to Berlin.
I am happy to say that today’s travels have not been as eventful, though certainly not without their hitches nor humor. I left my friend Gabe’s place right on time to catch the bus to the Central Train Station in Berlin after he and his girlfriend Polina rushed to make me some sandwiches for my day of return travel. I got on my train without a problem and received a message from Gabe that my reusable fork had not made it back into my bag for the trip. Adieu, faithful fork. This trip includes only two legs, so I settled in for five hours on my first train. We were a few minutes behind when we arrived in Mannheim for the transfer, but I still had time. I went into the station to find a bathroom and though I did not want to pay a whole Euro to get in, I decided it was worth it. (And in my good fortune, someone had left a Euro of change in the coin distributor, or whatever it’s called, and so I was able to use that. Then you also get a 50cent coupon to spend at a food vendor in the station, so I thought it was a pretty nice win!) In my experience, train station bathrooms that one has to pay for tend to be in pretty good repair. Not this one. Of the four stalls for women, one remained unused because of its lack of cleanliness. The next one opened and its former inhabitant kindly relayed the news that there was no toilet paper. The third opened and the woman leaving said nothing, so I assumed it was all good. But of course, after rolling my luggage into the stall and turning to check, I discovered that this stall, too, was out of toilet paper. Not only that, but someone had left their wallet on top of the sanitary bin. Fighting my suitcase to escape the small stall, I hurried to try to catch the woman who had left before she got too far, but I missed her. And even though she had not informed me of the lack of toilet paper in the stall, I did not want to wrong this woman. I took care of my business and then traversed the station to find the information booth and tell the woman who worked there, even though she didn’t really want to help me, where I had found the wallet. I checked my watch and realized I would indeed not have time to use my coupon to get an additional snack, in fact, I needed to get a move on to find the right track and get on my train.
The time was getting tighter as I ran back downstairs and jogged with my suitcase until I was at the right track. One minute to go. I was starting to feel a bit of worry, remembering my recent experience with Deutsche Bahn. Finally, I arrived at the top of the escalator and saw that there were bottlenecks of people at each door. Ah! I made it onto the train. When I got inside, it was chaos. Some people can’t reserve seats for their journey and so those who had reserved seats sometimes have to kick the squatters out. This is not great when there is already a bottleneck of people trying to board the train, and even more complex when the train is crossing an international border. By the time I finally made it to my reserved seat, I had to kick out a squatter, but not knowing what language she spoke, I said something strange in English- a classic case of, when you aren’t certain, just blurt out the first thing that comes to you. She responded in German, so naturally I responded in French (Lord, have mercy!), which I didn’t even realize until an awkward amount of time later, when I corrected myself and she didn’t seem amused. My new seat partner, however, speaks French, so naturally when we were figuring out who should be by the window and who the aisle, I responded in German. I did correct myself sooner this time, but said something weird, to which she kindly responded with the correct phrase. Alas! It has been an eventful journey to and from Berlin, but it has also been a cool experience being within all these languages and realizing that I can respond in three!
As far as my trip goes, I mostly got to enjoy my favorite things about traveling: seeing people I love, eating some cool food and going for long walks around unknown or fascinating neighborhoods, popping in and out of shops and commenting on the surroundings. I got to see Nora for a couple meals that we put together and Gabe, Polina and I spent a lot of time exploring the area in which Gabe currently lives, where I had never been before. I got to try a great vegan BBQ burger, Sudanese Kebab, some yummy Pho and some homemade delicacies of stuffed peppers, bruschetta and of course some butt-kicking travel sandwiches. I got to have meaningful conversations with dear friends whose journeys inform my own and inspire me. It was a really nice trip, and best of all, leaving, I feel ready and refreshed to return to Paris and keep on this path ahead.
Day 3: French class was cancelled today. I had had a rough morning and was feeling really tired. I just wanted to go home and snuggle into my bed with my book, but I also knew that would not be the best thing for me to do. When one of my classmates asked if I wanted to go walking around, I honestly did not want to go. But I said yes, because I knew it would be good for me. Two other classmates decided to join us and we set off, without any real goal except to end up eventually at Châtelet. We crossed the Seine river and walked through the Tuileries Gardens toward the Louvre. We have been reading a text about the Louvre Pyramid and I.M. Pei in our phonetics class, so we had fun making silly comments related to that and taking a picture to send to our class group chat. Then we continued to wander and ended up traversing the Rue Montorgeuil. We passed a famous pâtisserie, whose Christmas cookies I had heard were spectacular. We went in and I was ready to buy the box of cookies for our little group, but the others insisted on contributing, until I was the one paying the least for the expensive box of cookies. We continued walking until we found a little place to sit and eat our cookies- which were quite delicious and unlike any that I had had before. Everything about them was Christmas-flavored: cinnamon, orange, almonds… They were almost like fruitcake bites, but very much their own and very special. We ate most of the box and continued to chat and get to know one another as we sat and then headed back towards Châtelet and found our subsequent modes of transit.
We spoke in French for three hours, and it was so easy! Creating sentences still took effort, but there was no stress of perfection, just the genuine interest to communicate with one another. There was no worry about boring anyone with the slowness of our language, our copious mistakes nor our accents. It was truly wonderful.
And now I am remembering that this is exactly how I learned to speak German well, speaking with other non-native speakers in the opera chorus. I am so thankful for this experience on what started out as a rough day.
Marie in Paris
