From Dublin, we flew to Paris and the pilot spoke to everybody in only French. The funny thing about that is I understood more of his French than the TransAtlantic Irish pilots’ brogue! We got into Paris around 13:45 (but 7:45 to our bodies) to take the train to our hotel, Le Kyriad. Apparently, Le Kyriad is a European chain and a decent one at that. Our bed was actually two twins pushed together and you couldn’t see the television with the bathroom door open. The entire bathroom was approximately the size of the master bath’s tub in our trailer. Granted, the tub from our trailer in Georgia was a huge tub.
We decided to go get something to eat and found a few blocks from our hôtel a café called, Le Relax. By this time it was 18:30 or so, but we didn’t know that Parisians eat dîner at 20:00+. We both ordered items unfamiliar to us and the gentleman who was our waiter and cook brought Amber sliced pork loin and fries, and couscous, chicken, sausage and an undetermined soup like stuff for myself. The waiter/cook, realizing that we were Anglophones, told us that his uncle knew a man who spoke English and that he’d send his uncle our way. The food was fantastic! They kept us supplied with bread and I couldn’t finish my plate due to the amount served, but I tried. The uncle came over when he noticed we had finished with a plate of white grapes and said, “Dis is from zee chief.”
There were a group of people there and we began talking to them and they started asking us who we were and where we were from. When I told them my name, Charles Vincent, they responded , «Charles Vincent? Vous êtes un Français!» (CV? You are French!) I explained that I was from Louisiana and they were all excited and one produced an encyclopedia to look up our state and find more information; Another produced an accordion and we all passed a good time despite his inability to play it. It seemed God had his hand in the whole thing since we were able to comfortably communicate with those people for a couple of hours and they helped us with terms and ways of saying things and even our ability to hear improved in just a short while. We both felt more comfortable talking after that.
The next day, our «decalage horaire» or jetlag turned out to be worse than we’d hoped, but we still got up before noon. We were able to see Nôtre Dame that afternoon and walk around a beautiful area of the city. On the way, we stopped a man cleaning the streets and asked him, «Ou est La Nôtre Dame?» since we weren’t completely sure of our location. The man gladly walked with us several blocks, singing along the way until it was in sight. He turned to us and asked,
«Parlez-vous L'Englich?»
«Oui.»
«Zen you say, en Anglais, ‘Where iss de Nôtre Dame Crunch?’»
“Do you mean, Church?”
«Oui! Church. ‘Where iss de Nôtre Dame Church?’»
We had a good laugh about it.
I surprised amber that evening with a boat tour of Paris (paid with previous savings) that included a five-course, fancy meal. It was a beautiful tour and we were able to communicate in French with our waiter who seemed relieved since many other tables did not speak French.
Communication is still a bit awkward; I’m sitting now on the train with a man to whom I can’t properly explain why we’re not in our assigned seats...
Saturday, we thought about going to the Louvre and got on a bus that ended up heading in the wrong direction. When we got to the complete wrong end of the city, I thought we would turn around , but the driver said we all had to get off because of what I thought he said was a «Barah.» «Barah?» I said. «Non, Parade. Avec une groupe, bah ba ba ba bah!» and he began imitating a trombonist marching around and then I understood that there was a parade on our bus route. But we got to see Le Tour Eiffel and go to the top (pics) 
and speak with some Eastern Europeans who knew French, but not English, the first interaction of that kind. They wanted to know about my beard. Actually I was trying to count the languages I heard in line at Le Tour Eiffel: German, Dutch, French, Italian, English (American, British, Australian), Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Whatever Eastern Euro language it was that I heard, and others. It was really quite amazing. 
Sunday, we still couldn’t wake up before 11:00, but we got up a little after and went out for a picnic at Le Jardin du Luxembourg. It was crowded (pic) but very beautiful (pic). There was also a very interesting music group playing and people danced some apparent traditional dances.(vid) We went also to a park on a far end of the city that was near the Conservatoire. It was a beautiful, modern park that also had groups of people playing music. We stopped and listened to a couple of the groups, most African drum circles, but the last one had guys singing African songs and we tried to capture that group’s wonderful harmonies, but they went into something else in this video, but there is an excellent surprise at 3’ 15” enjoy. (video coming)
By the way, We’re now off of the train and the man sitting across from us on the train I mentioned earlier started a conversation with us and we found out that his name is Pierre and he is a Sergeant in the French Navy living near where we will be staying. He was interested to hear about our situation in France and asked if we were Scientologists. We assured him we weren’t, but it was difficult to explain with such a limited vocabulary and not being Catholic that we were Christian. We were able to explain that we were simply following Jesus Christ and not fame or money. He asked for our email address because he wanted to talk to us more about it. Pray for Pierre that we would be able to reach him soon and minister to him. Pray for the Misegades that we could minister to them as well as they help teach us how to minister. We’re busy, but we’re taking time to do this once a week when we get into a routine schedule. We’ll try another, briefer update on Monday.
À plus tard, (Later)
C&AV
I'm really excited about your blog, Charles/Amber!!! You guys are both such good writers and can't wait to read each post.
ReplyDeleteI'll be praying for Pierre.