Paris Metropolis: Day 1 - Being Non-French on our First Day in Frenchland

Sainte-Chapelle

15 Rue Jules Ferry, Paris, France

Exhausted by our arrival in Paris and from the 6-hour time difference (Grandma slept on the plane, I, unfortunately, could not.), I watch Grandma struggle to open the wine bottle. French wine. Appropriate, I suppose, considering our location. This is, however, really the only “French thing” in which we indulged ourselves today. Well, Grandma, not me—I don’t drink wine.
Let me begin at the beginning.

Actually, the beginning wasn’t that interesting. We ate lunch at a French Bistro in Montreal—that’s right, we went French before we had even entered the country—whilst awaiting our plane. Finally embarking, we were happy to discover those little personal entertainment screens on the chairs in front of us. Grandma promptly fell asleep, while I fell to doing homework. Time? Eight o’clock, Ottawa time. After eating a dinner they—surprisingly—served us, I resolved to sleep as well. It never came. I watched half of The Muppets movie before realizing what a terrible movie it was, and did the same for New Year’s Eve. I closed my eyes listening to Uptown Girl (Glee version. There was nothing else to do, okay?) until I was revived by another meal at 7 am—Paris time.
Disembarking, we waited another half an hour for our luggage and, once retrieved, twisted our way through the airport, where we were off to discover the secrets of the metro/RER.
Another hour+saxophone player later, we were winding our way through the Parisian streets. Finally finding our apartment, we met Michael, the German owner, who explained to us the various keys, doors and elevators. (Since then, we’ve locked ourselves out of the apartment twice and locked ourselves in once. We had been listening, however…)
After unpacking, we went out on the streets to ferret out some groceries and lunch. This is when it starts getting interesting.

McDonald’s. Yep, of all of the Parisian bistros/brasseries in this city full of food, we ate our first meal at a McDonald’s.
“How do you say ‘Chicken McNuggets’ in French?” I asked Grandma. On the sign, a picture of said chicken glares down at me mockingly, labeled ‘Chicken McNuggets.’ Okay, then.
“Est-ce que je pourrais avoir des, uh, Chicken McNuggets, s’il-vous-plaît?”
Je woman at the counter looked at me quizzically.
“Quoi?”
I repeated the question.
“Oh, des Chicken McNugget!” She pronounced it “Cheeken McNgeeeeeeeet”. Well, how was I supposed to know?! Somehow, she understood Grandma perfectly with her “Chicken Mysthic”. Curse my lack of enunciation…

So, that was lunch. Now, do you want to hear about dinner? Of course you do. Do you want to know where we went? You guessed it—not a French restaurant.
After our, uh, ferreting, I went home and finally had my well-deserved nap. Grandma went out (cue the second being locked out of the house), and upon her return, we got ready to leave again. She had been figuring out more of the metro when a “nicely dressed French gentleman” came up to her. From what I’m told, he kissed her on both cheeks and asked if she would like to out to dinner with him. (Oooooooooooooh!) What Grandma said?
“Non, pas aujourd’hui.” Is this an indirect promise for tomorrow? I’ll keep you posted, but we may never know…
Anyways, we took the metro (I begged to not walk—it was a half an hour trek, and I, having been asleep but moments ago, was not up for it.) and… Got lost. Well, what did you expect? During the process, we found a neat little Japanese place, and we soon decided to dine there.
It was fine. We ate kappa maki, gyoza and tempura. What ruined it for Grandma? Two things:
First, she asked for rice. They didn’t bring it. I had to go ask for it with my non-enunciating speech.
Second, when they did bring the rice, it was… Chinese rice. Oh, the humanity! What blasphemy! Serving Chinese rice in a Japanese restaurant! We have resolved never to go there again.

We were finally un-lost and found the entrance to Sainte-Chapelle, just in time. They began letting us in. In the great cathedral, we sat on folding chairs and faced the red-and-blue stained glass artwork. Two men—violin and viola players—arrived at the front, and started playing.
Now, don’t get me wrong, they were really good, and I really wanted to listen. But after the long day of traveling, getting lost and un-lost and, let’s face it, in two days I had only had about 3 hours of sleep, my eyes drifted closed as the music soared through the church. I rested my head on Grandma’s shoulder and stayed awake just enough to clap at the end of every song. Once, Grandma’s shoulder jerked out from under my head, and I took it as a signal that she no longer wanted it to be a pillow. I later found out that it was really because she had fallen asleep, too.

So, that was day 1. I’ll keep you posted with more Adventures in Metropolis, the Metropolis here being Paris, France. This week, anyway.
Apologizing for my outrageously-long post.