One fine day in Nebraska, far away from Paris and France and having never heard of the Sacre Coeur, 19 year old college student Dana had the choice to learn French or Spanish for her degree, and she looked around at her life, noticed what was there and what wasn’t, saw the sort of place that she was in, and picked Spanish.
And 32 year old Dana, living in Luxembourg, sitting on park benches surrounded by parents speaking French and perched on the edge of her seat in a restaurant trying to explain to her waiter that she only wants some water, has been kicking herself ever since she stepped foot in this country.
Just think about what might have been! Granted, my college Spanish hasn’t worn well, but I am still able to recall vocabulary words, which would have been a great help here. Instead, I’m starting from nothing. We get books from the library and we do learning apps on our phone, but aiside from being able to break into a rousing chorus of “Frere Jacques” that I learned as a 10 year old, we are starting from zero.
I felt our zero especially on our trip to Paris a while ago, where the lack of French is partially expected because of the number of tourists, but also incredibly disdained.
It’s not much different here. Regularly on the street people try to talk to me and work their way through two or three languages only to ask incredulously, “You ONLY speak English??” It is usually at this point that I like to try to save face and retort that I know some Japanese. This usually boosts their image of me a bit, except for once when the guy I was talking to knew fluent Japanese and it became very clear very quickly that when I say a “little” Japanese, I mean it.
Nothing quite like being caught in your own exaggeration.
So when we were getting ready for our trip I tried again to make the correct choice; I wanted us and the boys to get the most out of the trip. So we watched videos about St. Chappelle and watched the news clips about the fires at Notre Dame. We learned how the Eiffel Tower was made and we talked about the subway.
And what do you think happened? The line to go up the Eiffel Tower was two hours long, so we didn’t go, and the morning when we went to St. Chappelle everyone was cranky and no one could quite imagine spending hours after paying money to walk down quiet halls and see artwork. And of course we didn’t think we could get into Notre Dame, but we thought maybe we could catch it on a day when people were working on the restoration (or however it will end). But we didn’t. Instead all around was a high fence, and crowds straining to get views of what is left of it.
Meanwhile, from our hotel room, the view through the blinds showed the Sacre Coeur, which we should have added to the list to research but didn’t. It sits up on the highest hill in the city, looking out over everything, and drawn there from our hotel view, we went there the first full day.
We started at the little playground down below, even though Lincoln informed us rather loftily that “It’s mostly only for little kids, Mom”.
It was a climb up to the Sacre Coeur itself, but when we arrived the crowds were explained by the sudden blast of an organ, and the security guard guarding the back entrance of the church as the clergy came in for the service.
After as much of the standing in the back for the singing that the boys could manage, we found the stairs going up. “300 steps up!” Eliot exclaimed when we warned him. “That’s like a hundred hundred thousand!”
The view from the top gave Lincoln essentially the only thing he had wanted to see in Paris: a view of the Eiffel Tower and Joe only freaked out once, which we all considered rather forbearing, since Joe and heights are not good normally, and when you put Joe and his active children AND heights all together, he starts to get tunnel vision and breathes funny and snaps at all of us.
And then, what the boys wanted most of all, the carousel at the bottom, a double decker one.
It’s not always about the preparation after all, I try to tell myself now, looking back at 19 year old Dana, in the middle of Nebraska, making the best decision she could with the information she had. After all, good preparation can’t make anything new and doesn’t add any beauty.
It just means that sometimes we miss St. Chappelle and we don’t know what year the Sacre Coeur was built and I get dirty looks from waiters.
What do they know anyway. Ninety nine out of a hundred times, it’s not Japanese.
Joe, I feel your pain. Although I can handle a cliff, or a mountain, because God made them, anything a person made is just not sturdy enough. (And, truth be told, I’d rather not sit and dangle my feet off the edge of a cliff.) But all bets are off when wiggly kids are around ANY tall things and me. I don’t have to know be responsible for the kid, or even know its name, but my blood pressure will be in the “dizzy” range. –shudder–
Ha, I will let him you know you commiserate! He doesn’t handle cliffs or mountains well either though….