An...ethnic weekend?

{Sunday, September 21}

Evidently, I stayed out too late for a couple of nights, because when I woke up yesterday my cold was back with a vengeance. I shook my fist at it, drank some tea with honey, and rested for a while. For lunch, I went to the Middle Eastern place down the street {which is called 'Aladin' (sic.) and has a drawing of Disney's Aladdin slicing a Döner kebab on the sign}. There, I spoke to the man at the counter, who replied in rapid-fire French.

"Pardon?" I said.
"Vuvlédlasos?" he replied. {That would be "Vous voulez de la sauce?" - "Would you like some sauce?", for those of you who don't speak ridicuFrench}.
"Uh," I responded intelligently. "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" {a grammatically correct but pretty lame way to say "What do you have?"}
He then proceeded to list off about 8 kinds of sauce, starting with "blanche" and "mayonnaise", followed by several others that I could not even begin to decipher {words for prepared food tend to pose problems; for instance, a dumpling at a Chinese restaurant is referred to as "ravioli pékinois" ["Pekingese ravioli"]. Upon reflection, it makes sense, but it's definitely not something you would come up with on your own unless you saw the sign next to the dumpling in question}. I blinked. "Uh..." I began.

He looked at me and grinned. "Blanche?" {"White?"} he suggested. From the look on his face, I'm almost positive that this was a comment on my ethnicity. Yeah, I got called a white girl.

At this, I turned bright red and nodded. He asked me a few other questions regarding my food, such as "Sladtmat?" {"Salade, tomate?" - "Lettuce, tomato?"}, all of which I made him repeat. Finally, he smiled again and said, "Vous parlez italien, espagnol?" {"Do you speak Italian, Spanish...?} Well, I thought, at least he thinks I'm an exotic white girl...but I set him straight on that score, replying, "Anglais", at which he seemed surprised and I, unable to articulate much more in light of the linguistic and pigmentational beating that I had just undertaken, took my tray, thanked him, and went to sit down.

The food was delicious, by the way.

Later on, the dynamic duo and I set out for dinner at Le Marathon and to watch the famed techno parade, Paris' most electrifying demonstration of gay pride. Sadly, we only got to do the first, because the parade was finished by the time we were done eating, but we did have an even more entertaining waiter this time around. Appearing to be of Asian descent and speaking to us half in English, half in French, this little spitfire of a man took every possible opportunity to give us all high fives and to make us laugh. Among his many antics was a brief summary of his knowledge of the United States: "Obama, McCain. Sarah Palin, daughter [large gesture with hands to demonstrate pregnant belly, then nudging and winking at Cody]". He also asked us what the difference is between American and French women, "especially in summer". The answer, of course, complete with hand-waving and nose-plugging, was that French women don't shave their armpits. Ah, stereotypes.

We left Le Marathon, amused and very full, and wandered for a while before stumbling across a theatre that was showing Rocky Horror that very night. Sure, it's an American cult film, but neither of them had ever been, and I was curious to see what a French cast would do with the show, especially because it's in V.O. {the original version}. Agreeing to head back when it started at 10, we found a bar around the corner called Le Who's, complete with cheap drinks, fake stained-glass windows, disco lights, and mini Greek statues between the bar and the cabinets above. We definitely plan to go back.

When we returned to the cinema, there was a whole throng of people outside. A man next to us in the crowd asked if we'd bought our tickets yet, because he had an extra one for sale. Savvy spender that I am, I checked the date and time to make sure it wasn't a scam, and his friends all showed their tickets to prove it was real. I bought the ticket for 0,80 € cheaper than the face value {7, 80 €}, so I was satisfied that I'd gotten a good deal. I encouraged Cody and Monica to go to the counter and buy their tickets...which they gladly would have done, had there been any left.

As enthusiastic as I was to go watch "Rocky Horror" alone {not at all}, I decided to stay with my friends, and give up on going. Next week, we said, we'll get tickets earlier. They even offered to split the cost of the lost money with me, which I appreciated. As we turned to leave, slightly bummed, we heard two girls behind us trying to buy tickets. "Vous avez besoin d'un billet? J'en ai un" {"Do you need a ticket? I have one"}, I said with high hopes. "Non," they replied, "nous avons besoin de deux places" {"We need two seats"}. "Ah," I replied, disappointed. Suddenly, the ticket man perked up and pointed to a group of teenagers to our left. "Ils cherchent une place" {"They're looking for one seat"}, he volunteered, and a dejected-looking girl now sprang to life as I offered her my ticket. The group scrambled to assemble the amount required, handing me a 10 € bill. As I searched for change, they were so anxious to get to their seats that they took my 2 € coin, thanked me, and ran into the theatre. I was glad to be of service, glad to be rid of my ticket, and not 7 € poorer and finally, glad because I realized that, in the process of all of this dealing, I had made 1 €. Not bad for a first-time ticket scalper.

After finding ourselves thus unexpectedly unoccupied for the next few hours, we wandered down to Place de la Contrescarpe where, I had read, there are a bunch of student bars. I wasn't feeling great at this point {due to illness}, so I decided not to order anything. This made the employees of the bar/exclusive club rather unhappy, so I left to get some fresh air while the other two had a drink. We were all pretty tired after that, so we headed home.

Today, Monica and I had some cheap Chinese food for lunch and attempted to go grocery shopping, but all of the usual places around here were closed {hooray, Sunday}. Cody and I grabbed dinner near Saint-Lazare, and tonight means an early bedtime because classes start tomorrow {and because I want this evil demon of a cold to leave my body once and for all}.

On a final note: not that I'm running out of things to do here, but if you can think of something that you've always wanted to visit in Paris, or something here that you think shouldn't be missed, let me know; I'm open to all manner of suggestions. Merci!