Mission for Monday: Traipse with Crepes*

Today was supposed to be a big, long day and it was. We probably doubled the amount of walking we have done in any one day so far. We loaded up on coffee at breakfast and walked through our neighborhood, the one to the north, and then across the Concorde Bridge. It is partially built out of stones the Parisians brought over from the destroyed Bastille prison. At the North end of the bridge was the Place de la Concorde where the guillotine was set up and used during the revolution. So much history here! It is great to stand in a place and close your eyes to think of what happened RIGHT THERE so long ago.
Now then, remember how excited Aimee was to go to the American embassy? Well, we did! And we were promptly turned away! Three times! I know what you are thinking (because I would, too). "You were turned away by Marines with big guns." You would be wrong. We were told to leave by Frenchies. In very prissy blue hats.
Goofy Frenchmen: "Dew yew have an appointment to zee zomeone?"
Us (still smiley): "No, but we are Americans!"
Goofy Frenchmen: You cannot come in, zorry. No souvenir! No pictures either!!"
Aimee (not at all smiley): "But, this is OUR SOIL. What if we needed asylum or something????"
Goofy Frenchmen, still wearing dorky blue hats: "no, zorreee, you must cross the street now."

So, we crossed the street completely intending to take a picture anyway, which Lisa set about doing. However, while she was still taking pictures of the park and before she got around to defying our French nemeses, one of them crossed the street himself (in the prissy hat) and motioned for us to come over. Which we did not. When HE got to US, he asked again if we had taken any pictures and made us prove to him that we did not. Although she would have been proud of a rogue picture of the embassy, Lisa was more proud that she made one of "les guards" cross the street. Heh heh.
Which brings us to another point (the one where we were walking off in a huff thinking what we should have said). One of our follow up questions to the FRENCHMEN keeping us from our soil and our fellow Americans SHOULD have been, "Hey, by the way, do you speak any German?" "Non." "Yeah, YOU ARE WELCOME!" Seriously, there is not enough space here to convey how mad we (still) are about that. At the very least, MARINES should have been the ones to tell us to go away. Anyway, Paris....
SO! We went shopping and stuff, and then we went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked the Champs Elysees. We think that perhaps we witnessed a movie premier because we saw a crowd of people crowded around a theater complete with photographers and red carpet. Really, it was a good day, even with nowhere to go for asylum. The story only validates our "freedom fries" jokes. And, it's pretty funny now that we aren't standing there dumbfounded at the situation.

On yet another nerdy note, Aimee was excited when we first got here to find that the clementines at the street markets were wrapped in paper. This is probably not exciting to anyone else, but when Hemingway wrote of his time in Paris, he mentioned that he would buy this exact thing on the streets. These and the roasted nuts you can also find fresh on the streets here would carry him through a day of writing. I told you, nerdy.

Another thought...we are getting reallly good at Franglais. What's that, you ask? Do you know what Spanglish is? Yeah. Except with French. Also, we've begun to master the crazy excuse for a system that these personnes have for numbers. Awesome.

Tomorrow...wait, we're not going to tell you. That would ruin the blog, after all. :)

Bonsoir!




*Mission failed. Although we did traipse, we passed up the crepes in favor of another bargain of a meal on the Champs Elysees. Yes, the Champs Elysees. The picture of the guy making the crepes is from Saturday.