April 4, 2008
Well, I didn???t make it to that caf?? again, but I did experience my first French market. The produce was probably the freshest and best tasting I have ever had. I got a wheel of some kind of soft cheese, a baguette, a box of fresh strawberries, an apple, some carrots, and a bottle of water for 5,35 Euros (about $8). Then we went to this beautiful park and ate an incredibly good picnic lunch. That picnic may be the highlight of my trip (I hope to find other things to match it though). I have to admit it is pretty frustrating to not be a native speaker here. Knowing that I am going to go into a place and have to look like a fool in order to just get a piece of cheese or something makes me wish I didn???t have to deal with it. My propensity is to always be prepared and in control, but there is just no way for me to be fluent in a few days. I???ll just have to embrace my own imbecility and hope that, as Robert has experienced, a few ???Merci???s, ???s???il vous plait???s, and ???de regrette???s will keep everyone smiling back. This difficulty had an effect on my experience of the theater we saw tonight: the one that I enjoyed the most was the one with the least language. There was a man who spoke a little French, but then he began singing in what sounded (to me) like gibberish. A woman, a man with a feathery fern for a head, and a white fuzz ball, came out and danced/moved on a white fuzz ball floor after that. It was extremely confusing until about the last two minutes, when I finally discovered an interpretation. The dichotomy between the human ability to communicate either with language or our bodies and the impulses that drive both forms is what I eventually got out of it. I imagine that the piece really is designed to be extremely open to interpretation. Well, I really want to keep going but I???d rather have some more developed ideas before I try to share them with the world, also I would have to describe a piece of theater that really is pretty inexplicable unless you have seen it. One more thing before I go to bed . . . ummm . . . today the pedestrians I encountered were much nicer, I???m not really sure what the difference was. Maybe because I was walking less like a tourist they were less tempted to run into me, or maybe my tourist heebeejeebees were causing me to see something that wasn???t there. We also went to a couple of really cool museums, both of which made me wish I knew more French ??? I still say the coolest super power would be to be able to speak fluently any language upon hearing or reading any fragment of it (perhaps I would choose Rosetta Stone as my super identity . . . or maybe I would spend some more time thinking up something a little less lame). The museums were a silk museum and a print history museum. I would like to go to one that is more conventional art tomorrow. My video journal is going quite well, I can???t wait to edit and view it. That was definitely more than one thing, and it is definitely 1:40am here now. Au revoir.