More adventures from Paris and some lessons learned…
My work week completed successfully and my customers are happy. I have less than a day to visit a few more locations. Before I share those, I want to share some lessons learned on this trip. One of the greatest gifts that my world travels have given me is the ability to test and debunk stereotypes. Let’s work through a few of them…
Are the French Rude?
I’ve been told my whole life that French people often come across as rude. Coming into this business trip I was worried about this. My experience has been the complete opposite. Of the professionals I worked with this week, I was shown complete kindness and a great sense of humor. For example, every day for lunch, we as a group would go get a meal at one of the many local cafes.
On Wednesday, the special was an American Hamburger. Of course, I had to test it out and my group was curious about my “expert” opinion. I later explained to them that I had once seen a movie where the main character had taken a voice lesson about the pronunciation of the word hamburger.
I shared this clip from the Steve Martin film, The Pink Panther, to explain what was going through my head. For the remainder of the week, my French students would proceed to randomly shout out “am-burger” during our working hours.
This made my week and probably my year!
There are plenty of rude people in the world, but the French people I met were not rude to me.
Is Paris a Safe City
For the most part, I felt as safe in this city as any of the other places I have been. However, I did get approached a few times by gypsies and had a few of the common tourist scams attempted. My favorite was the “Gold Ring Scam”. When it happened to me I did not know of the scam at the time, but my gut feeling was the interaction did not feel right…so I said no thanks and walked away. Here is one of my favorite videos showing another person’s experience.
What about Mimes?
Yes…I did see mimes…
Sacré-Cœur Basilica
Today’s destination was The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic Church built around 1870. It sits on a high point of Paris and offers excellent views of the city. Once again, it was raining so the view was blocked by clouds and fog. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the walk up the stairs and exploring the local area.
Bois de Boulogne
The next destination I explored was a large park to the east of the Eiffel Tower. The Bois de Boulogne is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by the Emperor Napoleon III to be turned into a public park in 1852.
I enjoyed my walk along the trails and marveled at how some of the forested areas completely isolated me from the massive city outside the park. There were a few old men playing a game where they
I finished my day walking east out of the park across the Seine River and into the modern part of Paris named La Defense. I have learned that I did not walk far enough and missed out on seeing an archetectual marvel known as the Grand Arch of the Defense. Maybe next time…
