5 Things that Surprise Tourists...
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| So much discussion strolling the Seine... |
When tour guiding, I get asked all sorts of fun
questions. Do I like Paris? Do French people hate Americans? Where can I buy children’s chewable
aspirin? You know, normal things that
people are curious about when visiting.
Sometimes, however, my responses aren’t exactly
what the client thought (or wanted) to hear.
I’ve been making mental notes and have decided to put fingers to keys
and share a few of the responses that have raised a few eyebrows lately…
Q: Does
your family visit constantly?
A: No.
Well, that’s a lie. My brother
came for a few days while visiting his girlfriend in London, but we only saw
each other for a drink or two. The rest
of my family has some Francophobic tendencies that might only be rationalized
by the German blood in our veins. World
War II is over. We’re all friends
again. Get a passport and come visit.
A: I tell them, every time, that my textbooks
freshman year cost the same as a year of studies at the University of
Paris. I exaggerate a bit. My books were slightly more expensive. But tourists are always shocked at how
inexpensive the public university is here.
I tell them that, indeed, you get what you pay for, and that my school
is little more than a cinder block prison with some desks and teachers. But then again, it’s a Sorbonne degree, so
what else do we need?
Q: So much butter. So many pastries. How
do you stay so thin?
A: Admittedly, I am predisposed to thinness,
and my 8 year-strong student diet doesn’t help things that much (I’m convinced that I really like rice and
carrots for dinner several times a week).
Though when I tell my tourists that I also trained and completed my
first marathon in France this past September, they are often surprised. They expect me to say that I drink lots of
red wine, that it’s all paradoxical, and that France makes me thin. Poverty, 5 flights of stairs, and a ten
minute walk to the nearest metro station make you thin. There’s no French secret. Don’t let them fool you.
Q: It
must be so amazing living here; what’s a normal day like?
A: I try to bend the truth as much as
possible. Do you want the real
answer? How do I say that I wake up,
watch John Stewart, read some news, and stream Downton Abbey over a lunch of lentils and pasta? Do I tell them that I trek to the Asian
supermarket that stinks of raw fish and cabbage just for cheap peanut
butter? Where do I fit in the anecdote
about biking to the office store to print my paperwork that I have to send in
to renew my metro pass, my student card, and my visa? There are seldom strolls with baguettes, listless
afternoons in the cafés, or romantic trysts by the Moulin Rouge. Sorry, no time, I have to change my Brita
filter.
Q: Did
you always dream of coming to France?
A: I’m not sure they like this one, by many
tourists raise an eyebrow when they realize that no, in fact, I didn’t dream of
living in Paris. At least not this
long. When I was young I dreamt of
training whales. Orcas. This was before they started killing their
trainers. Later, reality settled in and
I dreamed of being a travel writer or journalist. While that remains a goal of sorts, Paris was
just a means to an end, the perfect job opportunity in a place that I grew to
love and will continue to love. Rewind
to 2006 when I was a study abroad student and you’d meet a Bryan who was all too
happy to return to New York after a semester of French classes. He would be mildly shocked if he met the
Bryan of 2012…