Friday 30 May 2014

Oui, Oui Paris II



"The secret to getting a polite answer from the French is to ALWAYS open in French.", I said: "You will also need to apologize profusely for not speaking the language of Voltaire. Then and only then will they grace you with an answer."
"Aham."; said The Husband: "Any other tips?"
"ALWAYS compliment a dog."
"A dog? What if there's no dog?"
"There's always a small dog. This is the French we are talking about."; I concluded whilst avoiding stepping in dog poo on the pavement.

We continued on towards Notre Dame and that wretched "love locks" bridge "Pont de l'Archevêché".
We sat on one of the benches and observed the lovestruck tourists frantically looking for a free space to hang their love lock (there is no space) and then throwing the key into the Seine river believing their love to somehow become eternal after that act.
"Did you know that the city of Paris removes the locks every so often as the bridge wire cannot take their weight and it splits?"
"So the locks are not eternal after all?"
"No, not at all."
"In that case, I give them three months.", said The Husband and pointed at the soppy couple that just "locked" their love onto the bridge.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

When I went to Paris I only had 2 years of French under my belt, and I was scared out of my wits in speaking in fear of sounding like a moron. In retrospect, I probably came off as the stereotypical, ignorant American who only cares about speaking English. Oh well. Lol @ the "locks of love." Even if the locks are physically removed, many of the actual relationships probably won't stand the test of time either! With the divorce rates these days, the days of forever are dwindling down. Love these photo snippets! They really capture the Parisian atmosphere :)

Mili

Unknown said...

lol That is so true! Open your conversation in even broken French. They'd rather see you die trying than English to start! One of the reasons I still have not made my way to France...a bit scared!

Kristina said...

@kiwi, if you open in French, they're super polite. It works every time.

Unknown said...

ahh, perfect holiday destination! I'd love to spend a lovely morning chilling out at the cafe with a cup of hot chocolate or coffee <3

Check out my latest post on the Blog :)
AL xx
RASSP

MateaTPol said...

A joj Pariz mi nedostaje ... cesto se sjetim tih divnih ulica ali i jezika

Eniwhere Fashion said...

Paris is really an amazing city!! Kisses,
Eni

http://eniwherefashion.blogspot.it/

Maiken said...

to be honest I think it's such a stupid tradition :P we have the same thing here in Estonia and they also removed all the locks. some people were so sad and wanted their lock back and so on. I call it a circus.

Maiken,
Maikeni blogi - part of me

Ryli Ma said...

Cool! I really want to go to Paris bad!

Ryli
PearlofmyEye.com

Books and Lilies said...

Ahahaha, čula sam da su Francuzi zaista osetljivi na svoj jezik. Moja sestra jutros otišla u Pariz, a ja ko zna kad ću :-(

Ivana said...

:) Nisam znala za ovo :) Nisam ni bila nikada u Francuskoj pa... a bas bi voljela vidjeti Pariz :) Vjerujem da si uzivala :)

Unknown said...

This was an interesting read. Hope I get to use those tips someday. :) Lovely photos as well.

Wish&Wear

Unknown said...

Nice!!
Xx,
Julie | http://www.juliechagas.com/

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...