French Tourists

I just got home from a day spent gallivanting about Paris (started at a sweet bakery on the Rue des Abbesses, went through the Tuileries, kept up a French conversation with a man by the mini Arc de Triomphe in front of the Louvre, got a free ticket from said man, waltzed in the Louvre for a bit, got Chinese food--super cheap in Paris, a little gelato, a metro ride, now I'm back).

An insane amount of time is spent simply trying to find where the eff you are going. Here's the deal about Paris, it's confusing as FUDGE. [Note: Fudge, for some reason, is a confusing concept to me, thus the metaphor works]. Unlike NYC, which is basically a gridlock and super easy to find your way around if you have a map, or even LA, which has major streets that sort of run parallel, Paris does not do this. No, no. Paris, decided to outdo every international city in what-the-fuckery and designed it after a snail. NO JOKE, PEOPLE: A SNAIL (ESCARGOT, if you will).

Here's a rudimentary image of the snail- Paris map comparison, found on the internet:

You see all those numbers? Those are the neighborhoods, known as arrondisements. So rather than have some sort of normal thing going on, they've got the 5th arrondisement sharing borders with the 4th and 6th (normal), as well as the 14th, 13th, 12th. WHAT? So, you'll be walking along, thinking you're super close to the 3rd, but then you stumble into the 12th and before you know it you're in the ban-lieue (which basically translates as the "boondocks").

And just so you get a little taste of how the streets run (not parallel or perpendicular), just a clusterfuck of streets, here's a picture:


It's as if they had some sort of sadistic spider (wearing a beret) design this absurd street layout.

But, I digress. This post is really supposed to be about an outlandish couple I saw on the metro on the way home. I don't even know where to begin. Unfortunately, my camera is broken/ I'm too lazy to figure out its problem, so I don't have direct evidence of this. It's a cherished memory.

Basically, a man and a woman, probably in their early 20s, come onto the metro. They, essentially, grope each other throughout the ride. The female has the following going on:

Female mullet, check! (Hers was a bit curlier). Socks with Birkenstocks, check! Unshaven legs, check! [As a feminist, I know it shouldn't bother me, BUT IT DOES].

Here's what the guy's bringing to the table:


A colossal unibrow, check! Fanny pack, check! An air of general creepiness that makes everyone within 20 feet suddenly get a shiver of uncomfortableness, check!

Here's the surprising part: THEY SPOKE FRENCH. ONLY FRENCH. So, they weren't American tourists, or even Dutch tourists, they were FRANCAIS. Now, their appearance was really just the cherry on top of the gross sundae. They were all over each other, which, in Paris, is normal bidness [I often see couples giving sweet little kisses over and over again, not making out, just kisses, caressing each other's faces and stuff--makes my heart swell with envy]. However, instead of giving each other sweet little kisses, they decided to saddle somewhere between how-13-year-olds-makeout and a wet-peck-on-the-lips. I kid you not when I say that every time they kissed, the girl was SURE to stick her tongue out BEFORE their lips met. Just straight tongue out. It was like a slobber pistol, ready for action. And the kiss wasn't prolonged or anything. It was just un petit bisou, except it made me want to simultaneously burst out laughing and spit up.

I couldn't help but stare. I know, it's wrong. But, I was just so fascinated that someone could seriously walk around thinking: "Oh yeah! This is totally how you kiss. You gotta make sure that your tongue grazes your lover's uvula before the lips actually meet. It's just the basic formula to a great kiss." And just as fascinating was the fact that the guy/ receiver of this tongue was TOTALLY INTO IT. Furthermore, their absurd outfits and the fact that they were clearly Francophone just added to the whole affair.

I like to think that they were performance artists because the whole thing was just too good to be true. They are just playing a joke on all the metro riders, upending all stereotypes of the French people as good and adept lovers.