The Sage
Remember Penny, of "I thought it was a cat" fame? We spent the day together yesterday, and I already feel about a hundred times wiser.
Penny has lived in Paris for about five years now, and it's not the first new country to which she has uprooted (she reports, by the way, that Bostonians are much, much harsher to transplants than Parisians ever are). So she knows the city--and particularly our neighborhood, where she and Olivier lived for a while--and she also knows my frequent desire to just bang my head on the nearest hard surface and quit the day entirely.
Nick, darling, of course I am happy here. And I know that life here will be completely fabulous, and I wouldn't leave even if you offered me a plane ticket and movers and to come with me to New York tomorrow. But it's not all about that--or at least, it isn't yet.
"I think it takes about a year," she said.
Dear God.
She showed me dozens of little hidden spots near us--Mary, I told her that I was going to have to look impressively knowledgeable when you show up--including a tea shop that I could probably just stand in for an hour at a time. She taught me the different types of strawberries (the season just started here) and how to cook white asparagus (we're right in the middle), and gave me some language lessons.
For example, did you know that the French never say "I'm full"? It would be extremely gauche; you would shock people. They would think that you had behaved like a complete glutton, and now were bragging about it. Instead, they say "I am no longer hungry." And if you think about it, doesn't that just make so much sense? It's a huge cultural divide, summed up in an elegantly short phrase.
And she cleared up the small mystery from last week when, making dinner reservations, I asked for a table at "Half past twenty." I had been puzzling over the waiter's response ("Great! Twenty-thirty") ever since--it was obviously a correction (although a polite one; Penny and I discussed the difference), but I had no idea why. "It makes sense," she explained, "but no one would ever say it." Apparently, you can say "Half past eight," "Eight-thirty," "Half past eight in the evening," or "Twenty-thirty," but you cannot say "Half past twenty."
I mean, you can. But no one would.
Penny has lived in Paris for about five years now, and it's not the first new country to which she has uprooted (she reports, by the way, that Bostonians are much, much harsher to transplants than Parisians ever are). So she knows the city--and particularly our neighborhood, where she and Olivier lived for a while--and she also knows my frequent desire to just bang my head on the nearest hard surface and quit the day entirely.
Nick, darling, of course I am happy here. And I know that life here will be completely fabulous, and I wouldn't leave even if you offered me a plane ticket and movers and to come with me to New York tomorrow. But it's not all about that--or at least, it isn't yet.
"I think it takes about a year," she said.
Dear God.
She showed me dozens of little hidden spots near us--Mary, I told her that I was going to have to look impressively knowledgeable when you show up--including a tea shop that I could probably just stand in for an hour at a time. She taught me the different types of strawberries (the season just started here) and how to cook white asparagus (we're right in the middle), and gave me some language lessons.
For example, did you know that the French never say "I'm full"? It would be extremely gauche; you would shock people. They would think that you had behaved like a complete glutton, and now were bragging about it. Instead, they say "I am no longer hungry." And if you think about it, doesn't that just make so much sense? It's a huge cultural divide, summed up in an elegantly short phrase.
And she cleared up the small mystery from last week when, making dinner reservations, I asked for a table at "Half past twenty." I had been puzzling over the waiter's response ("Great! Twenty-thirty") ever since--it was obviously a correction (although a polite one; Penny and I discussed the difference), but I had no idea why. "It makes sense," she explained, "but no one would ever say it." Apparently, you can say "Half past eight," "Eight-thirty," "Half past eight in the evening," or "Twenty-thirty," but you cannot say "Half past twenty."
I mean, you can. But no one would.
posted by Caroline | 3/22/2007 01:24:00 PM
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