Photo courtesy of Paris Daily Photo
It’s easy to get your hands on books about life in Paris from the foreigner’s perspective– the colorful characters every new expat inevitably encounters, the linguistic struggles and the trammels of French administration which seem almost like a strategy to weed out the unorganized and panic prone who can’t handle the never-ending red tape. It’s harder, however, to find stories that really address what integrating into Paris life really entails and what being a Parisian is all about.
The stories of stepping in dog doo doo and accidentally using the word préservatif (condom) when speaking about food preservatives at a dinner party are banal and tiresome. We’re almost all ignored and/or walked on by the French in the beginning, then become resilient and eventually experience a moment of vindication where the language gods heed our cries and allow the right words to exit our mouths at the right time aimed at the old French curmudgeon who berated us for so long for mispronouncing a word. These incidents were amusing in the beginning but have lost their punch.
But for those of you who want an insider’s perspective on Parisians as a species of their own…
