week 2.5: The word of the day is gratuit.

So much happened this week (and a half) that I want to tell you about.. I will try to be concise. The free things brought a smile to my face this week! First off, I can't even tell you how many Cincinnati Red's hats I have seen in this week and a half... the number of them is in the double digits.  Do you know who is wearing these hats?  The gangsters of Paris that follow me around in the boulevard and harass me for my phone number.  As I escape them by using my bitchiest face and my power walking skills, I wonder if they have ever seen a baseball game.


The street life in Paris is reminiscent of New York; insert Haussmannian architecture and cheap rental bikes.  I have to admit that I was a bit worried about being completely isolated by city life when I moved to Paris alone, but there is an unexpected sense of community here.  I also didn't expect to encounter was the word gratuit (this is the french word for free) in the city of lights. 

Both of these things are combined  by my greatest resource when it comes to searching for the happs: couchsurfing.com.  On this free website young travelers and locals meet up for a drink, or meet to find/provide a place to sleep, gratuit!  They have parties almost every night and there are always people posting events ranging from museum visits to salsa lessons.  The people I have met are so friendly and they welcome me to Paris with a smile.  I witnessed a DJ event and also a fashion show in the street this week due to this website.   This weekend I plan to meet some new CS friends for another free event called Nuit Blanche, but you have to wait until next week to hear about this one. I have a feeling it will be epic.

I guess I was lucky when I stumbled onto a bar with free couscous and lamb on Saturday night.  Here I grabbed a cheap Stella (ok 4 Euros for a tap  beer is cheap in central Paris) and sat down. I was lucky enough to have a tour guide and a film director join me for a drink, and they told me about the dinner gratuit. They were extremely pleasant company, we wittingly talked of politics, of stereotypes and of the intricate symbolism of Terminator 2.  I will soon take them up on their offer to show me more of the city.

You may know that I am the kind of person that likes to defy stereotypes, but while walking home, I was flabbergasted to see the personified cliché of a Frenchman. This was a priceless moment, the best pleasures are gratuit, I tell you!  With a cigarette in hand, he donned a black and white horizontal striped shirt with a scarf tied around his neck and (of course) a beret atop his mustachioed face.  I am happy to say that this man was at the café next to my flat on Rue Dauphin.  Later that day I found out that this street translates to Dolphin Street, how ridiculous... needless to say the combination of these two free events ended my case of the Mondays.

A few days later I was lucky enough to be able to check out Monet's home and garden gratuit! Here I met a contact from Cincinnati named Mark Fox who is in artist's residence at Monet's Giverny Gardens, where he is creating out of this world video art inspired by the artist and the water garden.   He merrily gave me a free tour of the place he has been living and working for the past two months, the landscape was straight out of a painting, literally.



All of these happenings are brought to you by the word gratuit. Well, minus alcohol consuption and transportation costs.

Until next time, much love from Paris!

       -Sara