The Wine Is Shit, But This Bottle Is Great!

"2 euro?? 2 euro??"

Who is this strange little guy asking us if we want to buy a mostly empty bottle of wine for 2 euros?

As it turns out, this strange little guy was Clemente, a Spanish guy about my age studying Spanish at the Sorbonne. Pitzer folks Becky, Amy, and Ximena and I were hanging out at the Eiffel Tower a few nights ago, doing as Parisians do--eating bread with cheese and some wine at the Champs de Mars, or Marsfield, as I like to call it--when we heard the sound of beating hand drums from down the field. We got up and walked towards the drums when Clemente approached us in his shuffling gait, carrying a bottle of wine about 80 percent of which had been consumed, thrusting it towards us and asking "2 euro? 2 euro?" We were intrigued.

"Wait, you're trying to sell this?"
"Yes."
"You want us to buy this for 2 euros?"
"Yes."
"You're very funny."
"Thank you. Do you want to buy it?"
"No, not really, I think we're just fine, thank you."
"Want to hear a secret?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I bought the whole bottle for 1 euro 95. Ha HA!!!"

Needless to say, Clemente had won our hearts. We asked him where he was from and he told us that he was from the great country of Spain but that his mother was French which is partly why he was in the second rate country of France living in the partly decent city of Paris studying Spanish, the best language. We wanted to speak with him in French because hey, we're in Paris, but Clemente mostly wouldn't have it.

"I don't like French. It's so cold. It makes me shiver when I hear it or speak it."
"Well that's too bad we really want to talk with you in French, I mean English comes pretty easily to us."
"Yeah, English isn't much better than French, but that's ok."

Luckily for us Ximena speaks Spanish, which Clemente appreciated, but regardless, most of the conversation was in English. Clemente was really fond of the word "motherfucker." He loved it. He loved that most people around us at that moment had no idea what it meant, or so he insisted, and he had a great time shouting to people "Hey, motherfucker!!!" to which they would reply "hey!" He said that since people here don't really know what it means, they have only a vague idea, it's like a greeting. I'm not sure if he's right, but watching him yell "motherfucker!!!" was hilarious.

When we told him our names, he got a big kick out of mine.

"Your name is Avery? Like 'Avery day man I walk down the street?'"

Clemente just loved talking to people and messing with them. He introduced us to his group of friends, a bunch of people mostly our age sitting in a circle together playing drums and a guitar and singing. Ximena and Becky and Amy spoke to them a lot longer than I did because Clemente dragged me off pretty quickly.

"You see those girls, Avery day?"
"Yeah Clemente?"
"We're going to talk to them. I'm going to sell this bottle of wine."

And so we walked over to two girls sitting on the ground, me, Clemente, and one of his other friends, and Clemente started by asking what was his refrain for the night.

"2 euro?"

Which pretty much got exactly the same response from the Parisian girls as it did from us Americans. But Clemente wasn't really interested in selling the bottle; he just wanted to find a funny way of starting conversations with people.

"You see this guy I'm with?" he asked after a few minutes of talking with them about himself and about what they do in Paris.

"Yeah."
"He is American. He speaks no French."
"I do speak French!"
"You're American?"
"Yes I'm American."
"I assumed you were Spanish you look Spanish!"
"I'm not Spanish, I'm Jewish."

Clemente fell to the ground laughing.

"Avery day!! You can be both Spanish and Jewish! 'I'm Jewish.' You're funny!!"

I think what I was trying to communicate was that Jewish kind of is an ethnicity because many Jews really come from Poland or Russia which is where my Jewish family comes from, although now that I think about it those aren't the only places where Jews come from and there are Sephardic Jews, I guess, so you can't really place them in any one region, so it was silly. This amused Clemente terribly for a little while, and then we left, him stumbling and giggling and asking other people if they wanted his bottle of wine for 2 euros, me following in awe of his playful charm.

When we got back to the circle, Clemente let us in on another little secret.

"You see this bottle of wine?"
"Yeah."
"I'll tell you something about it."
"Yes?"
"It was worth much more than I bought it for."
"Really?"
"Oh yes."
"Why is that?"
"The wine is shit, but this bottle is great!"

And then Clemente suggested, partly joking but maybe not, that the bottle itself was worth buying for 2 euros. Even though he bought it for 1 euro 95. The guy was a true jester.

At that point we had to go and catch the metro before it stopped running.

So far, Paris has been filled with fun, sort of touristy but nonetheless beautiful adventures. On Saturday I hung out with good old pal Luke Pyenson and some of his friends from Tufts, who are awesome, at the Champs de Mars, also eating baguettes with amazing cheeses and patés and melon, then walking the Champs Élysées, enjoying tasty maccarons, taking in the Jardin des Tuileries, and just loving the sites. Suffice it to say I've eaten mouthwatering treasures and seen beautiful things with great, fun people over these last five days. I've enjoyed maccarons, falafel, éclairs, crêpes, escargot, transcendent gelato, and other tasty delights while marveling at this place's enduring beauty.

I should've written about these experiences as they happened, but now I've been forced to summarize, which is unfortunate, so I think from here on I'm just going to write posts when I have specific stories to share, because summary is not terribly interesting. Also, when it comes to the whole this place is so beautiful thing, I think I'll save that until I gain a more informed perspective on Paris and its people and its different neighborhoods and history, because right now I don't really know what I'm talking about too much and I'd rather save that discussion for when I do.

Ok, great. I'll write again soon I'm sure!