Tatie Marcia is in Paris for a couple of months. She ran into a darling group of girls on a street corner in the 6th--no, they weren't hookers. They're American college juniors, just arrived for their semester abroad. They didn't even have a favorite café yet, where they could sit and smoke and look French. But they promised Tatie Marcia that as soon as they'd had the chance to do anything interesting, they'll give her their impressions of being an American girl in Paris, so she can write about their adventures.
This is something that interests Tatie Marcia. She was once an American girl in Paris, and now that she thinks about it, that might have changed her life. She even had a petite affaire d'amour, not with a Frenchman, but with a young singer from South America who took her to a nightclub, bought her champagne and covered her eyes when the exotic dancer portraying Salomé did something naughty with the head of John The Baptist. At intermission he borrowed a guitar from the band and performed one of the songs he was known for in South America. That was 40 years ago and Tatie Marcia is still swooning.
Speaking of Americans, yesterday Tatie M saw a girl on her portable phone complaining loudly about French bureaucracy. Why do our fellow Americans talk so loud? On the street, in stores, especially in museums. We all know they are used to wide open spaces, but shouldn't they learn to adapt when they leave them for closer quarters? Even for a few days? They walk far apart and yell at each other over other peoples’ heads. Four or more can literally take over a public space as effectively as throwing a tent over it, hanging their names over the entrance and distributing an agenda. Why don’t they take a hint from the Europeans around them, speaking barely above a whisper, careful not to extend their physicality much beyond the reach of their own shoulders?
Pardon the outburst, my dears. That's something that just gets on Tatie Marcia's nerves.
