Are You Ready For Some Football?

European football, that is.

My husband and I recently went to the Stade de France to have a truly European experience - to watch the US play France in "real" football - aka soccer.  First of all, the Stade de France is huge!  As we walked to the stadium, we could feel the energy of fans of both teams.  French and Americans alike were draped with flags.  French had red, white and blue roosters on their heads, and Americans had Uncle Sam hats. 

Inside is huge too!  The US fans were placed in a separate section with a metal gate between us and the French fans so we wouldn't tear each other to pieces.   Probably a good thing, because otherwise, the night might have been a bit more colorful.

Note the gate.  After France scored, it was covered with screaming French fans.

Before the game, the players practice, and spectators practice their flag technique.

 

Before the game rituals - bringing out the flags of both countries.

 

Both teams on the field before the game begins.

 

France even gives us (the spectators cheering for the US) a little something.

 

Right before the game starts, the flag-people go crazy.  I've never seen so many flags before.

 

Cheering for the USA.

Some great field action.

The final score was 1-0, France, but it was a good game nonetheless.   It was fun to cheer with some nationalistic people, and to see some impressive footwork.

People

While learning French, everyone is always taking the time to correct my grammar.  But I had a chance to give back yesterday.

Three of my friends, (one German, one Syrian, and one French), all of whom I would call fluent in English, recently asked me if people is plural or singular, as in:
- There is people
or
- There are people
I said it was the latter and that it's plural.  They then asked me what the singular of people is, and I said person.

And it blew their minds!  They were almost bowled over in shock that two words that don't even share the same root can mean essentially the same thing.

It feels good to give back.

Falling

Fall is here in France - and that means fall leaves everywhere.  It's always fun (for me) to see the various colors.

Not much explanation needed.  

Lots of red leaves on the street.

 A splash of gold.

Bright trees on the riverside.

Muskrat in the river.  It makes my second wild animal I've seen in France (besides birds and insects).  The first was a hedgehog in my neighborhood.

My good-looking husband and the fall leaves.

Cat in the window.  

Not happy to be photographed.

I found this old sign on the side of a restaurant - where you could get a good meal for only 45 francs.

Marching for Peace

This last weekend, I went to an interfaith march for peace.  If you know me, you know this is right up my alley, and I couldn't let it go by, even if it was a bit difficult to get to.  It was in a suburb of Paris which would have had me need to take three different regional trains to get to, and get back from, at 11 PM at night.  Because of that, I went with a carpool of people from my church.  What an experience!  We didn't drop the fact on them that we aren't fluent in French until after we met up with them.  But they were sure nice about it... speaking slowly to us and enunciating.  We were able to understand most of what they said, and they could understand us too.  Fun!

The march started at a Buddhist pagoda.

Inside, we listened to some chanting in Vietnamese.

 Then we went off to our next destination.  Our group marched through a train station:

It was just so much easier than going around!

The next stop was a Jewish Synagogue.  Of the places we visited, it was the smallest, so our growing group of  1,100 people could not actually fit inside.  So we prayed outside as someone read a Psalm over the loudspeaker in Hebrew.

The view of the crowd as they march up the hill.  A lot of people came!  As we marched, lots of people looked on and some even joined us. 

Our next stop was inside the Cathedral.  This isn't my picture, but I added it because it is pretty awesome.  This modern cathedral is well known because of the trees on the roof.  Since it was dark, I didn't get a good shot of it.

by Rabanus Flavus

Inside was seating for 1,100 people.  It was totally packed. 

 

A choir sang the Our Father - they were quite good!

 

Our next stop was a mosque.

Some of the beautiful artwork inside.

The ceiling was really cool!  The walls and ceiling of the entire building were decorated in intricate geometric carvings.

 

The rug was made of parallel prayer segments that people line up to use during the service, all facing towards Mecca.

After the prayers in the mosque, the religious leaders share thoughts of peace.

Two rabbis, a cardinal and a pastor.

An Imam, some of the organizers, and some Buddhist monks.

The experience was so wonderful.  It's so great to see people taking a stand saying yes - we believe peace is possible!  More than a thousand people left their warm houses and spent three hours outside on a cold October night.  Rather than complaining about the world, they showed the world that we can come together regardless of race, religion, or creed.  (And that message is the same no matter what language it is said in - English, French, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, or Vietnamese.)  :-)

The Dangers of French Dining

So last night, we went out to eat with one of my husband's French friends.  The French language found on menus was one of the first things I learned on coming to France, but last night was different.  We went to a very "French" restaurant, which had things on the menu which a.) were either hard to translate or b.) were fun things that the French eat but that Americans in general do not, ie andouillette or steak tartar.  (If you don't know what either of these are, I would recommend a google search on your part.)

Anyways, something that caught our eye - Ris de veau.  Veal with rice?  Bram's friend confirmed it - he thought it was some sort of risotto with veal and mushrooms.

So we ordered it.

It wasn't risotto.

See, in French, rice is spelled riz.  On the menu, what we ordered was ris.  I thought it was a typo.

It wasn't a typo.

Shortly afterwards, this is what was delivered to our table:

This is not risotto.  I did not know what this is.

My husband's friend looks at it and realizes his mistake.  He didn't know what it is, so googles it on his phone.  He then tells us he will tell us what it is after we eat it.

Uh uh.  I google it myself, but google translate does not help me.  So I start to eat.  But apparently, my stomach does not like the fact it doesn't know what it's eating.  It is decidedly NOT HAPPY. 

I look over at my husband's friend who is whispering to his girlfriend what it is.  He gestures at his ear.  Oh my gosh, I'm eating ear?  No, he assures me, I am not eating ear.

So finally I find out what it is - sweetbread, or rather, the gullet of a calf.  Knowledge did not make my stomach any happier.  The consistency was just too strange for me.  The waitress had a good laugh at our expense when she heard of our mistranslation, and told us that Americans normally don't order that.

Ha ha.

Ironically, if you go to Wikipedia, the entry for sweetbreads shows it on a bed of mushroom risotto:

Paris by Boat

My group recently took a boat cruise, during which we listened to talks all day.  The talks were in French, and I spent most of the day being so sick I couldn't even look at the screen as it bobbed up and down in front of my eyes.  But that's ok, it gave me an excuse to sit on the deck and watch Paris float by.  (Which, I'm sorry, is more fun than listening to science talks in French.  Even the organizer agreed with me on that one.) 

Being from the desert, I am still amazed by so much water.  We went through several locks.

The lock begins to fill with water.

Totally filled with water now.

And the floodgates open!

Some of the locks were quite deep.

 

We headed south-east of Paris.  We went through beautiful suburbs that I didn't even knew existed.

Many trees beginning to turn color and very nice houses.

Wouldn't be a bad place to live.

We even went through a tunnel.

One of the interesting things we saw: a floating swimming pool on the river.

Back in Paris proper.  The Eiffel Tower in the background.

Sailing towards Notre Dame.

On the other side of Notre Dame now, seeing the bridge that connects Île de Cité and Île St. Louis. 

Entering our final lock.

It fills with gushing water!

Almost all filled now!

And it opens!