Stranger Than Normal Strangers.

Becca and I at our last and least
traumatizing stop of the day. 

      Have you ever had one of those instances where a stranger starts talking to you about their life? Maybe you are at a party, or maybe you are at the post office? Has this ever happened where the conversation was completely unprompted and you have no idea what you did to make this person start talking to you?

      What makes the situation even more uncomfortable is when you have no idea how to make them stop talking to you. The conversation is inescapable and so strange that you are trying not to make any comments or ask any questions for fear of leading them on.

      This happened to me today. The conversation lasted five whole minutes. Only it wasn't a conversation it was a soliloquy.  Only the soliloquy was in French and I don't speak French well at all. We were also on line four of the metro with no escape until we reached Saint-Michel.

      Becca was sitting across from me and when my new friend sat down next to her he seemed normal enough. A glove fell unnoticed from the lap of the woman opposite us and my friend was kind enough to point it out to her so it would not be lost. For the next few stops he read his book in Arabic. Then he noticed me and it got strange.

      One or two sentences were said in French and I quickly gave Becca my panicked, "please-translate-for-me" look but she had not heard anything yet. To my surprise, he continued speaking and I had no clue if he was asking a question or looking for some sort of response from me. So naturally I stared back, mouth ajar, panic in my stomach, looking forth and back from Becca to this man as he continued to chat casually.

      He was doing some sort of motion. Was he scratching the back of his neck? Was he trying to say something about my braids? There was no telling. I looked back at Becca who had begun listening to our one way conversation.

      I heard him say croissant. I knew that word. I nodded still bewildered that he thought I was following what he was saying. The train came to a stop, he didn't get out, neither did we.

      There were still four stops left, until I could escape. That meant about four more minutes on the train. I was counting.  Was he going to stop soon and go back to his book? I had no idea. None at all. Then he said something about Amsterdam and I knew there was no hope for even pretending I knew what was happening in our one way exchange.

     The train stopped again and he still didn't get off. Neither did we. I was starting to worry this would never end, what if he followed us off the train? I just wanted to see Marie Antoinette's prison cell in peace! Becca was looking out the window acting as if nothing was happening. This guy was definitely off his rocker and she could actually understood what he was saying!

     At this point it was too late to politely turn away, I knew I had to just smile, nod, and make polite eye contact.  Meanwhile he was still chatting at me, I could have been agreeing to wear a puffy shirt for all I knew! Becca let out a giggle and I knew it was all over. I tried to hold my laugh in while she composed herself but it was only moments before our suppressed snickers escaped again (he continued with no notice).

      Finally we had reached our stop and I practically leaped over the girl next to me to escape. Before we were even out the doors of the train Becca and I were bent, holding our sides, and crying with amusement. It took us so long to settle down that when Becca finally told me that he was talking about Jesus we broke out all over again.

       Apparently my braids made him think that I was Dutch, and he began talking about Amsterdam. Him and his wife had been there many years ago and they thought it was very beautiful. According to him however, Paris is a much better place to raise a family because it is not as free and the culture is more focused on Christ.

Standing outside of la Conciergerie with my Dutch

 braids smiling about seeing Marie Antoinette's cell in peace.

A man feeding the pigeons outside the modern art museum. It dawned on me
moments before it happened that someone was likely to be pooped on.
Turned out that someone was me. 

 Only it took him five full minutes to tell the story and Becca did not intervene. She only laughed at me because she knew that I had no idea what he was saying. Some friend she is huh?

However, later on in the day when a pigeon pooped on my head she did clean it off for me, so I guess that was some redemption. 

After the pigeon incident there was an encounter with a Parish Priest who begged me to take a photograph. That story would have been exciting enough to be blog worthy had I not run into my new friend on line four of the Paris Metro.