My Most Memorable Parisian Moment

If you asked me what my favorite moment from Paris was, I think my answer would surprise you.

Throughout the trip my friends and I would test our French speaking skills (which stopped

at Bonjour and Merci). At restaurants we’d respond back to servers that greeted us with a Bonjour, or say Merci when stepping out of an Uber. I guess you could say it wasn’t so much testing our speaking skills, but our accent skills.

The four of us would repeat Merci and Bonjour multiple times throughout the day, ranking whose was best and whose was worst. When one of us would use it with a server, I’d stare at their facial expression to see any twinge of “what the hell was that” or wait to see if they’d simply respond back in English because it was painfully obvious as soon as we uttered a word, that we were in fact, not French speakers.

I remember one time I said Bonjour so immaculately (or so I’d like to think) that the lady I was speaking to continued rambling on immediately after, spewing words to me that sounded like jumbled sounds and tones that while beautiful, held no meaning. I stared blankly, softly smiled and nodded, and quickly turned away, eyes wide as a ran to one of my friends to boast that while my cover was definitely blown now, I had conjured up a French word that sounded so natural that she had assumed I was a native. That was unlikely the reality, but I steadfastly held on to the slim possibility that may have very well been the case.

All of this is simply background info- to build up, one could say- to my actual favorite part of the trip. It wasn’t the Louvre, or The Palace of Versailles, or our yummy picnic in front of the Eiffel- although all these moments do make my stomach tingle with excitement when I think back to them. No, my favorite moment is one that whenever I think of it, puts a huge smile on my face.

All four of us pile into an Uber, heading to I can’t remember where- and we say our customary “Bonjour”. He says it back with a little chuckle and we head to our location. Come to think of it, I think we were heading to the Arc de Triumph- because that would make the most sense as to why the conversation unfolded the way it did.

As we’re heading there, we catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. I mumble under my breath what I’d heard (or thought I’d heard) 100+ times by now.. “Eee-Fell Toe-Ehr.” I said it a bit louder to my friends and now all of us are sitting in the Uber repeating - “Eee-Fell Toe-Ehr!

Eee-Fell Toe-Ehr!” Our Uber driver shakes his head, “No, Toe-Ehr Eee-Fell.”

And so it ensued- us repeating dozens of times, “Toe-Ehr Eee-Fell, Toe-Ehr Eee-Fell”. Soon we were asking him how to pronounce everything- Bonjour, Merci, Louis Vuitton, Musée de l’Orangerie and Musée d’Orsay, and the one I had always thought was the hardest to say- the Louvre.

I listened intently as he slowly pronounced it- it was as if he was saying the r without saying the r... I tried. My friends tried. Before the Uber driver could say tais-toi we were all repeated our French version of “Louvre”. It wasn’t long before we started asking him to rank us, going in rounds saying Merci and Bonjour and asking him to tell us who said it best- I think he struggled with that decision, as we probably all didn’t really make the cut.

I’m not sure how long the ride was, they never were too long- but we definitely fit a lot into that one drive. We added new words to our french vocabulary, learned about our Uber driver’s children and how he immigrated here from Turkey ( I think? I could be wrong, I should have written it down) and his life in France. We got recommendations for places we should go and also how to improve our pronunciations. It seems like a really long ride when I look back on it, but it couldn’t have been longer than twenty minutes.

We finally made it to our destination- which honestly, might’ve been the Louvre... or maybe it was the Arc de Triumph... Regardless, we made it and as the car rolled to a stop we gathered our belongings, hopped out of the car, and yelled merci in unison as we shut the door. I could see him laughing as he drove away.

I’m not sure if my friends remember this moment as vividly as I do, or if I’m remembering it as correctly as I’d like to think I am- but that’s definitely my favorite memory from Paris. And I’m honestly not 100% sure why, but I’m guessing it has something to do with my hunger to always learn new things and meet new people.