Sans title

"Blah, Paris romantic? How could anyone possibly think that?! And all these French people, dummies for a foreign language, who expect you to know french perfectly by the way. No way I could possibly live there for more than a few days (of spending time strictly as a tourist of course)!"

Sounds familiar? Yeah, thought so.

Last summer I wasn't even dreaming I was going to experience all those things I will write you about. I was living an easy, relaxed summer life after the winter spent in London as an au-pair. Suddenly, I found myself with the opportunity to go babysit in Paris, learn a new foreign language and meet another small part of our lovely world. At first, I didn't take it too seriously cause I hadn't thought about hanging out with kids again. So I waited to meet the family before making a final decision.

One month later - here I am, driving on the 6th metro line when I heard a loud, excited "wooooow" from all the tourists who were sitting/staying around me. I turned my head to see the object of admiration, and I couldn't help but asked myself.. "That's it?! This bunch of old iron is what makes millions of people come here?!" Even seeing a marriage proposal in front of the tower didn't impress me much. I was walking around thinking how I had maybe made a mistake by deciding to leave my sunny Croatia for that.

Step two - try to immerse in the city and/or the crowd. Impossible (even though they say it's not French. well...) ! Normally I would say going to McDonalds for a toast and some fries is the easiest thing in the world. Obviously, not in Paris! First, the lady at the counter pretended not to understand me because of my normal "u" instead of a French "uuu". So after a few minutes and a continuously longer queue, she looked at me nervously and asked me in English which was, I must admit, even more wretched than my Francais. Thanks for letting me know I will never be a part of it huh. My mum au-pair helped me a bit with the transport stuff so I learned sortie is the exit (which, surprisingly is quite similar in every other language except French). I learned to hang around the city without getting lost or robbed (meme if they tried to do it on my first weekend! I don't like my phone so much but still hey), but where I couldn't help myself was when someone asked me for directions, metro line or things like that, there is where I stopped and normally answered "I am not French." I won't even start talking about how much did I enjoy the movie evenings or books. When I finally found an English bookstore and bought books which I could actually understand, that felt pretty much the same as winning a lottery prize!

Soon I started to attend French classes. Not much, not too complicated but enough for a start and to get an insight into the "beaute" of the language. With the passing of time I started to loose myself a bit and I began to say "Je suis pas Francaise" when somebody asked me for directions, metro line or things like that.  One of my greatest fears, which later came true of course, was that the people will think I speak French and try to start a conversation (the very few nice people...). Day after day, it was becoming easier and easier, until the evening I went out with some friends and met a lot of French people. There is were my brake really broke and where I started to speak to people. Actually speak. Wuhu!

In the meantime I started going out, met new people and explored the city and its way of life. I learned to retain the doors on the metro or the elevator for the latecomers, to run up and downstairs to catch the first train (cause, of course, waiting 2 minutes for the next one means to be purely wasting time! :D), and I was finally able to understand why my train is late and I have to sit there with my phone (holding it tightly, don't you worry!) looking at the strange people who look at me the same way... I made two big steps afterwards - changing the mobile phone and facebook language on "francais".

For a life lesson, the thing I expected the least in those 7 months, was to fall in love. You want to know the description of life irony? Well, thanks to a strange plexus of circumstances, you are dealing with the right person. That is when you travel to Paris, laughing at those who call it "City of Love" and not understanding all the fuss around the "romantic" bunch of Eiffel iron. And then, among all this lack of romance and beauty of that dirty, unfriendly city, it happens you to meet love. That is, my dear, irony with a big I!

(So, in the end, it's me who is teaching my French guy how to speak Croatian! Hard times people, trust me. Haaaard times! But I wouldn't change them for anything in this world :D)