Moto Man

Place du Tertre, Paris 18ème

Last Friday night I agreed to accompany my friend Sarah to a soirée at her friend's apartment in the 18th arrondisement.

The 18th arrondisement in Paris is known for a number of things; the Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, the Place du Tertre, the Moulin Rouge, cute little streets and somewhat shifty characters hanging about. However when these last two elements combine, as Sarah and I experienced, it can be an unpleasant mixture - that is of course until you are saved by Moto Man!

So we were on our way to our soirée in Rue Lepic - an incredibly cute street which winds around what seems to be the entire 18th arrondisement. We had already looked at the map and were ready to make our way there from the metro when suddenly we were spotted by two dodgy men. These disgusting men, who hang around tourist areas trying to find poor unsuspecting females to harrass, heard Sarah and I speaking English and decided they had found their next target. Being thrown off by the sleazes, we took a wrong turn, however we were determined to continue on confidently, without checking the map again, as we knew that Rue Lepic was definitely not far away. We were being followed the whole time by our 2 admirers, who quickly turned into hecklers when they realised we were ignoring them. There's something about walking along the street with a girlfriend, minding your own business, being followed by dodgy men who yell obscenities at you and refuse to let you out of their sight, that screams FRANCE to me. It is the horrible, yet somewhat true, stereotype of Paris which thankfully, I don't come across as often as I did when I first arrived here. So as we walked along and tried to pretend as though we couldn't hear the abuse that was being yelled at us, quick-thinking Sarah saw a man in the distance who she decided she would ask for directions. Lucky for us it was Moto Man!



Moto Man, as the name suggests was the owner of a motorbike, and therefore had a helmet on as we approached him. To our pleasant surprise, when he took the helmet off, Moto Man was also incredibly hot. So Sarah went about asking for directions, to which he was ever so helpful, giving us a detailed description of exactly how to get to Rue Lepic. Realising that we weren't French, he asked us if we were trying to get to the Amelie cafe (as the cafe in which Amelie works in the renowned film is also in Rue Lepic) to which we replied that in fact we were just trying to find our friend's apartment. Meanwhile our stalkers had crossed to the other side of the road, but were patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation with Moto Man, so that they could continue following us. So Sarah decided to tell Moto Man that in fact, while we had taken a slightly unwanted detour, we weren't really lost, but were just trying to escape our night stalkers. Moto Man then kindly offered to accompany us so that the crazy men would leave us alone. Touched by this sweet gesture, we walked with Moto Man until we came to his apartment, he told us to come inside the foyer area to make it look like we were going to his place, so that the stalkers would give up hope. He then apologised for not having an apero for us, as he would have invited us up otherwise. We thanked him for his lovely help and left his place, back on track for Rue Lepic but this time without our visitors (Moto Man's cunning plan had worked).

And so, as another friend Ann pointed out, the moral to this story is, if you want to find a sexy man in Paris who will invite you into his apartment, you firstly need to find a dodgy looking stalker (much easier to come by in Paris) and pretend that you're lost - and voilà - easier than we thought!

So thank you to Moto Man for adding a lovely element to our Friday night and for restoring our faith in French men!

Self denunciation

Denounce : to condemn or censure openly or publicly

I write today to denounce myself. I refer to the dictionary definition of denounce for good reason, as the following post will show that the very nature of my denunciation relates to my terrible use of the English language, particularly in regards to spelling and grammar.

I'm sure that those of you who read my blog would have noticed that I often make spelling and grammar mistakes that I myself, consider unforgivable. As someone who used to pride herself on her correct use of the English language, it's painful to see how many mistakes I now make. I often read over previous posts just to check the spelling and grammar, and very often I find glaringly obvious mistakes that I missed the first time. Or there are those times when readers actually pull me up on my terrible errors and feeling embarrassed I check my blog and realise that they are indeed correct and I have been writing crap once again. Of course I log in straight away and correct the errors, but it still pains me to know that I'm making them in the first place.
It seems that my biggest problem is in fact with homophones - something which I have never had a problem with before. Having been an English teacher for a year, I'm well aware of what a homophone is, and as English is my native language it has not been something that I've ever had to grapple with or think about in the past. I can understand why people learning English may struggle with homophones, given that there are over 400 examples, however for someone with English as their mother tongue it is somewhat disturbing. I have already been pulled up on using here, instead of hear, new instead of knew, where instead of we're and the tragic but typical example of your instead of you're. This last example is a shocker, and I'm ashamed to admit that I've fallen into the category of people who sometimes make this mistake. I, more than anyone, wanted to join the facebook group which condemns the misuse of these very words, however I felt as though it would be hypocritical and hence I refrained.

I would like to think that these mistakes are due to the fact that I now live in France and speak French a lot of the time. This in a way is partly true, however one would think that my French should be improving significantly if my English is quickly deteriorating, surely that would be only fair - and yet it appears that for a very long time now I have been at the same level in French. I have hit a big plateau and have stopped moving up, and yet the English has suddenly taken a downhill slide....

So there you have it everyone - I apologise for my poor writing standard and encourage everyone to continue pointing out my errors in hope that one day I'll be able to speak and write like the good old days.

Self denunciation complete.