A True Story? Paris est amusante.

Learning French is changing my perspective on life in Paris. It is a so much richer experience when you understand the world around you – and – to be honest – being able to eavesdrop is so much fun. I look like a big goofy American and people talk freely around me all the time, because they think I can’t understand. On my walk the other day, I stopped at the end near Notre Dame to see the swans and the man the feeds the birds was at his post-lunch spot surrounded by pigeons and the swans were swimming in the Seine. Since I’ve been coming to Paris, I’ve called him the Birdman of Île Saint-Louis.

I bought some grapes and sucrine for the swans – their repas préféré. I know better than to feed the swans on my own now (Google angry swans) and handed him the container from my crisper. This is something we generally do silently as our language barrier is just assumed. He fed the swans and brought back my empty container after being chased by the swan I’ve nicknamed Big Angry. (He is the swan in the foreground) I thanked him – in French – and asked about his life in my best Alliance Française accent – qu’est-ce que vous faites ici? It turns out his name is François He has lived on the island his entire life and he now has three grandchildren that visit on Sundays after church. He paused in telling me about his grandson’s soccer team’s winning streak to yell at the lady across the street watering her window boxes. One thing about Paris is there are LOTS of rules. Literally more than you can imagine.

You are only allowed to water your windowboxes between 5 p.m. – 6 p.m. Why? Je ne sais pas. (insert French shrug) After the skirmish that involved questioning the marital status of each other’s parents, I asked Francois why we can only water at certain times of the day. I expected a shrug, but instead got a story. Again, my French is better, but only understanding about 80% of the words can cause me to fill in the blanks incorrectly so this is maybe true? According to my new friend François, the ban on watering goes back to the 15-17th centuries (les Epochs Louises?). In those days, people would sometime get hit by raining poop from chamberpots on their heads so they implemented a system that each quartier (neighborhood) in each district (arrondissement) has an assigned time so the sanitation workers with brooms could move street to street – and sweep the human waste into a sewer system that was only rinsed once (une fois) weekly (hebdomodaire) with literal big flush via pumping water from the Seine. So the rule is still in place so people don’t get hit in the head with water, which is much better than chamber pot waste.

Am I 100% sure that this is true? Nope. But I had a conversation with a man I’ve seen pretty much every day for eight months and he understood me.