Curious Ralph in France: The Man From Seville
Ralph and Jo had just finished a two-hour dinner
at Lescure off the Place de la Concorde. The restaurant had been
recommended by one of Ralph's favorite patients, a tall blond who had
spent two years in Paris in her twenties. When she heard he was
returning to Paris on vacation she said, "Go to Lescure. They have the
best boeuf bourgignon."
"Jody will love that," he said and planned to check out their website that evening. He always made a point of mentioning his wife's name in the presence of attraction.
Using Google's inadvertently humorous translation mechanism, Ralph discovered that the restaurant had been in the same family since 1916 and that the "mackerel marinated with the white wine is a pure wonder, that the poultry pot to taste of that large mother and that the boeuf bourguignon smells France good."
Whatever, thought Ralph. He had not had mackerel since his childhood; his mother used to buy whole fish and broil them with boiled potatoes. It seemed you could not get it save on either coast and in France, of course. He refused to believe, as had been told by a fish snob, that mackerel was a garbage fish. Every French fishmonger he had ever visited over the years displayed mackerel prominently along with other seafood exotica.
Towards the middle of their week in Paris they finally decided to eat dinner at Lescure. Having traipsed through the 5th and 6th arrondissements all day they had gone back to their rental apartment for a rest before dinner. Ralph had fallen asleep immediately and awakened half an hour later to Jo's tossing and turning.
"Didn't you sleep?" he asked.
"No, the sirens. There were too many sirens. You know, nya-nya nya-nya."
"They are insistent, if not annoying."
They stopped talking and could hear the sound continuing. Jo thought she heard shouting.
"It's probably a demonstration. You know they showed Uday and Qusay's bodies on TV a little while ago, " Jo considered. Sometimes her glass was only half full.
"You're kidding," Ralph said. "Let me see." He got up and ran into the living room: the apartment looked directly out on la Tour Eiffel, two hundred yards away.
Just then the television coverage of le Tour de France was interrupted: "This just in. There is a report from Paris that the Eiffel Tour is on fire."
Simultaneously Ralph saw the smoke wafting from the below the television antenna. "There's a fire," he shouted to Jo.
"Yeah, they just announced it on television."
This was eerie, perhaps even slightly surreal. A helicopter hovered over the tower moving from side to side. There were no flames visible, only a wisp of smoke.
By the time Ralph and Jo had showered and dressed for dinner the tumult was over save for the gendarmes swarming over the base of the tower.
"Look, they’re detaining all those people," Jo said, pointing to a group of diverse tourists in a clump near the pillier ouest. "I’m sure they are doing security checks."
Ralph reserved judgement and remained silent as they got into the taxi but finally said, "You're paranoid, Jo."
The taxi driver spent fifteen minutes trying to negotiate the swirl of unregulated traffic at Place de la Concorde, driving the cost of the ride up another 4 Euros. Only then did Ralph notice the sign on the cab window suggesting that if you (the passenger) had a preferred route to a particular destination you could suggest it to the cabbie. How sensible, he thought, but realized that the two times they had taken a cab on this trip the driver had had to consult his personal copy of Paris par Arrondissement to find the destination. How best to get there was anyone's guess.
Rue Mondovi was blocked off by a gendarme and his vehicle. "Nous voulons aller à Lescure," Ralph said to the gendarme. He could see the restaurant at the end of the street.
"Bien sur," said the gendarme as he gestured towards the end of the street,
Lescure oozed out onto the courtyard in front. There were no outside tables so Jo and Ralph were seated inside in typically French close dining proximity. They felt like they should be having conversations with their fellow diners on either side of them but there were Japanese on the left and German on the right. The mackerel was unique and the boeuf bourguignon rivaled Jo's own version of it. She was proud that Ralph thought her beouf "melted in your [his] mouth."
They decided to walk their dinner off along Rive Gauche. Shortly after they had crossed the Pont de la Concorde they turned right along la Seine, when a small white dented car suddenly pulled up next to them out of fast-moving traffic. A pony-tailed Latin looking man in his late twenties stuck his head out the passenger window and asked Ralph a question he did not understand. Was he speaking English or French or something entirely incomprehensible?.
"Quoi?" Ralph asked, thinking it safest to speak French. He was flattered to think the man took him for a Frenchman.
Jo, ever paranoid and an inveterate worrier about Ralph, saw the scene slightly differently. She had taken in the whole ambiance of the car. It had Spanish license plates. There were two other silent occupants: a big-haired man with a "bolt through his lip" (as Jo described it) was the driver and in the rear was another hulking man covered with laundry spilling over from the seat next to him.
Her intuitions so far on the trip had been right on, although Ralph thought them non-specific enough to always have an element of truth. She had wondered what would happen if there were a problem on top of la Tour Eiffel and there had been a fire. Jo did not have a good feeling about what was unfolding Quai Branly.
Meanwhile Ralph was trying to help the man find the Gare de l' Est. He felt both French and benevolent as he dug his Paris par Arrondissement out of his man-purse, which he had been carrying by a strap around his wrist. Usually he had it attached to a shoulder strap. Jo said later she was concerned about Ralph's decision and felt uneasy as he swung his purse from his wrist. As the questioner opened the passenger door so, Ralph thought, to better look at the map on the hood of the car Jo grabbed his man-purse and moved a few feet away. The man, now out of the car, noticed and said, "It is okay, lady. No problem. We are from Seville."
Ralph chimed in weakly, as if to make everything copacetic, "Yeah Jo. They're from Seville. You know--Spain."
Jo was not placated. Ralph is clueless, she thought.
Ralph spread the map out on the hood of the car and he and the man from Seville tried unsuccessfully to find the train station. Ralph had located the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon but could not find the Gare de l'Est.
Jo was incredulous.
Then Ralph said, "Allez sur le pont ici et traverser la Place de La Concorde. Vous trouveras deux gendarmes qui vous aidez."
The Spaniard got back in the car, waved to Jo and Ralph and sped off. Jo claimed they looked at him with Latin incredulity.
Ralph," Jo said, "you’re crazy. You have to be more careful."
"What are you talking about? I was just trying to help them."
"Yeah to your man-purse. What did you tell them finally?" Jo asked.
"I told them to the gendarmes on the other side of the river could tell them where the train station is."
Jo laughed loudly. "That's rich. You really think they are going to ask a cop? Did you see the other guys in the car and the laundry? They are probably laughing about how clueless you were."
"What the hell," Ralph said. "At least they thought I was French."
"Jody will love that," he said and planned to check out their website that evening. He always made a point of mentioning his wife's name in the presence of attraction.
Using Google's inadvertently humorous translation mechanism, Ralph discovered that the restaurant had been in the same family since 1916 and that the "mackerel marinated with the white wine is a pure wonder, that the poultry pot to taste of that large mother and that the boeuf bourguignon smells France good."
Whatever, thought Ralph. He had not had mackerel since his childhood; his mother used to buy whole fish and broil them with boiled potatoes. It seemed you could not get it save on either coast and in France, of course. He refused to believe, as had been told by a fish snob, that mackerel was a garbage fish. Every French fishmonger he had ever visited over the years displayed mackerel prominently along with other seafood exotica.
Towards the middle of their week in Paris they finally decided to eat dinner at Lescure. Having traipsed through the 5th and 6th arrondissements all day they had gone back to their rental apartment for a rest before dinner. Ralph had fallen asleep immediately and awakened half an hour later to Jo's tossing and turning.
"Didn't you sleep?" he asked.
"No, the sirens. There were too many sirens. You know, nya-nya nya-nya."
"They are insistent, if not annoying."
They stopped talking and could hear the sound continuing. Jo thought she heard shouting.
"It's probably a demonstration. You know they showed Uday and Qusay's bodies on TV a little while ago, " Jo considered. Sometimes her glass was only half full.
"You're kidding," Ralph said. "Let me see." He got up and ran into the living room: the apartment looked directly out on la Tour Eiffel, two hundred yards away.
Just then the television coverage of le Tour de France was interrupted: "This just in. There is a report from Paris that the Eiffel Tour is on fire."
Simultaneously Ralph saw the smoke wafting from the below the television antenna. "There's a fire," he shouted to Jo.
"Yeah, they just announced it on television."
This was eerie, perhaps even slightly surreal. A helicopter hovered over the tower moving from side to side. There were no flames visible, only a wisp of smoke.
By the time Ralph and Jo had showered and dressed for dinner the tumult was over save for the gendarmes swarming over the base of the tower.
"Look, they’re detaining all those people," Jo said, pointing to a group of diverse tourists in a clump near the pillier ouest. "I’m sure they are doing security checks."
Ralph reserved judgement and remained silent as they got into the taxi but finally said, "You're paranoid, Jo."
The taxi driver spent fifteen minutes trying to negotiate the swirl of unregulated traffic at Place de la Concorde, driving the cost of the ride up another 4 Euros. Only then did Ralph notice the sign on the cab window suggesting that if you (the passenger) had a preferred route to a particular destination you could suggest it to the cabbie. How sensible, he thought, but realized that the two times they had taken a cab on this trip the driver had had to consult his personal copy of Paris par Arrondissement to find the destination. How best to get there was anyone's guess.
Rue Mondovi was blocked off by a gendarme and his vehicle. "Nous voulons aller à Lescure," Ralph said to the gendarme. He could see the restaurant at the end of the street.
"Bien sur," said the gendarme as he gestured towards the end of the street,
Lescure oozed out onto the courtyard in front. There were no outside tables so Jo and Ralph were seated inside in typically French close dining proximity. They felt like they should be having conversations with their fellow diners on either side of them but there were Japanese on the left and German on the right. The mackerel was unique and the boeuf bourguignon rivaled Jo's own version of it. She was proud that Ralph thought her beouf "melted in your [his] mouth."
They decided to walk their dinner off along Rive Gauche. Shortly after they had crossed the Pont de la Concorde they turned right along la Seine, when a small white dented car suddenly pulled up next to them out of fast-moving traffic. A pony-tailed Latin looking man in his late twenties stuck his head out the passenger window and asked Ralph a question he did not understand. Was he speaking English or French or something entirely incomprehensible?.
"Quoi?" Ralph asked, thinking it safest to speak French. He was flattered to think the man took him for a Frenchman.
Jo, ever paranoid and an inveterate worrier about Ralph, saw the scene slightly differently. She had taken in the whole ambiance of the car. It had Spanish license plates. There were two other silent occupants: a big-haired man with a "bolt through his lip" (as Jo described it) was the driver and in the rear was another hulking man covered with laundry spilling over from the seat next to him.
Her intuitions so far on the trip had been right on, although Ralph thought them non-specific enough to always have an element of truth. She had wondered what would happen if there were a problem on top of la Tour Eiffel and there had been a fire. Jo did not have a good feeling about what was unfolding Quai Branly.
Meanwhile Ralph was trying to help the man find the Gare de l' Est. He felt both French and benevolent as he dug his Paris par Arrondissement out of his man-purse, which he had been carrying by a strap around his wrist. Usually he had it attached to a shoulder strap. Jo said later she was concerned about Ralph's decision and felt uneasy as he swung his purse from his wrist. As the questioner opened the passenger door so, Ralph thought, to better look at the map on the hood of the car Jo grabbed his man-purse and moved a few feet away. The man, now out of the car, noticed and said, "It is okay, lady. No problem. We are from Seville."
Ralph chimed in weakly, as if to make everything copacetic, "Yeah Jo. They're from Seville. You know--Spain."
Jo was not placated. Ralph is clueless, she thought.
Ralph spread the map out on the hood of the car and he and the man from Seville tried unsuccessfully to find the train station. Ralph had located the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon but could not find the Gare de l'Est.
Jo was incredulous.
Then Ralph said, "Allez sur le pont ici et traverser la Place de La Concorde. Vous trouveras deux gendarmes qui vous aidez."
The Spaniard got back in the car, waved to Jo and Ralph and sped off. Jo claimed they looked at him with Latin incredulity.
Ralph," Jo said, "you’re crazy. You have to be more careful."
"What are you talking about? I was just trying to help them."
"Yeah to your man-purse. What did you tell them finally?" Jo asked.
"I told them to the gendarmes on the other side of the river could tell them where the train station is."
Jo laughed loudly. "That's rich. You really think they are going to ask a cop? Did you see the other guys in the car and the laundry? They are probably laughing about how clueless you were."
"What the hell," Ralph said. "At least they thought I was French."
--
Lescure
7 Rue de Mondovi, 75001
tel: 01.42 60 18 91
Metro: Concorde
Lescure
7 Rue de Mondovi, 75001
tel: 01.42 60 18 91
Metro: Concorde
--
Louis Borgenicht is a pediatrician/writer living in SLC, Utah. He's the co-author, with his son Joe, of The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance.
Louis Borgenicht is a pediatrician/writer living in SLC, Utah. He's the co-author, with his son Joe, of The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance.
