In which we discover that we do not look American enough

I don't know, I think I look, especially while in France, conspicuously American. Yet on each of my three trips to France I have been mistaken for a French person by a native of this land. Every time I have been here I have had an incident of a French person approaching me in a public place and attempting to begin a conversation in French. Which I speak only enough of to provide a bit of humor to the salespeople in the boulangerie.

This trip on the first day I was approached in Monoprix (a large department store including grocery, think SuperTarget) by a youngish French woman who asked me a question of which I understood only the very, very basic parts. I had to reply (in English) that I don't speak French. I feared making that same reply in French although I do know the vocabulary necessary for framing that particular phrase. I feared, based on a Norwegian experience of one of my siblings, that if I did say "Je ne parle pas français" that she might look quizzically at me and then ask in English just exactly what language I do speak.

And then yesterday at the Concorde metro stop Mrs. Smith was approached by an excited Japanese lady who spoke apparently no French and only a few words of English. The lady held out a piece of paper upon which was written only the word "Louvre". With gestures and the few words of English that the Japanese lady knew Mrs. Smith directed her in the proper direction for the short walk through the Tuileries (the gardens? exclaimed the Japanese lady delightedly) to the museum.

Apparently we do not look enough like Americans.

The group set out shortly before 10am this morning intending to circumnavigate Notre Dame and walk past a couple of other sites hoping to return home before noon.

I wanted to see Tour Saint Jacques. The tower dates from 1523 and is the last remnant of the ancient church of Saint Jacques de Boucher. Apparently the church was dedicated to butchers. The church was destroyed after the revolution with only the tower surviving. This tower was under renovation during both of our other visits to France, hidden behind a construction screen which extended all the way to the top of the tower. The renovation is complete and I wanted to head over that way and get a look at what I have seen described in a couple of places in very glowing terms.

Well, it is amazing. And as luck would have it we dumb luck stumbled onto an authentic cultural moment. The guild of butchers was having a ceremony today honoring the tower as the last remnant of the church dedicated to their craft.The guys in blue shirts and white aprons on the steps of the tower are not actors, they are butchers, members of the butcher's guild. It was a nicely impressive ceremony.

Around on the sunny side of the tower I got a picture of the whole tower.We next walked past this on the way to Notre Dame. This is a hospital entrance. The information sign says that although not this exact structure that there has been a hospital on this site since 651.We next walked down the north side of Notre Dame.

Gargoyles.Here is a view of the church from the back side with nice visible detail of the flying buttresses.We had lunch in the Latin Quarter. Here is the tennis player at the entry to the official narrowest street in Paris, the street of the cat who fishes.We have arrived back at home and I am preparing the first part of the blog. We think we may venture out later this afternoon and attempt to view the main sites at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, the burial grounds of Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein, Modigliani, Delacroix and also, of course, the major American attraction, M. Jim Morrison.

Addendum: We went out to the cemetery.

Frederic Chopin, only his body, his heart is buried in Warsaw.Jim Morrison.Edith Piaf.Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas.Oscar Wilde.