Salut de Frankfurt!
I just finished freshening up in the toiletten (I’m never
too vain to brush my teeth or put on deodorant in public), and I’ve found my
gate for my Paris departure.
As I told ma meilleure amie Julie G last night (?—It’s 5am
US time here now) before I flew out of Charlotte, “there are men wearing
scarves and women wearing parachute pants….move to Europe with me?” Even
sitting in the Charlotte airport, I could sense le certain je ne sais quoi
européen bubbling around me. Maybe it was the track jackets worn with skinny
jeans and puma-type shoes (as I type this, an Orthodox jew glides by, coasting
on a luggage cart as a five-year-old would on any Bi-Lo shopping cart!) or the
lady with the loafers, white socks, coral skinny jeans and cream sweater and
pearl necklace worn over a white t-shirt with her hair in a bun, carrying both
a langchamp purse and a tote. Or maybe it was the girl my age wearing a white
bomber jacket with a scarf, black parachute pants, and high-tops. Or maybe it
was the French family sitting across from me (on whose conversations I may or
may not have been eavesdropping…)
Il y a just un chose certain sur européens. Its as if they still have some sense of inner pride, as if they carry themselves taller, with more grace, than Americans. Frankly it’s quite embarrassing to think of the 300 lb women waddling their way around Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, there is a teenage German boy sitting across from me wearing a black uber-tacky Miami, Florida neon-embroidered t-shirt with Wrangler cargo shorts and converses. Yet as he crosses his legs to thumb through a magazine (I wonder if he’s as excited about Paris as I am—doubt it!), nowhere else could anyone pull that off. Perhaps its because any American teenage boy wouldn’t have their hair freshly combed to the side or dare to sport a black pleather with white piping messenger bag as the German boy. (There are people riding bicycles in the airport. Win.)
Il y a just un chose certain sur européens. Its as if they still have some sense of inner pride, as if they carry themselves taller, with more grace, than Americans. Frankly it’s quite embarrassing to think of the 300 lb women waddling their way around Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, there is a teenage German boy sitting across from me wearing a black uber-tacky Miami, Florida neon-embroidered t-shirt with Wrangler cargo shorts and converses. Yet as he crosses his legs to thumb through a magazine (I wonder if he’s as excited about Paris as I am—doubt it!), nowhere else could anyone pull that off. Perhaps its because any American teenage boy wouldn’t have their hair freshly combed to the side or dare to sport a black pleather with white piping messenger bag as the German boy. (There are people riding bicycles in the airport. Win.)
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a people watcher. Almost to a fault. I never noticed it until my friend Cora told me it creeped some of our other friends out. Now, I hide my gaze behind my people goggles—my darkly tinted faux Ray Bans—to observe the world around me without causing suspicion.
O well.
I love observing people: their movements, their interactions with others, their appearance (the most obvious to the casual observer and my favorite), and their language.
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