For the most part, the people we encountered in Paris were more or less aloof. Very seldom did we have much interaction with them, except maybe the desk clerks at our hotel, our Paris tour guide, and a few others. However, on the morning of our first breakfast in the hotel dining room, Mei-O and I had an encounter with a rather rude and nasty Frenchman who seemed to fit the mold of what we Americans often picture the 'stereotypical' Frenchman to be like.

All ten of us were supposed to meet down in the dining room at 9:00 AM to have a quick breakfast and get an early start on our first day of sightseeing. Mei-O and I were up early enough and as she was getting ready, right around 9:00, I decided to head down first to meet everyone else and let them know she would be a little late. Much to my surprise, no one else was down there - I was the first! So I headed over to a table for four to sit down and wait for Mei-O and the others. As I approached the table, a rather tall, middle-aged Frenchman also headed for the same table, but getting there first, I sat down and waited. There were plenty of other tables, so I really didn't think much of it.

The Frenchman, after deciding on another table, went into the next room where the buffet tables were to get his breakfast, and, as I saw Mei-O coming down the stairs, I went in to get mine. As I was going into the buffet room, the Frenchman was coming out. But when Mei-O went to pick up her tray off the table where she saw I was sitting when she came down (trays with silverware, plates, cups, glasses, and napkins were placed on all the tables), the Frenchman sat down at our table and told her not to take the tray from there, but to go get one from another table. Not wanting to make trouble, she did. When she came into the buffet room and told me about it, I decided I wasn't going to allow that to happen. When I went back into the dining room, I placed my tray on the table directly across from the Frenchman, took my seat, and began to eat. He, realizing that I wasn't going to leave, quietly got up and moved to another table for four in the back of the dining room near the restrooms. My back was to him, so I really didn't pay much more attention to him.

When Mei-O came back in and joined me at the table with her tray full of breakfast goodies (facing the Frenchman in the back of the room), he shouted out, in English, something like, "Why don't you go back to your home!" We ignored him, not wanting to make a scene, and continued eating, but I was concerned that the two of us were taking up a table for four that the Frenchman, who was just joined by what appeared to be his wife and two grown daughters, could've been sitting at. I kept thinking how 'piggy' we looked (there were several empty tables for two), so I was secretly hoping that some of the others would come down soon and join us.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of sitting there apparently wasting space, Iris and Nelson came down and joined us. The Frenchman and his family were still there, so I felt much better knowing that he saw we weren't just trying to usurp his table and act like ugly Americans (which I'm sure he thought we were anyhow.)

I crossed paths with the Frenchman a couple of more times in the hotel lobby, but neither of us made eye contact or in any way acknowledged the incident. I had quickly gotten over the whole thing, and, like so many bad things that happen to us in life, I was soon able to look back and laugh at it, and say , "C'est la vie!"