Honestly, I wish I could tell you. While my French is good, it didn't come close to an old fellah feeding pidgeons in a park. I am really only guessing French Foreign Legion because of the card and his love of America via his comments on his tie and the dollar bill. As you could imagine, his speech was slurred and he was hard of hearing so I didn't want to torture the guy..
He DID break out a great old tattered photo of him as a young man with some hottie "with great gams!" (my liberal translation of his words). Looked to be USA and he said her name but I don't recall. Musta been alll the birds around my head! Yeah, he even threw some rice in my hair. Great guy. I seriously laughted when the people before me ran from him when he was just trying to give them free rice for pictures. Asians of some sort. Guess they thought that he was trying to charge them. He threw a handful of rice at them and cussed them out like crazy. GREAT!
Me? I had no trouble whatsoever lining up to chat with him and get my handful of free rice! LOL!!! His wife (out of the pic) even clapped when she saw that I had walked a cold bottle of champagne various kms to drink to Charlesmagne / Notre Dame. Even told me where to hide in the park! HAAAA!
Did he happen to tell you exactly why the American Legion and America in general means so much to him? I would have loved to hear his story. I'm assuming by his age it has something to do with WW II perhaps Normandy? What an interesting person.
guidogodoy wrote:
Check THIS out! Here I am sitting right in front of Notre Dame and there are always old folks sitting around handing out bread and rice so the tourists can feed the pidgeons. Really cool. Anyhoo, I get to speaking with one fellow who gets all emotional hearing that I was American and breaks out his American legion card (?) and points to his tie that was from the us. Even had a $1 (American dollar) from who knows when. I wish I had one in my pocket as he was almost as prould of it as he was his neckpiece.
Don't laugh at my hair (look at my SHIRT instead)! I said that I pretty much shaved my head for the last race and YOU try walking miles to get to Notre Dame with the wind blowing and a bottle of champagne in your hand. LOL!
What luck to find this fellow. Another who I had the great honor of being able to shake his hand.
