The French

Some things we assume are too fantastical for real life. You know, the man cruising down the street, head protruding from the sunroof as he thrusts flowers in the air and declares "I love you" for all the world to hear. Or the man showing up at the airport as the woman's plane departs, only to turn around and have her standing behind him saying "I couldn't go."

The man so smitten by love (after staring at a woman for 5 minutes), that he's willing to do anything to make her happy. The woman so beautiful traffic comes to a stop as she walks down the street.

Scratch that. I've seen that one.

She was gorgeous, to be honest. Beautiful, with an almost universal appeal (only one of my guy friends could resist her charm blasting from a photo). A Frenchwoman with some Spanish mixed in, with large ember eyes and a mass of jet black hair, the professors at Academia Latinoamerica called her a gypsy*.

Being one of the few students at the superior level of classes lumped this Frenchwoman and me together for the bulk of her stay in Ecuador. We traveled together and whiled away time in Quito.

One afternoon we decided to book a trip to the rain forest. Walking down the street in La Mariscal (the tourist section of the city), traffic stopped. On her account. She was merely strolling down the dirty street with me a couple of paces behind.

It started with one car. Then two.  Traffic literally stopped to watch her walk.

In a country where blonde hair and blue eyes are prized, she stopped traffic with long black hair and flirtatious eyes. Yes, she was beautiful. With a look, she could promise a man forever and merely a moment. She had the art of seduction down to an art.

But stopping traffic? I'm impressed. It's certainly never happened to me before.

*much to her consternation. In France, it seems, being a gypsy has negative connotations, whereas in Latin America, gypsies are though of as exotic and beautiful.