I woke up and was surprised to see our street alive and blossoming. The shuttered storefronts opened to reveal pharmacies, restaurants and bakeries that had been concealed beneath banal protective shells. I walked from our flat in search of a bakery. I got a mini croissant and double espresso and retired back to the flat to do some writing. I wrote for two hours. Mena woke up and we walked to the same bakery I bought a pastry from earlier. Then we walked to another place near our apartment and got coffee. We sat there eating pastries and drinking cafe au lait and just enjoying being alive.
Mena and I have elected to walk everywhere we travel in Paris. We chose to walk the city (as opposed to taking the subway, bus, regional train…etcetera) because you get a good amount of exercise and you see all the wonderful sights of Paris. To simply get on a subway and shuttle underneath the city in darkened tunnels is to miss what makes Paris so wonderful. The smells. The sounds. We calculated we are averaging between seven to nine miles a day.
Even knowing where you want to walk it’s still hard. Walking around the city and it's hard because there is so much. It's actually overbearing. I feel like you could spend a week on one block, much less a whole city. You have to be very selective. Today we selected the Saint Chapelle we didn't see yesterday. Then to the Eiffel Tower and then to Bar Hemingway.
The Saint Chapelle was consecrated in 1248 and is a prime example of Gothic architecture style called “Rayonnant” marked by its sense of weightless and strong vertical emphasis. This was at once discernible as the upper echelons of the church reached into the sky and the space underneath was filled with the most beautiful stained glass windows I have ever seen. The windows captured different scenes from the Old and New Testament and had I the attention span to read about all the colorful representations I am sure I would have been even more astounded. Alas, we did not and after soaking in the bright colors we set off for the Eiffel Tower.
We set out walking for the Eiffel Tower. I checked on Google maps and the distance between the Chapelle Church and the Eiffel tower is almost four miles…yeesh. We spent the next hour or two walking there. We stopped at a café for tea along the way…we watched as the French adolescents smoked hand-rolled cigarettes while conversing with a waiter in suede oxfords and skinny jeans who was hanging Christmas garlands on the outside of the café. The people here smoke and drink. And drink and smoke. Its more than a cultural phenomenon…its seems to be a rite of passage. Smoking to them seems to be as natural as breathing air is to me. Often times I watched people with a cigarette hanging limply from their mouth as they went about their business. They didn’t even smoke it – they just let the cherry on the cigarette grow until it crumbled on their jacket or their boot.
The Eiffel Tower was much bigger than I expected. I was expecting some old rickety frame that had become outsized because of its prominence in movies and pictures. It is a truly monolithic piece of architecture and it was surreal to actually see it up close. Not on a postcard. Not in a movie. With my own eyes.
Mena and I rode to the observation deck in a rickety funicular that clung to the forty-five degree base of the tower. We changed to an elevator that brought us to the top of the tower. As the elevator climbed there were very audible clicks, as if clicking you back into reality and reminding you that you were indeed climbing to the top of one of the world’s most recognized structure. The view from the top was incredible. The city is very flat and large and white. It stretched all the way into the distance until it blended with the grey clouds circling around us. The city looked very much like Tel Aviv, where every building is built out of white Jerusalem stone. The effect in Tel Aviv is stunning and the view of Paris was equally amazing.
Afterwards we took the RER back to Musée d'Orsay, got baguettes and hot chocolate and wandered over to the Louvre. We took pictures of the iconic glass pyramid hanging over the Louvre and walked down to the information desk.
“What time is the LouvRe open till?”
“It’s already closed.”
Sweet. We took a few more pictures and then headed to Bar Hemingway.
Bar Hemingway, located in arrondisement 1 was the favorite bar of Ernest Hemingway who vowed to, “drink there once a week as long as he was in Paris.” The bar has been featured in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel Tender is the Night. We walked to the spot the bar was located. It was in a very ritzy area. In fact, we discovered, the bar was located in the Ritz Paris! I was disappointed. I thought Ernest would have been hanging out in a dive bar with grizzled men that caught fish in the Seine River…but apparently he was hanging in the Ritz. Regardless of what I thought…the bar was closed for renovations…bummer.
We walked back to our flat, relaxed and then decided to head to La Cantoche to say goodbye to the waitress / bartended that welcomed us our first day. Tara welcomed us warmly and introduced us to another bartender, Thomas, that had been in Paris for fourteen months. They were both nice, almost to the point of officious, in making sure Mena and I were taken care of. We got the best table, they waited on us hand and foot. They were both really sweet.
After we’d eaten and drank a little I asked Tara if she’s ever going back to America.
“Oh f*** yeah. I’d kill myself if I had to stay in Paris forever.”
“Really? Why?”
“Have you seen the people here? They are all miserable. Every single Parisian hates Paris. In New York City everyone is excited and full of life. In Paris they are draining and vapid.”
“See that’s the thing people don’t know.” Thomas added. “Paris is beautiful, it’s the city of love but it’s because of the tourists that visit and bring all those good feelings. The people that live here are miserable.” He mimicked shooting himself in the head with a gun.
I shook my head in amazement. “Do you have any idea how bizarre this sounds to me?” I asked them. “You are living the fantasy that countless American’s have had. To drop everything, learn to speak French and become a bartender in Paris just living a carefree, epicurean life?”
“Yes, its good as a fantasy.” Tara said. “But fantasy is just that – a fantasy. It should remain a fantasy. You shouldn’t ruin it by coming here.”
The rest of the night Mena and I drank a little more and watched as a group of French women celebrated a birthday party. They requested American songs and we watched as they danced to Michael Jackson, Wham, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. We laughed when they confused Thriller’s dance moves with the dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. They were having fun and that’s all that mattered.
I leaned over to Mena, “This band of women will have a wonderful Monday night but a horrible Tuesday morning.”
She chuckled.
When we signed our check I turned to Thomas.
“So if you are so miserable here why don’t you leave?”
He handed me the credit card back and smiled. “What else - a woman.”
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