Sunday, December 16th 2012

             Mena was drained and I wanted her to have a relaxing morning after so much traveling.  I promised her she could sleep in as late as she wanted and then I'd deliver her breakfast in bed. I had to make a couple of stops – Starbucks (yes, Starbucks) for Mena’s tea, then a bakery and then a coffee shop.

            It was my first time walking around Paris by myself.  It was the nicest day by far – the air was clean and crisp.  The sky a beautiful aquamarine color.  The sun bright and strong.  It was a welcome departure from the grey permacloud that had dominated the skies up till then. 

            I watched as Parisians walked by leaving contrails of smoke behind them.  An old lady and an old man walking in lockstep, dressed in white jackets of the same hue, holding each others fragile arms.  I smelled the wafts of freshly baked croissants softly wafting through the air.  It was divine.

            I walked to a pastry shop and selected an assortment of interesting pastries, got a latte and walked back to the hotel.  Mena and I ate in our room and then set out for Montmartre. 

            Montmartre had been recommended by Thomas (one of the American bar tenders from La Cantoche).  Montmarte is on a hill in the north of Paris.  Many artists, including Dali, Modigliani, Money, Picasso and van Gogh had worked in an artist commune there in the early 20^th century.  The spot is a lesser-known attraction in Paris as it requires taking a metro about thirty minutes outside the city.  Mena and I jumped on the subway and took it about a half hour until we got to Chateau Rouge. 

            When we got out of the subway we noticed it was very noticeably more ethnic than central Paris.  Montmartre had fallen on hard times in the last couple of decades (it was the former red light district of Paris) and is now populated mostly by immigrants.

            It was, far and away, the most beautiful part of Paris.  Narrow, hilly and winding streets that you thought Paris would look like before you got to Paris.  We climbed stairways several stories until we were standing at the base of La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre a beautiful cathedral that, quite literally, looks out over all of Paris.

            Gosh I wish my camera could upload photos because they are absolutely stunning.  From our vantage point we had all of Paris in front of the beautiful, and us white towering Sacré Coeur Cathedral behind us. 

            On a post a man was doing things with a soccer ball I never imagined possible.  Dribbling the ball and catching it on his neck.  Climbing a pole and balancing the spinning ball on a pen.  Doing flips and coming around and catching it.  Really absolutely stunning and it makes me wonder how we are the same species because I can barely kick a soccer ball and this guy made it looks like the ball was an extension of his body.

            Afterwards we walked without looking at a map – getting lost in the small, winding streets and also the beauty and curiosity of this place.  We bought Christmas gifts and got the best baguette yet (chicken with slices of egg…surprisingly good).  We walked through the ancient and decrepit Montmarte Cemetery.  We ended up walking right past Moulin Rouge and the former red light district of Paris.  Still quite seedy…

            After we recharged in the hotel room we set out to find Ernest Hemingway’s apartments (the addresses which I gleaned from his novel ‘A moveable Feast).  We found 39 rue Descartes where Hemingway wrote on the fourth floor and also 74 rue de Cardinal Lemoine which was Hemingway’s first full time apartment and also where he lived when he wrote his first major novel, ‘The Sun Also Rises.’

            We took pictures outside the apartments and the windows looking into his apartment.  The building was clearly the same as when he’d lived there and it was magical to look upon the walls and the entry way and know they’d all been there each and every time Ernest walked into the apartment.  Very surreal.

            SO!  I have been to Ernest Hemingway’s flats in Paris and I’ve also visited the site of his plane crash in the middle of Africa!  I wonder how many people can say they’ve done both of those things!

            Ernest continues to enrapture me for the way he lived his life with reckless abandon.  Everyone knows that Ernest Hemingway defined the term of masculinity – a big drinker, hunter, fisher, traveler, womanizer…you name it he did it.  Obviously many of these things are bad traits, but still he defined the concept machismo for better or worse.  Most people know that aspect of Ernest’s life, but the untold story is that his life was riddled with tragedy, misfortune and deep bouts of depression leading all the way to his suicide in 1961.

            “If we were to give Ernest Hemingway the chance to go back and live his life as a nobody, but be happy.  Or life the life of adventure, travel and lust and die a miserable man.  What do you think he would chose?”  I asked Mena.

            “To be happy.”

            Hmm.  I guess she’s right, after all, who wouldn’t chose happiness…but he was such an egomaniac.  Who knows what he would have chosen.

            After finding his former residences we were spent.  All this walking is really starting to catch up with us.  Too exhausted to do our homework and find an authentic restaurant we asked our hotel for a recommendation.  The first place they recommended, Le Petite Prince, was the place we ate at the prior night.  The second place Le Coupe-Chou had come up as a ‘tourist trap’ when Mena had searched restaurants the night before.  But we were so tired we decided to take the restaurants suggestion. 

            Ehh…it was a romantic and unique interior that looked to be several hundred years old…but the food wasn’t all that great.  Tourist trap.  Yup.  Oh well…we tried.