Je Voudrais

So I'm back in London now for the final stretch, only five weeks left of my semester. As more time has passed, I have begun to discern patterns and shifts in my experience, one of which I will write about here. When I was in Paris, I recognized a change in my thoughts and desires; where I had been spending the bare minimum in London, avoiding all things that might cost me an excessive amount of money, in Paris I began to spend money, and thus time, on things I wanted. You'll see.

I spent most of my time in Paris visiting Kylie, a close friend from home who is doing a semester in Paris. On my last day in town, we looked at the list I had been keeping of everything I did on my trip, and were amazed at its length. So here goes.

I arrived late on Sunday night and made my way by the RER and the metro to my Airbnb in the Nineteenth Arrondissement, in outskirts of Central Paris. Leading up to this, I was a bit sketched out by the prospect of sharing a very small studio flat with a stranger; however, my host was a very cool, well-traveled, thoughtful young guy named Karl who made me feel right at home. The flat is just around the corner from a metro stop called Ourcq, the pronunciation of which strikingly resembles the noise I usually make before I vomit. I had a laugh every time I heard it said over the speakers. 

Here are some pictures of the area:

In the morning, I met Kylie in her neighborhood, in the very posh Seventeeth. In her area, we stopped for a breakfast to go. I decided to have a real Croque Monsieur on a croissant. Was it delicious? You tell me. It was the sort of sandwich I hoped would never end.

We headed over for the basic tour of Paris, along the Champs-Élysées, from the Arc de Triomphe to the banks of the Seine. We spent some time on this sunny, warm day sitting by one of the ponds at the Jardins des Tuileries; there I tried to distinguish between Parisians and tourists, which became easier and easier the more time I spent ambling around the city.

Along the Seine we found the bouquinistes, open air book stalls with French editions old and new. We spent some time looking through the titles. It became clear to me that the French take their philosophy very seriously, and I assume it's very widely read there since I encountered so many philosophy texts in the stalls and stores there.

Kylie and I sat by the river on Île de la Cité. The Seine's two islands are beautiful and quaint. Both of them are very well-preserved, such that they seem more like old French villages than another collection of streets in an enormous modern metropolis.

Me and Kylie by the river, Pont des Arts in the background

Pont des Arts is one of several tourist hubs in this area, everyone fastening locks to the grates of the bridge and proceeding to violate every unspoken law of PDA. An aside: there were people kissing and embracing everywhere-I wonder if people just go out of their way to show their affection in public because of Paris's reputation or if it's something more culturally complex than that. Regardless, affections abounded, seldom subtly. 

We had ice creams at Berthillon and continued wandering until we found Shakespeare and Company on the other side of the river. I think I would have enjoyed this infamous bookshop if they sold used books-everything was brand new and marked at full price. That said, it has an incredible atmosphere, the kind that is magnetic for writers and readers. They do have a book exchange upstairs where the house cat slinks from couch to couch, and hipsters glare if your presence is at all intrusive. To my knowledge, the original Shakespeare and Company store was long ago repurposed, so I didn't quite sense the aura of Sylvia Beach or catch a scent of Joyce's whiskey breath in the air. A man struck up a tune on the piano, which I think I heard someone say was Chopin but I'm not entirely sure. It was a bit magical to hear though, in the dusky lamplight of the bookstore.

Notre Dame de Paris is just across the way, back on Île de la Cité. As one expects, the lines for entrance resembled the sort to be found at the RMV or an amusement park, so we did not go in, but the facade really is worth seeing. 

We made it down to Montparnasse in the afternoon, where we sat at Jardin du Luxembourg. In the abundant sunshine, the place was packed. Children were whirling about with long wooden sticks used to prod the toy sailboats in the pond. Many people were sitting with friends, sharing a bottle of wine and cigarettes.

After sitting here for a while, we walked around the nearby Saint-Sulpice, where unfortunately the organs were not playing but I have read they are amazing to hear. Montparnasse, formerly home to Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Sartre and Beauvoir and many others, has grand cafes on the corners of many of its wide boulevards. We chose to have a drink in Cafe de Flore, where an epiphany briefly occurred as I chose what to order. 

The drinks were pretty pricey at the cafe, and I was hesitant to order one. I thought to myself, wait, I'm on a trip to a city I have always wanted to see and I'm tiptoeing around the fact that I really want a fancy drink here? I ordered a cocktail made with Grand Marnier and Cognac, emphasizing my choice of verb: "Je voudrais..." I wanted the drink, and I would pay for it because I wanted it. I think this signifies a much needed relaxing of my monetary receptors. The euro and the dollar are almost 1:1 right now anyway, so why not? It was the best cocktail I've had, I think. Incidentally, the crisps were free of charge. How thoughtful. 

Before the end of the night, I had eaten escargot and macaroons, two foods whose popularity in Paris is largely perpetuated by tourists and actually have very little relevance in contemporary French culture. 

Just a funny anecdote: when ordering a sandwich that night, I wanted cornichons with my sandwich. Somehow, I asked the waiter for gherkins instead of cornichons. He had no idea what I meant until I came to my senses and corrected myself. But really, that has to be a sign I'm absorbing some Englishness. When have I ever used the word gherkin?

The next day, we took it a bit easier going around the city since we had done so much the day before. I did get to see the Eiffel Tower. Here, you'll have dozens of unpleasant encounters with people begging for signatures on a clipboard, i.e. asking for money relentlessly; and of course, there are the ever-insistent rose vendors there too. But it's worth the view to be a bit peeved.

The French writer Guy de Maupassant famously took his lunch in the Eiffel Tower because it was the one place he could have a meal in Paris without having to look at the Eiffel Tower. 

I later met Cloe, a friend of my pal Jenelle Roberge, outside the Centre Pompidou, which was closed for the day, so we went instead to the gardens of the Rodin Museum to chat for a while. It was wonderful to talk about the city and its people and politics with a lifelong local. We sat there in the sun for a few hours, sipping on cold drinks and having an occasional cigarette-again, "Je voudrais une cigarette."

Me and Cloe at the Rodin

I met up with Kylie and her boyfriend Dylan in the Jardin des Plantes, from which we went to Chatlet for drinks, falafel, and live jazz. On the way there I had a crepe made with coconut, Nutella, chocolate, and Grand Marnier. I think I have admitted this here before, but as usual, I was too transfixed by the food to get a picture of it. This happened - or I should say, didn't happen - with the falafel later. Really, it's miraculous I got one of the Croque Monsieur; consider yourself lucky, reader.

We saw jazz at Le Baiser Sale in Chatlet; I'll let you translate the name of that venue on your own. The music was terrific and the crowd was appreciatively mellow.

The next day Kylie had class so I decided to make my way across Paris to Rue Mouffetard. I spent the morning strolling through Mouffetard's narrow market street and alleyways, eating a baguette the entire way. 

I was baffled to be wandering around by myself in this kind of place I never quite believed but always hoped existed somewhere in the world. I sat by a fountain in a small public square to drink an espresso, then made it to a small bookstore. In the bookshop, my observation about the French loving theory and philosophy was completely validated. Roland Barthes had his own bookcase there. 

"My body is free of imagination when it finds its work space. Its work space is the same everywhere, patiently adapted to the enjoyments of painting, of writing, of knowing."

I met Kylie after her class near Le Marais, an old neighborhood in the city. We poked into a few very regal buildings, now mostly libraries and colleges. We sat in a small public garden there and watched as some very rambunctious French teenagers were kicked off the grass where they had been very happily snogging for all to see.

It is a very beautiful neighborhood, running along the Seine from Bastille to Hôtel de Ville. Centuries ago it was home to many aristocratic families; during the first half of the twentieth century it was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood; today, it is a center of LGBT culture. I am fascinated by these immense changes urban space undergoes over many years. 

I later met Anna and Devon, my good friends from API London in Montmartre. They were in Paris for the day so we decided to meet up and explore the area around the Sacré-Cœur. For those of you familiar with the film Moulin Rouge, this is the area where that scene had been in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was also the site of Picasso's studio, which I did not get to see unfortunately. The area is still colorful, though the Sacré-Cœur is host to tourist traps and the cheap chicanery of vendors selling bracelets and Heinekens. The vendors will take someone's arm and try to tie a bracelet onto the wrist before the victim can pull away, and then charge upwards of €20 for them. This almost happened to Anna before I shouted "No, merci!" 

It is startling to experience. But the view from the Basilica is worth the effort.

I remember Anna put together a very beautiful metaphor for the view of Paris from this spot, but I have regrettably forgotten it; I'll have to ask when she and Devon are back from their big trip around the continent. We sat in the pews for a short time, then made our way to Père Lachaise Cemetery before it closed. There we saw the graves of Chopin and Jim Morrison. I wanted to see a few others that were tucked so far away we did not make it to them before the closing bells rang. The cemetery is a beautiful place to walk. There are many amazing cemeteries in London too; though it might creep some people out, they are often undisturbed, serene natural places.

After we parted ways I met Kylie for dinner in her neighborhood. Both times I met Kylie outside the metro that day she found me giving directions to people who had asked me. They were very obvious locations they were looking for on both occasions, but I admit it felt really cool to be able to tell someone how to get somewhere in a foreign city-even cooler that they thought to ask me. 

We went to Un Air de Famille for a delicious French dinner. Kylie had Foie Gras, and I ate the Valaisanne (layers of bread and meat coated with melted cheese). I also tried pastis on a whim.

You probably can't see the agony in my eyes. I hate black licorice, and that is exactly what pastis tastes like. When I was in middle school I had a sort of obsession with Peter Mayle's books about the South of France, so when I saw pastis on the menu I was reminded of many passages about sipping it in some Provencal brasserie. I'll have to reread those descriptions with a more critical eye next time.

We rushed to the Louvre after dinner for late admission, just before it closed. I did get to see the Venus de Milo, who held my gaze for a while. She is stunning to see in person. We spent the rest of the time we had rushing around the museum to see this and that à la Da Vinci Code. Not really. But the place was nearly empty that late, so it was exhilarating to have it to ourselves. 

In the metro I said goodbye to Kylie, who showed me a great time in the city. I should mention what I have neglected to mention this entire entry: the ludicrous amount of trips I took on the metro in three days. Every time I stepped on, I would ask myself, "Damn, what was that poem by Ezra Pound about the metro?" I did not remember while I was in Paris, but here it is:

"In a Station of the Metro" (1913)

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough."

I'm not sure this poem will ever make sense to me on its own, though within the context of Modernism, it is very playful and ironic. It's true, in the metro people pass through like apparitions, in one stop and out at another. Now hardly anyone is paying attention to anyone else in the metro. When we're looking down we miss a lot. 

The greatest surprise on my trip to Paris came in the final hours of it. Around 1 AM, just as I was about to fall asleep, my host asked me if I had checked my email account recently. In moments, I learned that the SNCTA, France's air traffic controller union had declared a strike for that day. My afternoon flight to Florence was cancelled.

A chink in the long chain?