She Went to Paris

I hope for your sake that you are familiar with the beautiful Jimmy Buffett ballad "He Went to Paris." It's one of the songs that my dad (Hi, Dad!) used to sing to my sister and I (hi, Audra!) as children, and a song that has always made me want to go to Paris.

In the song, a young man, "impressive, young, and aggressive," goes to the city looking for answers to questions that bother him so. While I don't have more questions to bother me so than the next person, i need as much help as i can get saving the world on my own and Paris, if anywhere else, is just the place to start looking.


Paris is a city with many names: city of lights, eternal city, the city of lovers, jewel of the seine, Ile de France. According to the commentary on the evening boat we took down the Seine, its Chinese name translates literally into city of flowers.

Our name for paris includes an expletive not entirely fit for print (unless you are James Joyce; then you will print it all you want).

I have decided, after almost four days in the city of lights/flowers/lovers/eternity, that paris was made for three types of people:

People in love,
People with money,
And people who smoke.

I am not in love, have little to no money, and categorically do not smoke. Therefore, Paris is not the city for me.

That is not to say that this city isn't beautiful or fascinating or highly entertaining; on the contrary, i am immensely enjoying myself here. It's relaxing and fun, almost so much as to put my ambitions at bay. However, i can't help but rue my limited funds each time i see someone dressed head to toe in gorgeous Chanel stepping from the doorway of a fabulous Haussmann, on her way to some fete in a gallery high above the lights of the city. I wish i had the gumption to request seating in the smoking sections of the thousand cafes scattered across the arrondissments where, under the low-hanging clouds of Gallic cynicism and smoke, tomorrow's masterpieces are being penned.

And if i see one more couple loudly kissing along the banks of the Seine, i might lose it and up and push them in, shouting "trouvez une chambre!"

But enough about that. I have had a brilliant fourish days despite the pervading downpour and a few rude waiters.

We rolled into Paris on Monday and spent the evening cruising the avenues around the Eiffel tower, oohing and aahing at dusk when it suddenly lit up and began to dance with a flashbulb lightshow that is positively dazzling. Tuesday we slept in, having gone a good 48 hours without sleep, before heading to le tour de Montparnasse, which affords a breathtaking view of the city. From the top we watched a thunderstorm roll in from the East, soaking the ant-sized tourists and rooftops below. We spent the day wandering, with stops at St. Louis des Invalides (a church with the most lovely golden dome) and the Musee de l'Armee- the French military museum, for those of us who made the smart choice and took Spanish or German or Latin in high school.

(Jokes aside, my rudimentary grasp of the French language, a grasp unworthy of my impending French minor, has served us extremely well so far. I will accept pats on the back for this).

Wednesday we woke up early and ate cheap croissants on our way to the north side of the river for Sainte-Trinite, another spellbinding church, the Lafayette gallery, the world's first department store, and my favorite site in Paris so far, the Opera Garnier. Words cannot describe the opera, a building whose more delicate engravings used to be my computer background during high school. The auditorium, its piece de resistance, was closed for ballet rehearsal, but we were able to look into it and see a part of the ballet, which was a treat in and of itself. I will simply have to return to Paris someday when i am fabulously wealthy, madly in love, or a chain smoker (or all three, or maybe just two) to see it for myself. That evening we took a boat tour down the Seine, protected from the torrential rain by a glass canopy and serenaded in turns by accordions and a running audio commentary.

Today we spent the better part of the morning searching for passage to Marseille, our next port of call, before heading out to see the Latin Quarter and- the holy grail of Parisian churches- Notre Dame de Paris. My usual lucidity fails me in describing Notre Dame, which took two hundred years to complete and which has sheltered the prayers of the faithful for almost nine hundred years.

Now we've taken refuge in the window box of a cafe directly across the canal from Notre Dame. It is the perfect spot for people-watching and typing up a blog post and, if the weather holds, we'll soon be off to l'arc de Triomphe.

All of this amazingness has left us incredibly lucky; the two sweet Vietnamese exchange students who shared our hostel suite for the past two nights weren't so lucky. They were pickpocketed every day they were here, and were extremely glad to put Paris at their backs this morning.  

We haven't been pickpocketed- yet -but we have had dismal luck with couchsurfer hosts. Not one or two but three have turned out to be sketchy, absent, nonexistent, or an awkward combination of the three. Thus, we have been staying in the best hostel i've ever seen in porte de vanves. It has a spiral staircase and clean beds and private bathrooms. It's nicer than my apartment at home.



I must now, before going on to anything else, confirm the rumor that Paris has the best food in the world (besides in my own home, of course). Divine baguettes and pain au chocolate is available for less than a euro in every corner boulangerie and you can avail yourself of fresh strawberries still wet with dew in the heart of the city at any number of fruit sellers. The coffee comes in doll-sized cups but it's well worth the price for a few delicious, dark teaspoons. Tiny creperies squashed between upscale investment brokers and bohemian clothing shops (all tragically expensive) serve all manner of food wrapped in a pastry light as air, one whose perfection my own crepes (lumpy little buggers) will never hope to approach. I could live indefinitely off of Parisian food.

While we half-jokingly have complained that PARIS HATES US every time the clouds have split and soaked us or we've had to lurk outside an upscale restaurant, leeching wifi to find a hostel, overall things have been grand. I love the accordionists that stroll the metro lines, serenading young ladies in strange non-French languages, and the two-euro wine and cheese that can be picked up for a picnic to embody Hemingway's "moveable feast." i love how it's perfectly acceptable to spend an afternoon reading and writing and peoplewatching and peoplelistening in a cafe, and i love the friendly Parisians (not like the rude waiters we've encountered) who have been glad to regale us with heavily-accented tales and advice. While i am looking forward to the coast of Marseille and the Mediterranean sun, Paris has done its best to answer those questions that bother me so. Even if it hasn't, it has tried its best to distract me from them, which is just fine by me.

Now about those questions that bothered me so: i've not had a straight answer yet, but am beginning to think that a few cryptic, encoded answers have come my way. The first happened in the breezeway of the Musee de l'Armee, where Shannon and I we trying to find our way to an exhibit on Napoleon. A grizzled docent leaning on his cane presumed we were Italian ("bella! Bella! Vieni!") and beckoned us over to show us the way. I explained that we were Americans and had minimal grasp on Italian and my friend did not speak French.

"then you will not understand the Napoleon," the docent said. "do not go."
I tried to convey to him that i could translate the information from French for my friend, but he shook his head and told me that I lacked the historical background to do so.
"i have a bit of background in nineteenth-century military history," i protested.
With that, the docent looked into my eyes with his rheumy gaze and shook his head slowly, saying with a sad air "You will never know the history; you can only dream."

What that is supposed to mean is beyond my powers of comprehension.

So i will have to run away to the Caribbean to find the answers to my questions, apparently, because Paris is a city that knows how to keep its secrets.

A bientot!