I never got the whole Paris thing. The romance seemed tainted by the stereotype of romance, I guess. Quite besides my personal attempts to become less sappy, I thought it was all just fluff. When I daydreamed about Paris, the visions featured crowds of Americans suffocating a snooty accordion player to his untimely death under the Eiffel tower. Romance this is not.
This city slipped into the middle of our little eurotour itinerary quite accidentally (see also Brussels, Ghent, Luxembourg, Vienna; basically we've been nowhere we meant to go). We thought we'd tack it on to the end of the trip, like the obligatory conclusion to our European essay. But, despite all my cultivated disdain, we were recently lounging below the Eiffel tower in the delicious warmth of the summer. I put up with it. I like to think how jealous the rest of the world will be. And it made sense in our altered itinerary. And Ella is such a romantic. I was compelled to go. I was only a little excited.
We rent an attic apartment in Champs Elysees. The futon takes up the entire floor when it's unfolded and the toilet is under the kitchen bench. We take an ancient lift with a swinging grill door to the fifth floor, then stairs to the sixth, and it's secretly everything I ever dreamed it might be. From our tiny window we can see two steeples.
The neighbourhood feels safe. It's the kind of place we could spend our daily budget on a basket of bread. We take a night time stroll. I can't get enough of the lights. The Eiffel tower glitters hourly. The bridges are lit along the length of the Seine, and the evening air is just turning cool as we cross one towards Champs de Mars. It's only our first night in Paris and my resolve to hate it is melting under these lights. I had promised myself an aura of scornful distaste would accompany every sight. Eye rolling and cool cynicism and stuff like that. I had intentionally contracted that social sickness of the elitist: that feeling that what everyone else likes must be common nonsense. This is bogus, of course.
We do go to all the places everyone else likes and, secretly, I mostly like them too.
Granted, Paris is smoggy and the parking is a good joke, and public transport is hard to interpret. Actually, if you speak only English just about everything is unintelligible. Every other city in Europe at least seems to provide discrete English versions of important information, if only on brochures to be read surreptitiously in dark corners, so I can pretend to know what's going on for a good hour. In Paris they make it hard. I think it's so they can scorn me for being shockingly ignorant of things like how busses work, and how to say, 'I've dropped my fork and although I'm terrified of you I have to ask for another one, please.' But struggling is half the fun. What kind of Paris would it be without a cranky population to complain about?
I plan to go back and do some more French things. I want to catch more packed subways, the carriages ringing with the music of buskers. I want to eat gluten free crêpes from Lepic Assiette in Montmartre that was closed when we were there. I want more markets of the snails and fish heads variety. I want to go to a jazz club and inside the Moulin Rouge and see more museums and climb the Notre Dame in the winter to pretend I'm a gorgeous singing Disney gypsy. I didn't need a lover or a lust for sap. I don't want romance, but I do want more of this. And Paris is the kind of city where there's always something more.
We climb the Eiffel tower in the morning. The smoggy grey that blankets the wide city vistas doesn't even disgust me. I like it, even. I like the way the city is misty and blue and the distance melts into the horizon. Besides, on the tower in patches of shade the morning is still fresh and the polluting dioxin-rich haze is a sheen of magic fairy dust over this sweaty city. I like it. Call it denial or whatever. Don't call it romance.
We rent an attic apartment in Champs Elysees. The futon takes up the entire floor when it's unfolded and the toilet is under the kitchen bench. We take an ancient lift with a swinging grill door to the fifth floor, then stairs to the sixth, and it's secretly everything I ever dreamed it might be. From our tiny window we can see two steeples.
The neighbourhood feels safe. It's the kind of place we could spend our daily budget on a basket of bread. We take a night time stroll. I can't get enough of the lights. The Eiffel tower glitters hourly. The bridges are lit along the length of the Seine, and the evening air is just turning cool as we cross one towards Champs de Mars. It's only our first night in Paris and my resolve to hate it is melting under these lights. I had promised myself an aura of scornful distaste would accompany every sight. Eye rolling and cool cynicism and stuff like that. I had intentionally contracted that social sickness of the elitist: that feeling that what everyone else likes must be common nonsense. This is bogus, of course.
We do go to all the places everyone else likes and, secretly, I mostly like them too.
Granted, Paris is smoggy and the parking is a good joke, and public transport is hard to interpret. Actually, if you speak only English just about everything is unintelligible. Every other city in Europe at least seems to provide discrete English versions of important information, if only on brochures to be read surreptitiously in dark corners, so I can pretend to know what's going on for a good hour. In Paris they make it hard. I think it's so they can scorn me for being shockingly ignorant of things like how busses work, and how to say, 'I've dropped my fork and although I'm terrified of you I have to ask for another one, please.' But struggling is half the fun. What kind of Paris would it be without a cranky population to complain about?
I plan to go back and do some more French things. I want to catch more packed subways, the carriages ringing with the music of buskers. I want to eat gluten free crêpes from Lepic Assiette in Montmartre that was closed when we were there. I want more markets of the snails and fish heads variety. I want to go to a jazz club and inside the Moulin Rouge and see more museums and climb the Notre Dame in the winter to pretend I'm a gorgeous singing Disney gypsy. I didn't need a lover or a lust for sap. I don't want romance, but I do want more of this. And Paris is the kind of city where there's always something more.
We climb the Eiffel tower in the morning. The smoggy grey that blankets the wide city vistas doesn't even disgust me. I like it, even. I like the way the city is misty and blue and the distance melts into the horizon. Besides, on the tower in patches of shade the morning is still fresh and the polluting dioxin-rich haze is a sheen of magic fairy dust over this sweaty city. I like it. Call it denial or whatever. Don't call it romance.
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