The Cold, the Snow
Yes, Virginia, it has been cold in Paris. It’s hovered around freezing, slightly above and below, and snowed varying amounts for about 3 or 4 days that we were here. The hardest day for me was when I tried to shop alone and everywhere I turned there was cold, wet snow flying in my face. My chin and nose turned into icicles and I went into a McDo’s (McDonald’s) to get warm and use their free toilets. The best snow day was Wednesday, when we went to the enchanted city of Chartres and fell in love with it. Fluffy, thumb-sized flakes cascaded gently to the ground. It was a piece of magic.
The Smoking
In Paris, everyone smokes. Men and women, teenagers and children all smoke, as do their cats and dogs and the little French mice scurrying through alleyways trying to get warm. Even French fetuses smoke, accepting their heritage with fervor, and often cry out, “What le merde is this? A light cigarette? Give me the full tar experience, baby.” Parisians have made the best of their habit, and have quite an industry in recycled cigarette butts. Our hotel bed, for instance, is made entirely of recycled cigarettes.
The cigarette of choice in Paris is by far the Marlboro. American Marlboro cigarettes. And who said the New World couldn’t produce anything of value?
The Toilets
Ah, the toilets. Although I had heard that pay toilets were common in Europe, I was unprepared to see public pay bathrooms with a man or woman seated in a booth inside to collect our 20 to 50 cents and direct us to a stall. My husband David was directed through a turnstile in one bathroom and had to squeeze around another urinal user to get to his designated urinal. It’s a bit unusual, to say the least.
The Shopping
I don’t want to show off an extremely shallow self here, but the Paris shopping is unbelievable. Where else can you find row after row and block upon block of shops with no end in sight, with everything from 1,000€ silk camisoles to 0.10€ postcards and everything in between. And I mean everything. By far the clothes are the most fascinating, and we have seen everything from street fare to Haute Couture. In reality it cannot be described.
The Food
I have never, never tasted cheeses as good as the ones I’ve had in Paris. By far my favourite is the Chèvre, or goat cheese, which tastes much stronger here than at home. There is bread everywhere, as one might expect, and after a few days we found ourselves getting sick of it. Sometimes we’ve seen wheat bread in a bakery, but not often. Most often les baguettes rule the world. Wine is the drink of choice in Paris, and is often cheaper than a bottle of water. Still, I have refrained, because I’ve been told to abstain from caffeine and alcohol by my doctor. I have had coffee here (and with the 9-hour time difference who wouldn’t), which seems to me often like the Italian Roast Starbucks offers, and is not always very good. Coffee shops, including the Parisian Starbucks, never leave milk out for you to add yourself, so I’m usually drinking a coffee that is much stronger than I prefer, anyway, even when I order a grande crème, which should have the most milk they can give without asking for a full-on latté. I have ordered lattés in Paris at the Starbucks near our hotel, and they are delicious. Starbucks Paris serves sensible small, medium, or large sizes (pétit, moyen, grande) instead of the confusing short/tall/grande/venti nonsense they use in the USA and Canada, and they skip the largest (venti) size all together (Incidentally, “venti” is Italian for “twenty” and very close to the French word for twenty, “vent”. A North American venti is 20 ounces.)
The Highlights
The best part of the trip by far was while riding in the metro when two young, olive-skinned boys boarded our car with their pearlescent red accordions, and suddenly the music of a place like that in the film Amèlie filled our ears. It was a magical moment. We’ve seen other subway musicians – accordionists, violinists and rappers – but none were as magical as the first two boys. I have to go get the Amèlie soundtrack now when I return. It is amazing.
Other highlights have been seeing the Venus de Milo, hearing a latin version of the Dangerous Minds theme song, having a café at the Two Windmills, the coffee shop from the film Amèlie, where I had the best Crème Brulée ever, the Montmartre/Sacre Coeur area, also from Amèlie, and the carrousel I rode there, as well as the yellow-toothed woman I kept passing and smiling at while on the carrousel, the Latin Quarter and the Rive Gauche, riding the metro, the charming and magical city of Chartres and the outstanding Norte Dame de Chartres, older, and more magnificent than Notre Dame de Paris, in my opinion, and the sights of row houses everywhere, everything French and old and full of magic and history and humanity and grace. Paris is full of grace.
I never want to leave.
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