Two Weeks in Paris (so far no quiche)

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I forget where or when I had my first impression of French culture, but I have always admired the French save from the pervasive smugness. I began learning French in 9th grade with the intention of going to or living in Paris. I was born American and raised Portuguese. This experience so far has been more of a "coming home" rather than a "going abroad". Though perhaps I am caught in my own delusions of grandeur.

I always thought about the cafés and vente à emporter kiosques, the late nights drinking beers with good friends at bistrots, making conversation until the sun rises and then post-conversation conversations fueled by wine and fatigue, the memories of which last only a day or two until the next night out. I thought of speaking of love and life and nebulous things with people I know personally, not just through Facebook. I thought of the French I would speak with its messy conjugations and disregarded syntactical rules. I dreamed of the cobblestone streets and the markets that sell fruit not wrapped in plastic, the clubs with smelly people and restaurants with slow table staff. I thought of fortune and I dreamed of breathing the air and smelling the smell of freshly baked baguettes wafting through the narrow winding walk streets, and beaucoup du café. 

I saw a post on a blog called Messy Nessy Chic about week before my departure called "Living the Bohemian Student Dream in 1960's Paris". It detailed, in pictures and captions, the life of a vrai étudiant parisienne. The pictures were of students, not much older than myself, standing in staircases, sitting at desks, organizing jazz records.

"It doesn’t seem like much has changed."

I had forgotten about this article, having filed it away with the other abstractions I read last month, until I sat down to write this blog post. I was reminded of it by a comment my roommate made to me. One Tuesday night, after getting a drink with a close friend, I sat on my balcony and smoked a Lucky. I was content in my faux fur, like a baby swathed in blankets. I began to sing, quietly at first then more loudly. I sang Gershwin and Chopin and once I ran out of songs, I made up melodies. People in the street below didn't appear to notice, or if they did they showed no inclination to participate, though a few of them did look around with curiosity or maybe irritation. I took that as encouragement to sing, and so I sang more decidedly and confidently than I had been before. My roommate came out to smoke with me, and we had a very nice conversation. After that, I went to bed.

In the morning, I was very hungry. I get in moods where all I want to do is eat which will last for days, sometimes weeks. I don't know that I ever don't want to eat. I went to the Marais for coffee and walked around and went into St. Paul Cathedral where I sat and prayed and admired the architecture. I don't consider myself a religious person, but I have a soft spot for holy places, especially those that are ornately decorated. I am in conflict with myself about whether it is disrespectful to do this, seeing as I am Jewish by birth and agnostic by choice, but I figure that it is in the spirit of Christianity to accept any and every person into their home. After that, I went to one of those vintage stores which sell clothing for 1 euro a piece. I found a red white and black nylon jacket there, though I don't know on what occasion I'd wear it. I went and bought a slice of a tarte pistache abricot and sat down to watch the rain and the cars drive by. Behind me to the right was a mother and her daughter, who were speaking in German. It made me think about how incredible it is that words convey so little. I wonder sometimes if words mean anything at all; text can be at times illegible and meaningless. Often I will find myself looking at words rather than reading them, searching for meaning in the words themselves rather than what the words convey, like reading a foreign language. I took the rest of my tarte to go and ate it on the way to the metro Saint Paul.

The metro is very efficient. Compared to the New York subway system, at least. I've heard that the trains in Tokyo are lightning fast, which I imagine is a bit dangerous, but I say throw caution to the wind. It comes in handy when you are trying to get somewhere, though it does not foster that particular conversation that comes from mass frustration. Some of my best acquaintances have been made in the Subway in New York. On my way home from a party one night, I stood watching two rats nibble on some discarded saffron rice in between the rusted tracks. Two students approached me, one disgusted and one intrigued, and we got talking about the pros and cons of living in Queens, as opposed to living in Brooklyn. I saw them around the city a few times after that, and we always acknowledged each other with mutual familiarity. The metro also closes at an obscenely early hour, which in America would be called a ploy to benefit the Taxi company, or federal negligence, but in Paris is simply understood that metro employees will not be made to work overnight shifts. 

Time goes by differently in Paris, also. Where in New York, the mornings were the shortest part of the day, in Paris it is the opposite. I feel as though my morning drags on until the evening, and then come 4 pm it is 11pm and I am asleep in bed. I could not say why this is, if I did I would be grasping at straws.

It is also very cold in Paris, which makes showering difficult because the shower head does not stay in its holder well in my apartment, so when my knees are cold my head is warm, and when my knees are warm, my entire body is freezing. And, because the water makes the cold air even colder, it takes me an hour just to warm my body enough to get out of the bathtub. Then, I take a five minute break in front of my heater to warm the parts of my body which did not get enough heat in the shower, and immediately jump into my bed, which is always icy cold until my body heat warms it from the inside. I really like this feeling, though, I enjoyed the endless hot water in New York just a little too much.

The pastries and baked goods in Paris are more beautiful than the paintings in its galleries and museums. In the window at Fauchon, there is an immaculate chocolate orb, sans scratches or mold lines, almost like it was created on Photoshop and then pasted into the window. The traiteurs and boulangers have created the paradigm of modern decadence. Even the lesser quality bakeries still have pastries on par with the better bakeries in New York. I have been inspired by the bread in Paris, and am baking fresh baguettes as I write this.

I do not have enough experiences yet to amount an objective depiction of Paris, however I have had some experiences walking around the city at night which have been awesome in the truest sense of the word. Paris is not the city I had imagined it to be, as is the case with every preemptive perception, though it has surpassed most if not all of my expectations in ways I could not have imagined. I feel as though I have been here the entire semester already, and it has only just begun.Two Weeks in Paris (so far no quiche)