Paris, France.
It was hot, it was exotic, it was paid for by my company. All in all, a perfect 2 day vacation.
BDP sent us on a study tour of Paris a few weekends ago. The office voted sometime before I arrived to forgo on holiday parties in lieu of a trip. Originally Barcelona was selected (yippee!) but when they couldn’t accommodate all of us the venue was changed to Paris and several office members dropped out citing “Paris would be ok if it weren’t for the French”. 26 of us forged ahead.
Friday morning at the crack of dawn (and dawn cracks early here, about 4am) I was in a cab speeding to the city center to pick up fellow travellers Susan, Joe, and Mark so we could share expensive cab ride to the airport where we stood in line for close to our 2 hour pre-boarding time. Once on the plane, I immediately regretted not bringing a book because the flight is 1hour and 15 minutes. Too short to sleep, too long for the In Flight magazine to last. Ah well… Susan offered the business section of the Irish times, which I declined, reason being I wanted to stay awake. As we approached Paris, I was lucky enough to be in the window seat so I got to see the arch at La Defense and the Effiel Tower as we approached the airport. That was much more exciting than it should have been.
Upon landing we quickly came to the realization that the metro from the airport does not in fact connect directly to l’Opera as we had been told. Several arguments (of the “6 of 1, half a dozen of the other” type) 5 stops and 2 metro changes later, we arrived some 2 hours after landing, at our hotel, La Jardin Effiel or something like that. Nice place sited between Invilades and the Eiffel tower appropriately enough. If you crawled out window, over a wall, across a terrace and on to a roof top, you had a nice view of the tower I’m told. It sounds like you have a nice view of the Parisian jail system after being arrested for tresspassing, but whatever. I’m American, we’re territorial like that.
A group of us went to lunch immediately. Wine, bread, photos, we were not the waiters favorite. The most annoying thing about group dining is that no one wants to shut up and listen. Since we had only 2 French speakers in the group (I’m no dummy, I know who to sit beside) they kindly translated the menu for us. 4 times. In a group of 9 people. Not kidding. Painfully, we ordered. I went straight for the one thing on the menu I saw at 20 paces: chicken stuffed with foie gras. When in Rome… no wait. Vive la Paris! It was wonderful…. After lunch I wandered along the Siene with our illicit couple, Polish Anna and “In South Africa…” Miles. They’d been under scrutiney by just about everyone for quite awhile and Mark came up with the delightful plan of tag teaming being with them so they never got to be alone in Paris. I like Mark. So we three walked along the river to the Effiel tower. The sun was shining, bright blue skies, sun block on full alert. My shoulders were very happy with me for freeing them from a coat after so many months. They decided to go up the tower to the viewing platform, while I decided against it. It’s a 3 hour investment and I had decided before hand to take myself on the Gardens of Paris tour. It’s such a big city and there is so much to see. A theme was definitely in order and I chose gardens. Funny enough, I didn’t manage to see any of the ones I’d chosen. Ah well… Paris isn’t going anywhere.
I had read a book last year called The Travels of an Independent Woman, written by a mother of 2 college age boys who took a year out of her life to go travel in Europe. She started in Paris and had such wonderful descrpitions of her months there that I wanted to see some of her favorite sights. So I took myself to La Deux Margots café for coffee. It’s famous, as are all Paris landmarks, because some famous writers/artists used to congregate there. Coffee was shunted in favor of Sancerre, my newest wine obsession. I sat watching the parade of people walk by, sipping my wine, and grinning like a fool. The woman next to me took the worlds blurriest photo for me and then He sat down. Typical Mediterranian profile, strong jaw and nose, dark skin and hair, lovely man named Erik. We started chatting. He introduced me to his friend and climbing partner Max. They’d just come from the rock climbing wall and stopped for a quick drink. He let me taste his drink, a vile concoction of crème de menthe and perrier. Its sort of slushy popsicle green. No thank you, I’ll stick with my girly white wine. He offered to give me a ride home, since it was on the way. I thought long and hard about seeing Paris in the worlds shiniest Mercedes convertible. Turns out Erik is a radiologist and can easily afford such things. When he proposed, I had no choice but to accept. It’s a long engagement, 10 years or so, but it gives us time to get to know one another. If, that is, I had remembered to give him my phone number, which I did not. So I’m engaged to a doctor from Paris. And it only took me 7 ½ hours. The waiter came round again, and he and Erik had some conversation in French which I of course did not understand. What followed was this conversation:
Me- Did you just pay my bill for me?
Dr. Husband Erik- Of course. It’s a tradition here.
Me- No it’s not, you liar.
DHE- (big smile)
Me- Thank you.
DHE-You’re welcome. (said with a sexy smile and slight bow)
I realize all the feminists in the audience are going to groan loudly, but… that was the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit, but still. Think about it: a beautiful man breezes in, chats you up, pays your bill and then offers to marry you. And you don’t have to sleep with him! Unless you want to, that is… Not a bad afternoon. Better than the observation deck of the Effiel tower.
I floated back to the hotel (alone sadly) and sent what both Susan and Joe refer to as “the best text message of the decade”: back at hotel. Slightly drunk. Have had first marriage proposal. Paris rocks. When’s dinner?”
So on to dinner we go… I am completely overdressed but I really don’t care. I’m getting to wear all my clothes that have been on the back burner since I left the heat of Texas. What ensues at dinner has been titled “The Dining Debacle”. 26 of us have reservations for dinner. We are seated at 2 tables, ½ the menus are in English, the 3 French speakers are sitting at one table. I am with the French speakers. Table 1 orders. I look up to see the waitress flipping thru her order pad and staring at the menu. Not a good sign… it’s also the last time we’ll see her for the evening. Waitress 2 takes our order. Our meal couldn’t have been easier. Not a thing wrong in the 2.5 hours we were there. However, at the kids table, ½ the table were served their first course. And that’s all they got the entire evening. By the time we were halfway thru our entrees, the kids had had enough and decided to leave. Yep, just walk on out… the staff won’t mind. What ensues is chaos in several languages. 2 of our French speakers try to keep the kids from leaving while talking with the waitress about the food situation. It took close to 30 minutes to straighten it all out so that those that left wouldn’t be charged for their food and those that stayed would be served right away. Unfortunately for Joe and Derek, most of those that left had ordered steak and fries. Unfortunate, because what they actually ordered was steak tartare. Which was already prepared and we had to pay for. So Joe and Derek ate 4 orders of it before we convinced the waitress to stop bringing any more to the table. Now, they like steak tartare, both of them, but they hadn’t planned on that option for dinner. Nor had they planned on eating 2 rounds of it. It was a mess. And the worst part of it is, and this is the thing I hate most about the Irish (it’s not a long list, what I hate about the Irish, and it mostly consists of the fact that they can outdrink me and not have hangovers) what I hate is, they all NEED to tell you their version of events. Wether or not you need to know or already know what happened. Example: A car ran over the dog. Yeah, but let me tell you what really happened… me and John were in the pub just stepping out for a smoke when… oh wait, I think it was me and Tom.. anyway, it might have been Finn… but we were smoking and the match was on thru the window. Ulster was playing Lienster and that ref was just shite! He really shouldn’t be allowed in this league… Oh, yeah, yeah, the dog. Right… Now imagine that coming from about 15 people all trying to tell you the “real” version of the dog getting run over. All the while, you’re trying to keep the restaurant from charging you for the meals of the 8 people that left. It’s was AWFUL!! So we really had no choice but to go have many, many drinks in what can only be described as the mankiest pub in Paris. Honestly, I doubt they’ve cleaned since 1759. Good think alcohol kills germs. Now if it could just kill pests, like drunks.
Day 2 dawned bright, sunny and hot. I agreed to meet up for lunch with Joe, Mark, and Susan (Joe and Susan being the 2 French speakers) and headed out to explore by myself for the morning. I walked thru the esplanade de invalides and watched men playing boules under the trees. It was quite comfortable in the shade so I stopped for a bit. Boules is similar to boccee, which is really croquet without the mallets. It’s just throwing little balls and knocking your opponet off the court. But in Paris, the balls are metal and they have this great little tool with which to pick the balls up without bending over. Essentially, it’s a string with a very powerful magnet attached to it that retracts. Amazing. I decided while listening to them argue over who was closer to the mark that I would walk down the Champs-Elysee thru the Tuilleries to the Lourve and then cut over on the Ille de la Cite to see St. Chappelle before meeting the Lunch Bunch. Great Plan. Except that I seem to be the only person in history that crossed the Champs-Elysee thinking it was “just a little further up”. Sigh…. After wandering lost for an hour, I ended up back where I started, which was on the Champs-Elysee. Bonehead Beth. So my little parade began and I did indeed walk thru the Tuilleries and end up at the Lourve. I realized too late that black shoes and decomposed granite aren’t good friends. My shoes were covered in so much dust it looked like I was barefoot. I managed to get myself on to the Ille and then realized that my shoe karma had come to an end. I had blisters and it was only noon. No possible way I could make it thru the day with those shoes and I was too far from the hotel to go change. So I did the only thing I could. I bought new shoes. Cute little trainers that are canvas and orange suede. And Italian. Yep… I went to paris and bought italian shoes. I went to Scotland and bought an Italian leather handbag. By the time I actually get to Italy, there will be nothing left for me to buy. I wandered out of the store and realized there was no time for St. Chappelle, which was good because somehow I’d managed to shop my way off the Ille del la Cite and back onto the right bank. I’ve no idea how it managed it. I didn’t cross any water, there was no bridge. I guess the shoes transported me magically. Yeah, that’s probably it.
I met the lunch bunch at the Institut du Monde Arabe, a project I’ve been dying to see. It was amazing. One face of the building is due south and gets very hot sun. So the architect designed a mechanical screeen that can open or close depending on the strength of the sun. (see photos) And since it’s an Arabic institute, he couldn’t use anything that was remotely iconigraphic since that’s outlawed by Islam. The result, as you can see is beautiful. The whole thing is metal and very machine aesthtic, but when you see it on the building it’s very delicate, almost like lace making. I can’t say enough about it. If you visit Paris, make sure you go and have a look.
Lunch was at a sidewalk café in the shade. I’ll say it one last time: the food? Divine. The 4 of us spent the rest of the afternoon wandering and shopping. It was really nice. Joe lived in Paris for 2 years, so he took us to his old haunts. We had ice cream and watched a guy from Oklahoma almost get run over by a car while he took our photo for us. Nice thing about Americans: they will always take a photo for you. We wandered around shopping for the rest of the afternoon and managed to pop into Place des Voeges, which is considered to be the most perfectly planned outdoor space in the world. It was nice. And that’s about as much time as we gave it, sadly. Then it was off to Ted Baker. Ted Baker is a designer from the UK and the boys had been earlier to see clothes presumably. However, we were going back to see the sales guy. Oooo la la… Joe tried on some things, but like a man, it took him all of 2 minutes to decide on the purchase. Sensing it was all up to me, I grabbed a dress and hit the changing rooms leaving the boys to get better acquainted. It was working quite well. After establishing that Mark and Joe were not, in fact, a couple, Ted was telling the boys they needed to go have some champagne. Being in Paris, you just can’t have a beer. Plenty of beer at home. Have some champagne. Not so subtle hint by Ted that was widely missed. I know because just when the boys should have offered the invitation for him to join us for champagne, Joe asked “Beth are you alright in there? Do you need help with the zipper?” . Ohhhh Hell. Now I’ve got to pull on the dress as fast as possible and go out looking like I failed remedial buttons in school. And they made fun of me. Of course they did. I spent just as much time changing back into my clothes, but did they figure it out? Nooooo. So we left Ted in his store and the boys got yelled at on the street. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that I was only trying things on so they could ask him out. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that Ted wanted them to ask him out. It just didn’t occur to them. Sigh… So we went and had a beer before dinner. And Mark made me carry his bag because it was too girly looking for him to carry it. Nothing better than wandering thru Paris with 2 slow manly gay men. Yeah my life is glam.
Dinner: again, divine. Met part of the crew at a bar somewhere deep in Paris. After we closed that one down, we found the reddest bar in the world that was still serving drinks. The walls were deep scarlett. The ceiling was deep scarlett. The lamp shades were deep scarlett or lepord print. Interesting to say the least. I met some Parisian boys. They took a liking to me. One in particular. He invited me to go home with them. Yep, you read that correctly: them. I grabbed Joe and said “we have to leave right now” and we did. About 6 of us stumbled on to another bar (lots of 24 hour bars in Paris evidently) to have some more drinks. Because nothing rounds out a night of drinking like more drinking. Good music, scandelous behaviour on the part of my co-workers, incriminating photos. It was all very good until I went to the wc. The attendent decided that “hi” in English translates to “let’s have kinky sex in the toilet stall” and tried to follow me in. I grabbed Joe and said “we have to leave right now” and we did. About 3 of us stumbled on to another bar to have some more drinks. (seeing a pattern here?) Because nothing rounds out a night of drinking like more drinking. No music, no scandelous behaviour, but the worlds largest beers. And the worlds largest tab for 3 drinks: €45, which is $60. Mark finished most of his, Steven was protesting the cost of the beers by not drinking (although later he told me he was so drunk he could possibly have more beer) and I seemed to be drinking the never ending glass of wine. We stopped at a creperie on the way home, took some photos and then cabbed back to the hotel where we greeted the early risers at the door on their way out. It was 7:30am. I haven’t partied till dawn in close to a decade.
After a quick nap, shower, pack, and hop into a cab, we arrived at Susan’s friends place for breakfast and a guided tour of Pere- Lachaise cemetery. http://www.pere-lachaise.com/ It was absolutely the best part of the trip. This the the place that Edith Piaf and Jim Morrison are buried. It reminded me very much of the above ground cemeteries in New Orleans, sort of a city of mauseleums. So wonderful… This too is something everyone who goes to paris should make time to do. From there, we took a cab to the airport and flew back home. To Dublin. Because I live here. First time I’ve gotten to do that. I live in Dublin, Ireland. Hee-hee….
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