Day 11

DAY 11 – Our Heroine, (mostly) alone in Paris

It's raining in Paris this morning; we can hear the whoosh of the wheels swishing through the puddles below.  It's in the 60's,  so pleasant.  We open the narrow window and the shutters to feel how the day tastes and decide it is good and that extensive rain gear is required.

Two people are having the sparse and mediocre 4E breakfast on the ground floor of the hotel; fortunately, I know that we can do better.  I decide to walk with Mark part way to his train at Denfert-Rochereau, heading for Charles De Gaulle Airport to arrive home a day in advance of me to be greeted by the fair Natalie, our dog.  The air is freshly washed and once again breathable.  The streets bustle with a variety of people; most avoid your eyes and rush along to some form of work.  Street people are mostly missing this morning, probably somewhere trying to stay dry.  An absence of tourists, a few Parisians not in a hurry stop for un cafe and some delicious delicacies at the corner Cafe/Patisserie.  Shop keepers are busy. There's a young man all dressed in white like a chef working hard at arranging his cheeses on the street under his awnings stand.  My brain is tumbling in a mixture of French and English words and construction, although my French is still quite limited in what I can say.  Mark has his bags in tow as we walk around the sharp corner at the circle, across from a church with what looks like a hairnet over one tower, which is in need of repair.  It reminds me of the netting they put over mountain walls to prevent falling stones and it has the same purpose.  No one notices the church.  People disappear down the stairs into the maze of tunnels that form the Metro system.  You could live underground in Paris.  Probably some do.  

Mark and I arrive at the markets.  The first is largely set up – you smell it before you see it –fish, crabs, lobsters, snails and all sorts of meat lie on a bed of ice.  They are still setting up and I don't see the figs I want to buy, so I linger in a goodbye embrace with Mark.  We are sad to have to part, even for ust a day.  It has been so wonderful to have all this time together.  We travel well together despite our different preferences (me the sea, Mark the mountains).  We kiss comfortably on the streets of Paris.  Although I didn't see as much avid making out this trip, it still happens and is not a subject of great notice for many.

I decided to go get a hot chocolate since Starbucks are few here and they don't even have my favorite Cinnamon Dolce flavoring and I can't drink coffee.  A coffee here is an espresso and very strong; it'd be two days before I could sleep again.  Chocolate is readily available, but it is three times more expensive than coffee in Paris (not so in other parts of the country).  There is nowhere to find eggs, or any kind of what we would call breakfast meat except perhaps at the high-priced American Hotels.  You can get wine, beer and coffee pretty much anytime, and we saw many drinking wine or beer for breakfast, but something other than breads, croissants, juice and if you are lucky cheese, is impossible to find before 10 am.    Really, you might as well eat food bars till noon.  The Creperies aren't open till lunch usually.

Given all this, the corner patisserie/cafe looks ever more tempting.  I decide to get an amazing strawberry tart and a cup of hot chocolate.  Yummmmm  - but 7E by the time I paid for both.  The tart was an amazing little piece of heaven.  The hot chocolate was better than what we have in the US, but not the best I've had here.  A young woman sat next to me reading a newspaper and talking on her cell phone which even the street people seem to have.  She smiled when I looked her way with a smile and said, “Bonjour”.  I met her “Bonjour” and took out my book to read.  I'm reading The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho.  It's the third of his books that I've read and I'm enjoying it.  There's been no time to read since I met Mark at the airport 11 days ago.  Over 3,000 Km of driving and many places and experiences filled that 11 days.  I may go to Sacre Coeur today if the weather clears up.  I do have a Metro pass for one more day and I might as well use it.

SO, I'm sitting at the coffee bar in the cafe and the nice young woman left without my noticing and a young man oh about 30ish sits next to me.  He starts, fidgets some and gains my attention.  I look over to him and he smiles and I return a “Bonjour” with a little bit of a smile and return to my book thinking nothing of it.  He starts a conversation about the rain and I agree it is raining hard.  “Il pleut avers!” I say, happy that I have something to throw into the conversation.  He says something and it takes me a while to get that he is saying that it is not raining at his house.  I think he must live far from here, but not wanting to know, I try to return to reading my book.  He asks if I want a coffee, I say no thank you.  He wants to know why not.  French do not understand people who do not drink coffee and people who do not like red wine or try not eating bread!  It's not possible to their way of thinking.  I explain I have an allergy to coffee and that still doesn't make sense to him, so I say I won't sleep for two days if I have one cup.  He says that's true for him too as he sips on his cup of espresso and fidgets in that ADD kind of way.  I think we're communicating now and he now wants to know what I am drinking.  “Chocolat.”  He asks, with a sweet smile, if I would like another chocolat.  I say no, thank you very much, trying to think of how to say 'enough' in French as I try again to resume reading.  He is way too attentive.  He looks at me in that 'you are so beautiful' kind of way the French do so well.  I realize I have to leave.  I put my things together (I've already paid) and go off saying thank you and goodbye.  I open my umbrella and start walking with intent-to-get-somewhere in my step and head off to the market again hoping the figs are now out...

Back at the cheese market, the man in starched whites is still arranging his cheese with great dedication and devotion.  A team of workers with hose and squeegee-like long tools are washing off the sidewalk and squeegeeing the rain off the sidewalk into the street.  I pass the fish/meat market without breathing deeply and approach the wonderful sights of the fresh produce.   The figs are still not out where they were yesterday.  That area is last to be organized today, probably because it's the most out in the rain. I ask the girl who Bonjours me and she finally gets my pronunciation of 'figs'.  Her “Oh fiGGGAHs” sounds the final g as if an e were sounded at the end - sounding almost Italian in a language where final e's are soooooo often ignored.  (Perhaps this is where one of the lost ones showed up again.)

I reply “Oui”, relieved that I don't have to go into sign language.  I fell into German so easily in Switzerland; French is another story for me.  Mark is more proficient in French, and I've been slack the whole time he's been here.  After all, he's had several years of French; I only had one 10-week course many moons ago.   She asks how many and fortunately understands my pronunciation of quatre.  She walks over to a stack of flats and takes her time tenderly testing each one, rejecting many and picking the very best figs for me.  Spends more time than I would have! She wraps them with love and attention telling me how much very quickly and I don't completely understand, but I know it was about 1E 50 yesterday, so I give her a 5E bill knowing it will be more than enough.  She smiles and wishes me a Bon Journee.  This is new since I was here 10 years ago  It sounds Italian, but Mark tells me it's French.  In the evening people say “Bonne Soiree” - have a good evening time or event.  It's have a good daytime. Maybe turning day and evening into a verb infinitive.  Not sure of the grammar or the spelling, but I am sure it's the in thing to say now.  Ciao, which I heard all the time 10 years ago is only occasionally heard now. Also, it used to be everyone said “Bonjour” followed by “Ca va?”,  asking how you are.    Now most don't understand what you want or ignore you or if they do get it; they seem to think it's old fashioned.  Just “Bonjour” upon the start of the transaction and “Bon Journee” at the end or “Au revoir”.  Seldom did anyone say “Ciao”, which was all the rage 10 years ago.    

Suddenly, as I turn to return to our (now my) hotel, I realize the man at the cafe was hitting on me from the beginning with the “It doesn't rain at my house” line and I was just too dense to get it.  Hmmmmm.  I wonder if he thought me a good mark and he's a gigolo, or if he just felt it was his duty to flirt before coffee.  After all, it is Paris!  I lower my umbrella as I pass the cafe to avoid his look if he is still there.  

Back at the hotel I open the window and the shutters to let the city in. This morning I can smell the breads and pastries rather than just exhaust.  Thank you to the rain.   It is somewhat noisy this morning, but not like last night.  The two-tone alarms of the police and ambulances were all too frequent last night, which got me thinking about our driving experience here.

Driving all through France, Switzerland, and Italy we only saw one fender bender and it was minor, with people standing there obviously not very hurt.   Given the way people drive, that is most surprising!  I think psychic abilities must be more highly developed here; they'd have to be.  People pass bicycles around a curve without slowing down - not knowing what's coming -  and only in Damanhur did we have a driver who sounded his horn around blind curves with intersections and a street which had only one lane but was two way.  People pass when there seems not to be enough room to have a safety factor.    With an international driver's license they should give you a book of street signs in each country you will drive.  There's so much to learn.  A sign that shows a road narrowing to one lane has a red and a black car in it.  This means the black one has the right of way and if there is a hill, it is usually the uphill direction which has precedence.  The practice can, of course, be more like a game of chicken.  Italy is an older country and the roads are older too.  There are no shoulders and often there are trees impinging on the road too.  Rows of sycamores hundreds of years old or a tree trimmed to a box shape often line the road coming into a town in Italy and France.  In the few places where they have changed this, they have made the street a one way and built another street rather than disturbing the trees.

I do eventually end up at Sacre-Coeur, and back at Saint-Severin, which is becoming a favorite spot.  A reprise of that wonderful shish kebob on Boul. St-Jacques and it's time for me to pack as well. It has been a truly unforgettable eleven days.