PARIS, France – We arrived at Charles de Gaulle International Airport at 8:40 a.m., but between looking in vain for our lost luggage, filing a claim, learning to negotiate the metro system and buying a local SIM card for the phone, it was nearly 11 by the time that we emerged from the subterranean maze for my first view of the City of Light.
Unfortunately, as we approached the stairway leading to the outer world, we saw it being pelted from above by fat raindrops. We had arrived during the latest, wettest spring any Parisian could remember.
I’m traveling with my 17-year-old niece, Aniqa Rahman, who just finished four years of high school French studies, which is already proving enormously helpful. We had hit on the idea because of her studies, and because I had discovered family roots in Normandy, where a friend from San Antonio had invited me to come for a visit. Put all together, it seemed that France was calling to us.
Ani had already taken a whirlwind tour of France three years ago, so she wasn’t as enthusiastic about seeing the Eiffel Tower as I was. But I would not be dissuaded by a bit of moisture, and she humored me. We found an umbrella seller at the top of the stairs and I bought one emblazoned with the word “Paris.”
We crossed the street and I turned to look up and see the iconic tower, just a block away and enormous. No sooner had I opened my mouth to exclaim, “Look! The Eiffel Tower!” when a speeding van hitting an enormous mud puddle to my right. The drenching was a cold wet shock and I think Ani might have preferred to head for drier quarters at that point, but she was a good sport. We had an 11:30 appointment with the Fat Tire Tour Co.’s Skip the Line tour of the tower, and I thought we’d be in and out and on our way in a hurry.
No such luck. We shared a $4 hot dog and a $3 coffee as we waited for our Fat Tire guide, who whisked us past the first line of umbrella-holding, shivering tourists, but inside we were met with many more – a line for each of the elevators creaking their way up to the next level, where frigid winds and a cold drizzle awaited us. I refused to let it dampen my spirits, but when we finally arrived at the top, shivered our way through a couple of photos and worked our way down, I was happy to be back in the warm, dry metro, making our way to the Belleville neighborhood, where my friend Diana lives.
Thankfully, the rain had stopped by the time we emerged onto the colorful and lively Boulevar Belleville. We stopped a pleasant-looking man to ask him directions and he didn’t recognized our street but gestured for us to follow him to a map a few paces away and tried to help us locate our street. We headed off cheerfully in the wrong direction and it took us awhile but thanks to the kindness of strangers we found our way.
Stefane, or Tchu, who is Diana’s flat-mate, let us in and made us feel at home. The flat was cheery and bright, with large windows and vivid colors. Pots of red geraniums accented the view, matching the bright red interior of Diana’s room, where Aniqa lay down to rest and I soon fell asleep checking e-mail. Diana found us curled up on her bed like two kittens when she arrived.
It had been five years since I met Diana and traveled with her through Jalisco and Michoacán, Mexico, on the occasion of our friends Alicia and Jose Miguel’s marriage. They had invited us to accompany them on a road trip for their honeymoon and we spent a memorable week together. Diana, a warm and vivacious free spirit from Madrid, was a delight to know; we found much in common and stayed in touch. She moved to Paris and got a job teaching at a high school. Naturally when we planned this trip, I reached out to her, and to my delight, she invited us to stay at her lovely home.
Unfortunately it’s her busiest week, being the end of the semester, so we saw little of her – mostly warm embraces and rapid consultations – but we prepared two dinners and enjoyed them with Diana, her new boyfriend Nico, and Tchu.
Highlights of our time in Paris included just wandering around the neighborhood, watching the Parisians and work and at play; a Fat Tire bicycle tour of some of the city’s highlights; a night out on the town and dinner with a dear friend and former student, Sara.
The Belleville neighborhood is a vibrant mix of working-class, immigrant, professional and artist, bustling with foot traffic and bicycles and tiny little cars. In my first venture out about the neighborhood I found several Tunisian restaurants, a couple of doner kebab stands, multiple oriental markets including a window full of roasted ducks, a Vietnamese restaurant and a tiny grocery run by a couple of Spaniards; an alleyway that had been taken over and painted and decorated from one end to the other by an avante-garde collective of artists and squatters; a variety of cafés, a tailor, a bookstore and a post office, and a community garden embellished with offerings by other local artists.
Ani and I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at Au Folies, a cozy cafe where we drank delicious hot chocolate and worked for awhile. We had offered to make dinner for Diana and Tchu, and that became an adventure in itself as Diana had bought fresh oysters – and I learned how to crack them open and serve them with a lovely onion vinaigrette.
The next day’s bicycle tour took us from the Eiffel Tower to the Tuilleries Gardens, where the Parisians were out enjoying the first non-rainy day in awhile – the clouds hovered threateningly, but only a few drops fell. We went on to cycle to the Louvre and the Grand Palais and on to the Place de Concorde, where Marie Antoinette, Louis XV and hundreds of others met their end at the guillotine (formerly called Revolution Square, but renamed in the hope that a new spirit of “Concorde” would rein… which, certainly on this day, did). Our guide, Scottie, kept us entertained with bits of colorful trivia.
That night we prepared a vegetable curry for Diana and Nico, her delightful French boyfriend, and then joined Nico and some Spanish friends at Aux Foilies, which had transformed into a packed night spot with hundreds spilling out into the street, sharing good French wine and beer and conversation. We visited for awhile then took off to see the offerings at a nearby gallery, where the artist doubles as a grafitti artist by night. He was one of those who had taken over this alley and turned it into a work of art, and had taken over the space to display his more conventional work indoors. A couple of young Chilean grafitti artists joined him there along with a hula hooper from the Carcassone and we admired his sketches that had been inked with coffee and a castle constructed of tin.
Here are a few images from those three days. Now we’re off to the South of France and to Spain – a bientot!
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
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