27 January, 2008 | Leave a Comment
I predicted I would take a lot of photos in Paris last weekend, but I didn’t — well, not many good ones, anyway. It was completely overcast the whole time, with not even a tiny patch of blue sky or sun to be found:
The occasional flower shop (as seen at the top) provided the only brightness. One cannot take stellar photos of Paris without copious amounts of natural light — it’s just not possible. Still, it’s not like I don’t already have 10,000 photos of Paris. Plus, the weather was quite balmy. It was even possible to walk around without a coat for some of the time, which was nice.
Oh — speaking of flowers, I saw bouquets of Ranunculus! My all-time favorite flowers! I never thought I’d see them this time of year. I was going to bring a bunch back to London, but in the mad dash for the train home I forgot. C’est la vie.
I enjoyed being back in Paris, despite the fact that I wasn’t really in the mood for traveling. While there I almost felt…nostalgic. That’s good, right? I also like that I can walk around without a map. During this trip, my French came in quite handy too. There was a giant snafu with the accommodation for the 20+ students I was accompanying. Long story short, I had to negotiate with several different hotel managers and not all of them could speak English. While I sometimes find it difficult to carry on a simple conversation with a French person, whenever there’s a crisis I become nearly fluent. It’s like a superpower I have. This makes sense, given that my time in Paris last year was marked by crisis after crisis. Your French improves quite a lot when you need to call the “confidential foreigners’ helpline” at the police station in hysterics on more than one occasion and beg them not to deport you — the police don’t tend to speak English. So anyway, I managed to sort out this hotel mess somehow while only speaking in French and doing charades. Score one for me.
For most of the weekend the students went off on their merry way and I spent my time with one of my colleagues. We turned out to be well-matched for traveling for a variety of reasons. For example, I’ve never met anyone who has to use the loo as much as I do. Normally the people I travel with complain about my frequent need to pee, but this time I had company. In a 48-hour trip to Paris, my colleague R- and I spent approximately 12 hours either looking for a bathroom or inside of one. I highly recommend the bathrooms in the French fast-food chain Quick, particularly the one on the Champs-Elysées.
Another trait we have in common is having high-maintenance needs in the food department. This is another area where I excel — menu French. I am quite fluent when it comes to saying things like, “Please don’t put any cheese/milk/cream on that” or “What exactly is in this sauce?” or “Yes, I know this is f—ing France but I don’t eat brie.” We probably averaged at least five cafés a day and that doesn’t include eating and drinking while walking. Here is some (but certainly not all) of the food we ate.
Plain omelette avec frites:
Savory crepe:
My second-favorite French café drink — Vittel Menthe [mint syrup, ice and Vittel -- tastes just like cough syrup!]:
And R-’s café Viennois:
Of course we went to Ladurée. I didn’t take any photos inside Ladurée! It was too dark. I had a religieus à la rose and R- had a St. Honoré à la rose. We also bought macarons.
I also took R- to Pain du Sucre on rue Rambuteau (see previous photos here and here). It’s usually a quiet little patisserie but this time there was a crazy lady in there who started screaming at the owner and then threw a baguette at him. Though I lived in Paris for nearly a year, I never saw anyone get attacked with a baguette. Before the violence broke out, we bought some rose-flavored marshmallows:
And here is some red peach sorbet from the legendary Berthillon on the Ile St. Louis:
Besides eating and drinking virtually around the clock, we also went to a museum. Yes, one museum. You’ll be proud of me though — I got to the museum before it opened!!! I’m usually dashing to get to museums before they close. I would keep bragging about this but then the museum didn’t actually open until 12:30, which is the only reason I got there early.
I had not been to the Musée de l’Orangerie since I was a teenager. It’s a small museum that houses Monet’s Nymphéas in two lovely oval-shaped rooms:
Besides the water lillies, there’s a whole floor of paintings that are primarily by Impressionist masters. I quite like this painting by Rousseau. I don’t remember the title, but “World’s Ugliest Transsexual Baby” would surely suffice:
We became quite obsessed with looking at all the boobs in the paintings, since half the museum features portraits of naked women painted by shriveled-up old pervs like Picasso. The boobs look so completely fake and defy gravity. I mean, the woman could be hanging upside down by her ankles and her boobs wouldn’t have changed position at all. We began searching for a painting that featured realistic boobs and found this one:
André Derain, you’re the winner of the boobs sweepstakes! Congratulations!
Speaking of boobs, our hotel was in the red light district, just down the street from a string of sex shops that all have English names, such as the creatively titled Porno Shop and Sex Shop. I should have done my souvenir shopping there — nothings says “Greetings from France!” like a vibrator from Montmartre. As you might imagine, the guys hanging around these places are not the charming Frenchmen who’ll kiss you on both cheeks and flirt with you as if you’re the loveliest creature on the planet. No, these are the types of guys who use the public toilet in Pigalle with the door halfway open so everyone [including their dog] can watch.
In other Montmartre quaintness, the shower from our hotel room leaked water into the lobby of the hotel. I took a shower at around 2:30 a.m. and then another upon waking the next morning day, plus R- used the shower too. They had to place a bucket in the lobby catch the dripping. I guess most of the people who stay in this hotel spend so much time in the Porno Shop that they don’t have time to bathe.
I managed to make a quick trip to my old apartment building near Parc Monceau. It was weird being back there again. The owners’ daughter was kind enough to keep some of my mail, dating back from last May, including this copy of the Canadian magazine Strut. This collector’s edition featured my photo of Simone de Beauvoir’s grave (bottom left):
[I also have another cemetery photo from Venice published on New York Magazine's website right now (under my real name so no link) and I just sold a photo of Baudelaire's grave to the French government's tourist guide for Americans. Perhaps if this writing career doesn't work out, I can get a job as a cemetery photographer.]
Once I got to Paris, I remembered I didn’t have any health coverage, since it doesn’t extend beyond the borders of the UK for me. I thought it would have been fun to rent a bike, which are now available all over Paris, but that didn’t seem like such a good idea. Me + bike + Parisian drivers = potential serious injury and/or death. I did, however, take a chance by standing out in the middle of a busy intersection on Saturday night to take this photo of the Madeleine:
The Madeleine with a glowing cross? I’m so totally there. Me love crosses.
We also visited the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame (which is one of my favorite places in Paris, despite the fact that it’s as noisy as Yankee Stadium inside) and just walked all over. It was strange to see the Christmas decorations still up, including the tree in front of Notre Dame and the lights on the Champs-Elysées:
I think the decorations are left up because of a religious holiday in January, but I can’t remember the details.
So that’s it. It was a busy two days that included very little sleep and it’s taken me quite a few days to recover. I felt a twinge of sadness when I left though. I want to go back again in the next few months when there are leaves on the trees and flowers in the gardens. I have some time off after Easter, but I’m thinking of going to Amsterdam then. This morning at breakfast my potential traveling companion told me that if we go, he wants to sleep in the park and hang out in “coffee shops.” You all know that sweetest Anglofille has never done an unsavory thing in her life, so we’ll have to see.
Anglofille said @ 3:40 pm | travel |
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Ahaha ! What a week-end, Anglofille. But what a strange idea to sty in these sorts of hotels…
Changing topic: Vittel Menthe is fine but do you know the Diabolo Menthe ?
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Aldor! What is a diabolo menthe?!
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Daniela Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 1:48 pmSounds like you had lot of fun - and food, who wouldnt? The baguette story is my favorite, loved it, can absolutely picture it on my mind. Amsterdam can be pretty chilly, was there mid-May once and average temperature was zero celsius. Caught a cold. Therefore dont know if your friend is being wise. Love Notre Dame as well, it is one of my favorite places in Europe.
Have a nice week,
best -
Rebecca Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 6:25 pmIn that magazine, I had to do a double take. The main photo is from Savannah at Bonaventure Cemetery. I’ve taken photos of that very grave. How funny!
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You don’t know, Anglo, what a Diabolo Menthe is ? You’re kidding, I guess…
Seriously, a Diabolo Menthe is like a Vittel Menthe but you use limonade instead of Vittel. And so, the acidity and freshness of the Menthe melts with the sugarless and bubbleness of the limonade and the result is nothing than delicious.
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Gregory Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 4:23 am“Perhaps if this writing career doesn’t work out, I can get a job as a cemetery photographer.”
Writing has a plus to it, it is not about selling, it can be the best and not sell, also, if you only do one book, that’s also cool,
I think everybody should be a stock photographer for fifteen minutes, unless you are Russian, they should get to own a vodka factory for fifteen minutes.
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Daniela: The baguette scene was surreal! I wish I could have understood what the woman was screaming about.
Rebecca: That is funny! I’ve never heard of that cemetery before.
Aldor: I have never heard of a Diabolo Menthe, but I *love* limonade so now I am dying to try this!
