Au Revoir Paris and France

Out the door, into the little Peugeot, down the lane after a wave au revoir to Canto Cigalo. This is a travel day. The rain is back and the day is dark, the sun on its own vacation somewhere. We have given ourselves some time to get to destinations without having to rush. This is a good thing because when we arrive at le gare TGV (TGV train station) we cannot figure out where to return our rental car. We don't know what the phrase is or the international symbol associated with it.

Up one dead end, around a roundabout out of the station grounds, back again, reverse, pause, crane necks, search info on rental car packet. No luck. Then, one sign with 10 different signs and symbols on it has a tiny one in English. Delight! We zoom over and then have to figure out where to put the car. "Park it here? in the Hertz area? Don't they need to clean it?"

The rental car office, the one we used seven days ago, is a dream to use. Up the stairs to the long futuristic station to find our train departure time. These buggers are on time, so we have to be in place and ready. A delicatessan has prepared sandwiches and snacks; we purchase water and two baguette sandwiches. Then we join the clump of waiting passengers who need info from the departure schedule. The train number and time is known; we don't know which gate.

Once we know what platform to use, we ascend the escalator and wait in what we believe is the right area. We watch the French travelers give each other bises on the cheeks when they greet. Left, right left, with little kiss sounds. A customary ritual that ensures you are definitely fond of this person.

The time arrives for the train to come. There it is! We go the car that the train diagram tells us is ours. Wrong. The conductor is blowing her whistle and rain is falling. How do you say shit in French? merde. One way or another we trot like mad to get to the right car and make it just in time. They don't wait for you if you're late. The train is on time, the sleek, smooth bastard. It's admirable but intimidating.

I crash into my seat and heave a sigh. Then, the train is moving like I'm only imagining it - hardly any change in my sensation of it - and we are bound for Paris. While munching our baguettes and water, Provence is out there beyond the windows. As we travel due north, we see the rolling terrain, distant mountains and old medieval villages on cliff tops and promontories. Most if not all villages are not sprawling urban areas. Instead they are clumps of stone buildings gathered together, surrounded by agriculture. Only Avignon and Paris have looked familiarly sprawling compared to American towns and habitations.

We are in Paris again at the Gare du Lyon. The train does not rush us this time and we trundle out to the taxi stand where a hustler directs people to this waiting taxi or that, loudly demanding, "Coins, give me coins! Obama! Hollywood, America! Give me coins! Come here, I put your bag inside and you give me coins."

We hand the tall young black taxi driver our address and he has to look it up. We have to cross town and find the Montmartre area. He is silent but calm and a good driver. That is, he makes his own lanes and turns when he wants to, nosing his little car in front of other vehicles to create space for us. I watch the city's thousands of varied people out on their Saturday business. The part of Paris we traverse including the Bastille is more homogenized, more like New York, less elegant and used hard. I wish I could record the city sounds including the music from other cars when we are stopped next to them. The ride is a series of vignettes of city life, and I am as anonymous as they are, those people I will never see again that I know of.

We ascend into the Montmartre area, the hill of martyrs so named because during the French Revolution a few people died for the cause, leaders with great spirit and a cause they had decided to fight for. This is where the moulins are, the picturesque windmills as you might have seen in Moulin Rouge, because this used to be the hilly countryside outside the city.

After we check in, rest and relax for a little while - it's about 5 PM - we walk up to Sacre Coeur cathedral and encounter masses of tourists, a county fair atmosphere and join it. This is the place we became engaged four years ago, so we are returning for old time's sake, sort of.

Inside the cathedral, Mass is in progress even as throngs of tourists are pouring in and skirting the central area so they can see the interior. We sit and listen to the priest and a nun who sings part of the Mass. Then, back out to the moving, shifting crowd, which we watch for a little while. We shop for gifts at a few of the junk shops that line the main cobbled street in the village area. Probably all from China by the looks of it. Then, we decide to eat at the same cafe where we were engaged. The food is mediocre just like it was four years ago, but we watch the crowd and talk. I hear lots of Italian and American English, some other languages. This is not an elegant crowd at all but more of what you'd see at any large event, kind of disheveled, uncertain, strolling in zig-zag directions.

We walk after dinner down to the north side of the hill into the cool, jazzy Montmartre neighborhood where no tourists think to go unless they've read their guide books and want a less touristed experience. It's hilly but shaded with large chestnut trees and the evening sun is getting exciting for photography.

We go back up the hill and over to the steps of Sacre Coeur and see Paris in a broad panorama, an encrustation of stone buildings with clay chimney tubes sticking up like spines all across the city. The setting sun has brought the buildings into sharp relief and it is immense. There is Notre Dame and over there the Pantheon. The Eiffel Tower is hidden behind a group of trees to the right.

It's a long wait before the lights begin to glow in the city, well after 10 PM, but it is a transition unique in the world. To see the City of Lights like this is fun. The crowd continues to shift and move, party and enjoy the balmy evening. This is the world as Europe knows it now, multicultural and changing fast with the influx of African nations' emigres. Languages of all types and people who are obviously tourists like us gazing at the scene, all mixing in a peaceful mob.

That's enough. We are tired. It's nearly 11 PM. Paris is not going to quiet down for several hours, but we must. Good-bye old city. Tomorrow we travel home to California and begin to dream of new travels in the year to come.  It has been a rich experience and valuable to us both in quiet, inner ways. This will take time to process and return from, like all journeys. We have been fortunate, truly so. In truth, the journey is continuous and has certain demarcation points, one day after another. What will today bring?

Into the Heart of Provence I Go

It's time to pack up and leave Paris. At last I'm going to Provence, something I've waited to do for years. It's the mediterranean allure that attracts so many, a sensual, historically rich region that is really calling me. I'm excited not only about the travel ahead but that I've gone through a week (only a week) of living in Paris and getting a glimmer of an idea of what this city life might be like for a longer time. There is something about Paris that feels innately feminine, sophisticated and patient. Yet it has energy and verve.  A lot of what appeals about Paris is simply that it's European. The time frame of the day is different, and because of that your spirit has more room to breathe.

But, I do have a couple of hours before the train leaves Gare du Lyon at 1:15 PM, so my husband, who has just returned from Chartres after completing his own retreat, and I walk over to a cafe where the snappy waiter in black and white formal and traditional attire, seats us, takes our order, trying to sell us the big breakfast. I decline him and off he sprints for my coffee and croissant. My husband tucks into an omelette and we drift away into conversation and watch Paris from our cafe window.

Afterwards, we have enough time for a walk and angle over to Notre Dame past the dashing and beautiful fountain depicting Saint Michael and past St. Severin church and some very classic cafes nearby. Then the Seine is flowing past us and we see Notre Dame and its hordes of tourists again. It is so tremendous a structure with its glaring gargoyles and grotesque buttresses, spiny peaks and steeples that I am both fascinated and revolted by it. It does not inspire my faith to be stronger, what faith I have at this point, but it does instill fear and awe, not emotions I believe relate to heaven or aspiration to goodness and piety. I think it might be closer to morbid curiosity actually, reinforcing the belief that wickedness thrives in the world.

One way or another, we find ourselves shopping along the main narrow street on Ile St. Louis, the smaller and most elegant of the two islands in the middle of the Seine. This is an old world place, where shops are very tiny and very specialized, every one of them fine purveyors of ultra gourmet foods. A fromagerie, a patisserie or two or three, a boulangerie, a marionette store, an olive oil store, a charcuterie where chickens are sold with their long legs and feet sticking up into the air like weird dancers. It is possible to go to a different store for every ingredient of your meal along this street.

Then, with time growing short, we walk rapidly back to the Boulevard St. Germain, take the metro a half mile to our hotel's neighborhood, grab our bags, hail a taxi at the taxi stand back on the boulevard and wave good-bye to the busy urbane place that feels so foreign and so familiar all at once.

At Gare du Lyon, which is a wonderful place to watch masses of travelers as they await their trains, we eat a salad and some bread and then board the TGV, the ultra-fast super train that will take us to Avignon, a distance of 450 miles in less than three hours. Other passengers settle in and then unwrap their baguette sandwiches and drinks while the train, whisper quiet and smooth, begins to move.

After a few kilometers while we clear the outer bounds of Paris, the train accelerates up to a speed that is deceptive in its silkiness. I cannot guess the speed, but the train is capable of going 200 mph, so it must reach 150 at times. Every once in a while a train from the opposite direction causes a sensation of compressed air as it goes by with a sound like phooomph! Very cool. To my knowledge, we have nothing like it in the USA.

We arrive at the Avignon station. We have a very easy time getting our reserved car from Hertz and settle into the economy-sized Peugeot. The French drive on the same side as we do, but they use roundabouts, which I enjoy quite a bit since they feel like a nice flow of direction instead of intersections with stopping and starting all the time.

It's obvious that Provence looks like California in its best and prettiest regions just inland from the coast. That's a disorienting feeling, not only because we've just been whisked from Paris but because we really aren't in California at all. Olives, wines, cheeses, citrus, fruits and terrain are very familiar, but while some would say we are copying the French in California, Provence has been what it is for two millenia, since the times of the Roman empire.  The croplands have been plowed a long time and buildings were not built to code, if you know what I mean.

We arrive at our our hotel, which is a villa on several acres, charming and very peaceful. The land is arid, like our western states. I think we are the only English-speaking people here. The desk clerk, one of the owners, helps me by trying his English while I hesitantly give it a go in French. It's weird, but sometimes I am fine and others I do very poorly. Not enough practice. Anyway, we are here.  We are tired, too.

After a nap, we dress for dinner and drive into town, San Remy de Provence, and begin a search for a dinner place.  There are winding streets and the town is on a gentle curving slope, so it's easy to get lost in the maze. I am fascinated, as usual, with architectural details, style, colors, light, texture, the air, the sun, everything. It's slowing me down badly, but I love it.

We find a bistro so cute it's ridiculous, the real deal, called Bistro de Marie, and I have to say I cannot describe it to you except that it's in an old building whose stone interior is worn, charming, decorated with many, many collections of old toys, kitchen items, furniture pieces, pictures, art, and curious lighting. Again, living up to a building code would be totally impossible. Building inspectors reading this, do not come to Provence; you will have nightmares.

Dinner? Slices of barely seared duck in a light mustard sauce paired with arugula in a dressing, braised Provencal rabbit with olives and potatoes. Mango sorbet floated on stewed cherries finished my meal. All light, all seasonal, all new to me. That, mesdames et messieurs, was quite a day.

Last Night in Paris

The last full day in Paris is when I feel like I've got my routine figured out, walking around, dealing with things.  Only problem is I wake up feeling a little funky and don't know if it's going to get better or worse.  I usually recommend water and exercise to get de-funked, so I take my own advice and do just that. But, I do not feel better much faster at all.

Feeling crummy in a big foreign city is just the same as feeling crummy in your own home except you have to plan better.  I sit on my bed and think:  Okay, this is not a bad thing, it's just a not-so-great thing. It could be a lot worse. I am feeling stable, no fever, just a headache and kind of not on top of my game. Not so awful. What do I need to do?

I dress, gather my things, and go to the front desk of my hotel. "Ou est le pharmacie?" I ask.

"A droite," says the clerk. "C'est ici, a droite."  It's right here, to the right. Cool. Who could ask for better than that?

I buy a little packet of acetominophen and begin my walk to the 5th Arrondissement with waves of Not Feeling So Good coming over me.  Little waves, but waves nevertheless. Malaise. On the uphill walk along Rue St. Michel, a big long group of school kids overtake me, surround me and sort of carry me along in their energetic, talkative midst, going my direction for quite a way. I forget about waves of feeling Not So Good and imagine I've begun floating on a river with a lot of otters who are creating the current.  They peel off when I have only about a quarter mile to go and disappear. The air seems to go flat.

I reach the last corner and think about going back to my cafe, la salle de manger, I spent time at yesterday. It seems to be calling me, so I answer with a happy sigh and give in. I have quite a bit of time. If you are going to ever spend time looking for your perfect cafe, give it time. Do not rush the cafe experience. Most of the good of it is in watching the world pass by your table and thinking about your day, your evening, your plans, your everything. You need time.

I take my time and my medicine and my writing pad and pen and sit at a table where the attendant leans toward me, states what I want before I even say it, then brings it to me in about a minute. Same as yesterday, thank the angels in heaven, I munch on the croissant spread with cherry jam and sip my espresso. I take my medicine with a steady supply of water and after some writing and thinking about life and writing and the size of my feet and what I've learned this week, I feel better.  Not so random. You think about those things, too, admit it.

The Paris Writers Retreat commences on its final day and then has to draw to a close. Of the thirteen who started, twelve finish and of those, two or three have very unique and powerful stories that will nearly write themselves. In cases like that, the author almost has to just step out of the way so the story can flow out. The rest of us will have to keep working on story line, character development, and setting until it all hangs together. I am encouraged and discouraged all at once but I have lots more tools to use now. I feel it has been worth it.

We all agree that coming and going to and from one place where we have spent time and had many conversations has given us a unique and much-appreciated vehicle with which to experience this city. We are invited by Wendy Rohm, the instructor who also has her own agency, to send her our query letters once we get our manuscripts written. She has a little more sympathy for writers than a lot of agents do because she also writes.

I am well again, I feel pretty good, and I have an armful of new friends.  One of them, Fabrice, a French playwright, announces it's his birthday, so someone runs off to a patisserie nearby for goodies and comes back with a couple of boxes of pastries so delightful it seems a real shame to cut them up and eat them. We sing to Fabrice, snap a lot of photos and enjoy a classic traditional French meal at La Forge for a couple of hours.  My meal is a white fish wrapped in bacon strips and bathed in a delicate white wine sauce with braised leeks. I keep seeing things on the menus around town that I've no idea about and keep discovering flavor combinations and that you don't have to die to go to heaven. You can just eat in a restaurant in France.

There is so much I don't know, I wail to myself, so much yet to experience and discover.  One lifetime is not long enough. If anyone ever says "I'm bored," all you have to do is kick them out of the house and tell them to go travel. Boredom will instantly stop. If that doesn't do it, they're hopeless.

I finish my day by walking a different way home with one of the retreat attendees, Julia, and we say our quick good-byes. Wow, my last night in Paris, sort of. I'll be back at the end of next week but in a different part of town. It's getting cloudy and sunset will be upon me in a little while, so I duck into the supermarket across from my hotel, buy some groceries for dinner and hide out in my little hotel room.

The sunset is glorious, as if Joan of Arc could come tearing down the street on her white charger or Napoleon's army is on the march again. Italian tourists are whooping it up soon afterward in the cafe down on the street, singing in Italian and cheering for lots of things, small and large. Their voices are joyous, lifting all the way up to the highest rooftops, far into the distance to the river where they meet the currents and breezes that carry them far away in the night.

Jardin de Luxembourg and the Sounds of Paris Streets

I am in the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris. Sun is glowing through the branches and leaves of the horse chestnut and plane trees, between the wrought iron fences that have golden spikes on their tips. There are murmuring pigeons circling and strutting near the green metal park benches and chairs. Crunching footsteps go by on the dirt pathways. 

I have a sweet roll and a cup of coffee in a sack and I am sitting facing the Senate building at the North end of this large formal park. The garden before me is planted with new flowers. No gendarmes in sight, but I know they lurk, keeping order and calm.  

A group of school kids, probably 13 and 14 year olds, cluster briefly around a sitting woman wearing a green cardigan. She speaks in French to them. They are wearing casual street clothes. They are handed pieces of paper with instructions that they read. Then they set off in twos, threes and fours, running. Three boys angle over in front of me, step across a border of flowers, look back, then dash across the forbidden lawn to a statue in its middle. They run to it, stop, examine it, keep running to another. Other kids are running to other statuary in the area. They run everywhere.

The kids are slender and seem very familiar with each other. A girl sits on a green chair like my own. A boy comes and sits on her. She yells at him to stop, he continues, she yells louder, he continues, she yells and squawks for real and he jumps up. She's fine. 

The woman provides no snacks or water. The kids run off again, and again, always running hard and shout about the treasure hunt they are set on. There are no cell phones, no walking, no complaining, no obesity.  

I don't understand enough French to know what it is they are looking for, but I can see these 15 kids who look energetic and healthy in the large clipped formal garden in the midmorning sun. 

After I've finished my sweet roll and coffee, I get up and walk through the park. There is a steady trickle of incoming visitors. It is a favorite park in the city for many. A Chinese man is doing tai chi by himself, his own interpretation of it that looks more like Kung Fu and dancing combined. He's focused and intent, though. He's on the bandstand under large shady trees, moving and grooving. 

There is something about sounds in Paris that I can't quite put my finger on. The blend of tiny sounds that always have a backdrop of louder traffic sounds seem less intense here. The loud police and ambulance wee-wah-wee-wah is the loudest, but it is not ear shattering like American fire trucks are. Many cars are electric, and buses run on an alternative fuel. I don't hear jackhammers or loud motorcycles. No Harleys or leaf blowers, thank God in heaven. No, it is definitely a quieter, less jarring city to move around in.  Thus, it feels safer.  However, traffic moves quickly and lanes can be narrow, so attention must be paid.  I have managed not to get myself into any trouble, but I am always reminding myself to keep my eyes open - not easy with so much visual distraction, i.e., shop windows and old buildings with flowers gushing from the window boxes.   

I don't have any intention of driving in this city. I've heard people describe it as a nightmare.  Walking around these neighborhoods is a very easy thing with signage for walkers separate than signage for drivers. There are separate lanes for taxis and the buses.  Gutters are flushed out every morning with a reverse-flow system where water actually comes out of spouts in the gutters, flowing downhill, carrying away trash and junk. What a good idea.

It's night time now, and the neighborhood down on the street is full of the rise and fall of many conversations. A little telltale jingle sounds; a bicyclist has just passed by. No more walking for my tired feet today, but I will be ready tomorrow. 

Details of a Day in St. Germain, Paris

It's almost 10 at night, and there is plenty of light left in the sky. The lights have come up around the neighborhood, and the cafes sound busy down below on Rue de Seine. An accordion has just begun to play, a meandering sound that stirs poignant memories of romance. Plates and silverware clatter and clink; crowded cafes are burbling with human voices in many conversations, an incessant flow of human sound. It has been this way for centuries. It is Paris.

A man shouts to someone, and I hear the buzz of a coasting bicycle. I cannot see the source of all these sounds, but I can see the dormers of the rooftop across from my window, an easy stone's throw away.  I like my plain room four stories up from the lobby in this little hotel.

I leave the hotel at nine in the morning the next day, wearing summer clothes and less fashionable but more reasonable walking shoes than yesterday, bandaids peeking out on my heels and arches. A cool breeze freshens the air. I turn right and walk past the fish shop, a chocolate shop and then the cafe. I am at the corner of Boulevard St. Germaine, named after a neighborhood church built probably 800 years ago. St. Germain is home base for a jazz festival going on these two weeks. Kyle Eastwood, son of Carmel's native boy Clint, played here last weekend. Home follows you everywhere you go.

I cross the wide boulevard with a covey of other walkers. No one says hello to anyone else as they walk. Even walking in  the middle of rush hour, there is no noise but that of traffic. A lot of people walk. You hear a quick "pardon" if they bump you or need to hustle aside for some reason, so you learn to do the same. I hear "jour" or "soir" when I enter places which is the equivalent to "evening" or "day" in the States, just like we do, shortening the more formal "bonjour" or "bon soir." When you buy something, the usual last phrase you hear is "bonne journee," all part of the "politesse" or polite way of conducting oneself. This civility is a pleasant touch that I try not to compare to Americans in general. Many Americans are polite and courteous of course. Overall, the French win. By a mile.

The walk to the Retreat apartment building is about 20 minutes from my hotel, and it takes me slightly uphill to the Luxembourg Gardens after I've gone past the big Odeon theater. I watch the scurrying people and take note of traffic. Women walk rapidly, on errands or to work, and some strolling tourists and young people in small groups move past me, slim and well dressed. I feel well assimilated today, able to blend into the crowd. I have to watch my step as I swivel my head back and forth looking around as I go so I won't accidentally whack my shins on bike stands or step off curbs with a lurch.

At the Retreat, we do a few exercises to sharpen our writing skills, pretend we are our characters. It's actually challenging, and we sigh deeply, each one in turn, as we take our lumps from our instructor. She's trying to free our minds up in order to look at the story and characters differently, with fresh eyes. She is patient. I am not achieving greatness yet and feel relieved when it's time to break for lunch.

We go as a group to a Greek restaurant nearby. Our waiter is handsome and valiantly attempts to understand our corrupted French. I order Moussaka and it arrives, fragrant and hot. My friends order a sample plate, which is delightful. We talk about living in France compared to the States. A couple of my companions are ex-pats who are content living in the South of France. We compare notes.  It turns out that they occasionally see young men with "jail break" style pants, which means the silly fashion of wearing the pants halfway off the rear end that is so laughable. I wonder if young men realize that every single older person who sees them thinks, "You look so incredibly idiotic wearing your pants that way."

I shop with Julia, a new friend, on the way home from the Retreat, along Rue St. Michel with throngs of students and then stroll through Luxembourg Gardens. We part ways on the other side of the gardens. It is a fine afternoon and the streets are full of people out on foot. The city feels safe no matter where I go. I don't mind being by myself. As a matter of fact, it has its advantages since I can window shop to my heart's content and wander any path I like.

It's evening again before I know it and I get a bit lost, which is both exciting and frustrating. In this part of the arrondissement, the streets are not laid out in a grid. They curve and narrow down to a lane with narrow sidewalks, but they're calm and quiet. I sense the echoes of time passing with the merest wink and shrug, unhurried and lovely.

Sunday in Paris

It's Sunday morning. The streets are much calmer now and the weather is looking excellent.  Time to begin our walking tour of whatever suits our mood.

I end up stopping at a cafe near the Odeon on Blvd St. Michel to have breakfast, or the French version of it: pain et cafe. You take your chances at a cafe if you cannot tolerate cigarette smoke. We sit. Cigarette smoke lofts by, polluting perfectly fresh air.  Instantly a formal-looking waiter is whisking off our table, quickly shoving an ashtray onto the tabletop and shuffling the bistro chairs to accommodate us. He is dressed in black slacks, crisp long-sleeved white shirt and black tie, black vest and a long white apron tied around his hips. His hair is perfectly trimmed and combed. He is a professional. Very few American men dressing for their own weddings look as crisp and trim as he does.  The order is taken and in a matter of a minute, my espresso and bread arrive at my table and another minute later, my husband's omelette also arrives. Cafe waiters are quick as cats and are snappy about their work, part of the Paris cafe mystique.

You greet the waiter and indicate how many are in your group, you are whisked to a table and cartes handed to you as quickly as if you were caught in an acceleration vortex. There is no lingering conversatio or chat with these guys. Perhaps if I eat at a cafe daily for two years, the waiter will converse. Until then, I am not his friend. Courtesy and friendliness are not to be confused; courtesy is fully present, but friendliness is not required. It's okay. In the States, friendliness is mistaken for courtesy and you often have a waitress who attempts to be your casual friend and tells you about her life. She will ask you in a high plaintive lilt, "Everything okay here, you guys?" A waiter in a Parisian cafe will never ask, but he will rush past while eyeing your table and assessing for missing essentials. He will hasten over when you raise your hand politely to signal him you have a wish and it will be fulfilled as quickly as if you had waved a wand.

I am getting good already about adapting to the practice of eating very little for breakfast and then enjoying a delicious full meal at midday or later and finally supper after dark. After my meal, it is time to board the nearby metro and zoom away to the Fifth Arrondissement where I will be spending the next five days at a writer's retreat. My husband coaches me about how the metro works and how to read the maps. It seems easy. The metro is like the waiter, arriving promptly and whisking us to our destination with efficiency and no fuss.

There is a popular and well-established outdoor market on weekend mornings on Rue de Mouffetard, and it is jostling with local citizens and a few tourists. A vendor sings about his fruits and vegetables and tries to persuade me to purchase some strawberries. On a cobbled parallel street that is closed to traffic, a waltz tune sung by a lady with an accompanying accordionist compels a suave older couple dressed in ballroom clothing to turn and bend in looping circles of dance. They are drawing a crowd and receive applause when the tune finally stops. He dips her very low and she curtsies to the bystanders. He is wearing a white suit and large white plastic sunglasses that look like Girl Watchers from the 60s. Another tune begins, lyrics are handed out to the crowd and everyone is encouraged to sing the chorus when it comes around, "Bambino, bambino!" so we sing. What else would you do on a Sunday in Paris but waltz in the street like Fred Astaire? It's just the thing.

I need to find the address for the workshop and stand on a street corner looking up and down streets and looking like the confused tourist I am when a small wizened woman approaches me and carefully asks, "What are you looking for?"

"Rue Broca."

"Ah, Broca. Allez," she says slowly and indicates I am to follow her. She is bent over, pulling a small grocery trolley and has a scarf wrapped around her hair. She is not likely even 4 ft. 11 in., but she is briskly walking away and intends to show me where my street is. When it is in sight up ahead, she waves to it and says "au revoir," and then disappears so fast I end up thanking the air where she had stood seconds before.

The rest of the morning is spent strolling past the Muslim mosque and over to Jardin des Plantes where hundreds of people are enjoying the soft spring day with their families, walking or jogging or resting on one of the park benches. You don't lounge on the grass in this country apparently. You sit. On chairs or park benches. That's it. The beautifully tended gardens that consist of botanical specimens, vegetable gardens and tender shoots of what will become summer flowering plants are inspiring to see. The gardeners take an inordinate amount of care with the entire acreage and create something that is both natural and formal in appearance.

After the Jardin, we look for the Roman coliseum called Lutece nearby, built about a thousand years ago.  It looks very well preserved but we don't have English information to help us understand the dimensions or probable use in its day.  Boys slam soccer balls with their feet and resounding explosions of sound echo off the curved stadium walls of stone.  I imagine the hard-packed dirt arena soaked in blood with heaving beasts and gladiators grunting and fighting for their lives.  A thousand years ago.

The Cluny Museum represents medieval art and culture and today is featuring an interesting exhibits called Epee that depicts the history and construction of swords, epee and daggers.  Some of them are magnificently preserved pieces that served as ceremonial weaponry only.  Much of them, though probably whacked a few skulls in their day. King Arthur might have held one or two of them; at least it is appealing to think so. The Cluny is a museum worth seeing and occupies a former Abbey. Work brick work is evident all through the building, which is many centuries old.

We meander back to the Latin Quarter on tired feet and find we have roaring appetites. A bistro seems like a logical choice and our midday meal of boeuf bourguignon is really good. After a nap, we decide to take a tour boat on the Seine and set off on our hour-long cruise at 8 PM.  The sun is low on the horizon but sets the gold on various bridges and statuary blazing. For 15 Euro you get a bilingual tour and unique views of many of the bridges in the heart of the Seine.  Many long bateaux host parties and dinner tours.  Music thumps from one of them and a dance party is in progress. Girls have so many opportunities to be pretty and feminine here.  The dancing couples are having a good time and many young women in chic clothes are having the time of their lives with their handsome young dates.

The crown jewel, the one the Parisians initially thought would come crashing down on their heads back in the day, stands so far above all else in Paris that it's really bigger than life.  I've seen it up close; there is no view of it that seems ugly, and everyone on the boat snaps a few zillion photos of it, me included.

The day is done for us, but the cafes and bistros will be doing a roaring business for several more hours. My head feels like a heavy sack; time to go to bed and rest for tomorrow.

Paris: Enigmatic and Elegant

It is time to feel Paris's heartbeat and sense her vitality, this lady of the Seine, grande dame of Europe. 

We walk from the cafe, heading north to the Seine and then east to the glorious statue of St. Michael, a dramatically violent scene frozen in bronze.  The day is bright and nearly perfect, and humanity is everywhere. Throngs of tourists from all over the world make the whole city appear restless. Everyone is dressed as you would see them in San Francisco or other light-hearted cities with four seasons. That is, with an eye to what is pretty, trendy and attractive. Slim bodies dominate every view. Very few individuals are obese in this town. Unfortunately, many smoke, and I try not to think about their lungs, hearts and future health problems. So much else about the French lifestyle is healthy that I am amazed they embrace cigarette smoking so blithely. 

The day is warming up, and I am wearing too much clothing. It was suitable for a flight of nine hours in  the dark, but now I am liable to perspire with the least provocation. Luckily strolling is easy because shop windows arrest my progress constantly. I cannot help myself; I admire almost all of them. Every window outdoes the last, displaying whimsy, art, fashion and style. I try to choose the most interesting to photograph. I am very quickly finding myself frustrated, delighted and dizzy with choices. I hope I die in such a state of mind.

There are some narrow streets that I prefer to the broad avenues because of the sense of what might be possible to find behind them. Doorways are grand, and they are forbidding, standing like keepers of rare, highly guarded secrets. This is what Paris makes you do: Imagine.  You see massive facades, immense baroque structures built of dense blonde stones, curliqued and curving leaves modestly covering fat cupids and angels.  I can imagine the stone masons who built them and the people for whom they were built hundreds of years ago. And yet, there next to them are windows exhibiting the sleekest of modern kitchen designs and austere chic interiors.  Vespas and tiny cars that look like toys purr past on boulevards and everywhere you hear the tapping heels of walkers and French people chatting between themselves. The language is just comprehensible enough to me that I understand about every 10th or 20th word and make up my own sentences with them. 

It is not to say Paris is perfect. Peek under her petticoats and find a layer of dirt and grime, the trash left behind by heedless citizens and visitors. Find also miles of grafiti lining metro routes, freeways and apartment buildings. Other urban blight is present, but I, like every other visitor, choose to overlook the tired areas of blight and perpetuate the charm, panache and giddiness for which Paris is famous.  

Notre Dame cathedral's place is carpeted with tourists, everyone posing for each other's cameras. This spot is the exact center of Paris, and a bronze circle indicates it to be so. We decide that there is no way we are going to stand in the long snaking line to see the interior of the famous cathedral, so we walk west on the north side of the Seine - the right bank - past the grand buildings that flank the river. The massive grandeur of French officialdom, past and present, is at first beautiful, then imposing and finally exhausting to keep focused upon. I am fading fast, and I must sleep.  

We return to our hotel, which is ready at last.  A nap turns into a several-hour crash of body and mind coping with a nine-hour lag of time. Finally I stagger to the shower and freshen up.  It changes my personality; I am human again and ready for a meal.

We are off to try Le Polidor, a well-known eating establishment in the Fifth Arrondissement.  It is warm in the early evening when we step out onto the narrow street, and the city is humming with moving crowds. Again, store windows distract me, but so does the dappled light filtering through chestnut and mulberry trees along Boulevard St. Germain. And so does every pretty young woman and handsome man, every dash of color and splash of style. Paris is both lively and mellow, as if dipped in a warm wine. Young students are out for the evening, many of them smoking outside of cafes or standing in clusters or rolling past on bicycles. 

The backdrop of French language is a burbling white noise to me, like a babbling brook, and it runs like a thread through every scene, tying attitude, value and expectation into one whole. Separately, the bits and pieces of Paris might be whimsical, beautiful, stark or plain, but the language and what it represents to me about the people who speak it tie all into one physical place called Paris. It is enigmatic and elegant all at once, and so the city seems to me the same.  

Dinner at La Polidor is a very tasty and charming experience. It has been in business since 1865 and shows its bruises and sags, but the unmistakable golden patina of traditional French cuisine and style runs very deep in all that you see and eat there. I love my duck confit. It is exactly the meal I am looking for. Real food, simply prepared, grounded in centuries-old tradition that is unpretentious and proud. 

The young throbbing pulse of Saturday night is beating hard once we re-emerge onto city streets and lanes after dinner. It is such a balmy evening that no Parisian in their right mind would be left indoors. It is time for a good walk to aid digestion and see more of our city region.  Pont des Artes is spread with picnic blankets and lounging youth, living simply but well, on the bridge itself and on the banks of the Seine below. Thousands of people are out along the river, watching it, eating together, murmuring and laughing. It is very peaceful to see. The bridge itself consists of a boardwalk-style surface bordered essentially by a chain link fence set very low on both sides of the bridge. A few light standards and benches are arrayed attractively so that it seems more like a park than a bridge. The most unique feature that has emerged since it was built are many thousands of padlocks attached to the links of the fencing, each with a tiny inked-on message alluding to lost mates, true loves, parents or children. 

After crossing the bridge, a sad and mournful cello's echoing notes pull us toward the Louvre area, and then a flutist playing Bach lilts and lifts its notes to the cupolas and arches. The glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei reflects gray and silver hues off its surfaces in the Louvre courtyard. A small boy whizzes past on his in-line skates, weaving and curving gracefully and then ducking between startled tourists as he rounds a corner suddenly, out of sight, gone like a wisp.  So went the day, and then the night, flowing with youthful energy, grounded in a sense of the layered past.  

France: Time Travel

We board our A330 Air France Jet, begin to acclimatize to French culture: The language is French and secondary instructions and directions are given in English. The crew is professional, crisp-looking in their uniforms and attend to us quickly when we have questions.  There is only one child on board, a lovely five-year-old girl who seems not to have any inclination to be anything but be perfectly content and self-controlled.  A miracle.

My seat is meant for someone half my size, and I feel sudden kinship with sardines and contortionists.  I have no other complaints, but this one impacts me for the next nine hours.  I wish I wasn't tall; I wish I was only five feet and 90 lb soaking wet. Better yet, I vow to fly first class next time I go to Europe, but also know I'd better rob a bank first.

We are served a fine little dinner including pain (bread) served from a basket. Bread is the greatest source of French culinary pride besides wine. Before the  meal, we are asked to choose an aperitif. My choice is champagne. Mostly because I would normally have had to pay extra for alcoholic libations on a coach-class flight, but also because I am on my way to France and I am trying to be French, even if I am a sardine at the same time.

We arrive safely at Charles de Gaulle Airport, a very odd airport indeed because of multiple scattered and sometimes experimental-looking buildings, The outskirts of Paris look leafy and green, somewhat foreign, somehow not. I am addled. I have missed a night and a day but lived a span of time in midair traveling at 530 mph from continent to continent. I am interested in my surroundings but don't give much thought to them either, feel a little surprise at this. The shuttle bus arrives at Montparnasse train station where we descend into the metro station. A musician is playing a marimba while seated on the ground. The music is fantastic. We rush past smiling.

This is a rush of humanity coming and going from their various destinations. We are swept up in the clatter and clang of rushing and chattering students and workers streaming along the deep corridors of the metro. The halls are brightly lit, but there are occasional steps that interrupt the turns and sweeps. We keep our pace and arrive at Line 4's platform seconds before our train halts in front of us with squealing brakes. Doors whoosh open, we are engulfed, doors close again and the train rumbles and shrieks. It feels like I am a part of a swirling river whose energetic current never stops.

Ascending the final steps with clunking suitcases and sweating faces, we are suddenly in St. Germain, our neighborhood for now in Paris. There is nothing American here, but it is not really so foreign. The boulevard is tree lined and civilized but again the energy of a busy Saturday morning is present, less so than down below in the metro's halls.

What is it that tells you This Is Paris? It seems similar to San Francisco with the buses accelerating and braking along the street, people walking with lightly sounding footsteps and low conversations, but of course it's French. There are a lot of curving surfaces, wrought iron grates and balcony fronts. But those are first impressions. There is so much that is Paris that if anyone or anything might feel ambiguous, the environment around it influences it to be Parisian. I don't know how else to put it.

I'm tired. We find our hotel, a nearly invisible establishment that does not advertise itself at all and yet is up to its neck in a busy cafe-lined area of the Sixth Arrondissement very close to the Latin Quarter. It is Hotel La Louisianne. We are early to be checking in and are allowed to leave our bags until later. The hotel host is friendly and - what? - French. Yes, French and kind, and I am grateful for his kindness. He is a young man and laughs when we ask where to have lunch. It's 11:30. There's no one thinking about lunch yet in the area, he says but coffee is every 20 meters. About 30 seconds later we have found a cafe we feel satisfied with on a lively corner. We have been whisked here in a time span that seems both long and short. The tired energized feeling of jet lag knocks on our brains. We must pace ourselves somehow.  But first, this lovely petite dejeuner (breakfast). Ces't bon.