Paris, Day 1

A siren down the street, workers and stylish mamans with their kids walking briskly

Tables of apricots and mangoes, strawberries and apples

Irresistable frangrance of the boulangerie

Deux croissants, deux pains au chocolat

I take a bite as we walk to the Metro

Warmth

Crispy and flaky

Rich buttery flavour but light, airy

Could a croissant taste this good anywhere else?

The city is bustling. People on the go, crowds everywhere,

But when I bite into the pastry

I melt into the city

Decadence, beauty, tradition

The noise fades,

Time stops

All I can do is bite, feel the sweet dough between my teeth

The crust like honeyed scales

This is Paris

We arrive in Paris late in the afternoon and are picked up by Aviva and Marc, the parents of a family friend who studied in Ottawa. The drive from the Gare du Nord train station to Saint-Mandé, the suburb squeezed between the Péripherique ring road and the Bois de Vincennes park, is frightening. Marc explains that in Paris when you drive you need to take advantage of opportunities, switch lanes if you see a space, and assume others will get out of the way. Whether you are a cyclist, pedestrian or car, don’t hesitate one you start to move. Motorcycles ride between lanes, not in line with cars, and move twice as fast as other vehicles. Most street signs are, apparently, optional, and cutting people off and yelling or honking is part of the culture. It is good to arrive safely chez les Devaux on rue Sacrot.

The quartier is great. It is close to the centre-ville, on the Métro line, right by a huge park complete with chateau and fairgrounds. The main street, Charles de Gaulle (same as a good percentage of streets in French towns) has everything: four or five boulangeries (we are told that the first and third ones are the best), pizzeria, creperie, sushi, supermarché, a Picard frozen food emporium, a great little bookshop and a papieterie, full of specialty papers. There are a few banks (buzz first to have them unlock the door for you) including an HSBC branch where two very stylish and helpful agents explain why my bank card won’t work in extreme detail, and give me the phone number I need to call. When they try there was no reply as it was 1 am in Vancouver. When we get to the main square by the Mairie (city hall) the Thursday market is in full swing. Tables and table and tables of fruit and vegetables, fresh fish, pasta, meats, olives, cheeses, cheap knick-knacks and junk, and at the far end fashions under the watchful eye of a turbaned man. My health inspector friend, Janet, would flip seeing all the unpasteurized dairy products, shellfish, sheep, cow and pig organs and cuts of meat all out in the sun. Still it looks incredible and we leave with two dresses (for 10 Euro!), cherries, a bag of olives and some cheese that the olive vendor gave us because Tegan was so coy with tasting the olives. The start of a decadent lunch.

Day one in Paris comprised about 12 km of walking. We started at l’Etoile, the Arc de Triomphe, and after a few ups and downs in the underground passages that bypass the boulevards we stepped out into the bright sunshine. It is a massive structure, towering above the neighbouring buildings, a monument to the glory of Napoleon with all his victories engraved upon it (no mention of the Russian campaign or his inglorious end that I saw), and with the names of battles since in all the wars; the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath. Later that evening Marc asks Rowan do you know who the unknown soldier is. She doesn’t rise to his teasing, saying, um, no, he’s unknown.

We walk  down the Champs Elysées, big name stores and designers, a shoe store with a wall of tricouleur Converse. Tegan says she likes her new Converse better, and it’s true. They are much cooler. The most memorable part of the walk was the throng of men standing on top of a building, half of them in tuxedos, the other half bare-chested. Then another couple dozen bare-chested men on the boulevard. Maybe it was a designer’s publicity stunt, maybe our welcome committee, maybe just Parisien men wanting attention.

We continue past Place de la Concorde, with its obeslisk, stolen, given, acquired during Napoleon’s  Egyptian campaign. How you get a 100 foot obelisk from Egypt to Paris in one piece in the early 1800s is beyond me, but I doubt you could get away with that today. We meander through the Tuileries gardens, look at statues of river gods and the seasons, and decide we need to eat before heading into the Louvre. We have cheese, olives (the cherries we consumed walking past the narcissistic men) but lack baguette, so I lead the girls more or less knowing where we are going towards the Opera, down wide streets and narrow alleys, posh hotels and expensive restaurants, among tourists, businessmen and other locals, finally lining up with construction workers to get our drinks and bread. We picnic on the grass at the Louvre. How much better can life get? The homeless man that stumbles by us with his sleeping bag and other possessions jammed into plastic bags, looking for shelter in the Louvre bushes, is likely thinking the same. A beautiful sunny day, exquisite architecture, a glass pyramid in front of us and gardens and archways behind us. We could have napped if not for the throngs.

The Louvre itself is amazing, not just because the girls are free and it is cheaper than the Royal BC Museum. I liked looking at the foundations of Francois I’s original castle and watching Rowan’s eyes pop out and jaw drop at the painted ceilings, gilded cornices, and paintings the size of our house. The artefacts and art was amazing too. From the Roman pottery and sculptures to the Italian Renaissance painters. Yes we saw the Mona Lisa, La Jaconde, but the masses of people crowding in front put me off it a bit. The other da  Vincis did show off his incredible talent and how far ahead he was of many of his contemporaries. We don’t need to go back, because I think Rowan took photos of just about everything.

We finally decide to head out, our feet exhausted, try in vain to get a decent wi-fi connection at the mall connected to the Louvre, underground, discreet and very nicely done, but really? A mall connected to the Louvre? There is a Starbucks, a big Apple Store, a nature store and some fancy Parisian shops too, but it doesn’t do it for me, not that many/any malls ever did. We even need to pay 1 Euro for a fancy washroom boutiquey place, where they clean the facilities after each visitor and sell exclusive toilet paper and seats.

The final part of the day, it is getting on 6 pm by now, we walk along the Seine, past the bouquinistes and print sellers to Notre Dame. There is a line-up, still, a bread festival outside, and inside the glorious stained glass, carvings, glassed-in confessionals (it is after all the 21^st Century!), and then a service begins. A woman’s voice sings, ethereally, and reminds us all of the meaning of the building. My eyes are drawn up to the light, the woman’s beautiful and passionate voice echoing throughout. Yes this city is a tourist trap, full of cheap Chinese-made souvenirs and overpriced cafés, but moments like this restore my faith in the City of Light. That and the croissants.