Paris, je t'aime

So, this is going to read much like a journal entry. I hope to master brevity and voice once I am no longer jetlagged. It's nice to hope, at least. For your viewing ease, I have bolded what might most interest you so you can 'skip to the good stuff'. Why I let the rest stay when I can distinguish between it and the good stuff remains an eternally "good" question; one that right now is rhetorical.


Et VOILA!


My flight at noon on June the 23rd of the year of our Lord two thousand and nine having been delayed, American Airlines granted me a non-stop flight on delta, some 4 hours later. Needless to say, I didn't mind. Because of the delay, I was also able to see my dear Susie Monterrosa at the airport, shipping out for Miami for 6 weeks. I'll be tanner than her when I get back, don't you worry.


I slept at intervals on the 10 or so hour flight here. Somehow, I was always sleeping when they were distributing food and had to wake myself up. A shame really, because it took me another hour at least to fall back into a sleep that was never as nice as the one before.


It’s funny because I probably said no more than 10 words altogether to either the man on my left (see, I’ve already forgotten his name) and Eric on my right (whose name I learned at baggage claim) until we were maybe 10 minutes from landing. We had about 15 minutes of taxiing during which time we broke into light conversation. Eric was a couple years older than me. He was Chinese so it’s kinda hard to say. I know that seems like a terrible thing to say, maybe, but it’s true that a lot of asian people have this eternal youth thing about them. Plus I’m not too hot at guessing ages anyway.


So Eric and I, we headed to the baggage claim together, almost getting lost only twice, which is really a mark of successful navigation in the Parisian airport. Eric asked which bags were mine and loaded both of them on the those carts (chariot in french, see, I’ve already forgotten my English). That’s when we shook hands and learned names. We found a map that was hardly helpful and made our way out of the baggage claim hoping to find an information booth on the other side. Sure enough, there it was. Eric was taking the RER (train) into Paris and felt really bad about leaving me unsure of where to catch my shuttle. It wasn’t until I was 20 feet away from the information desk that I was able to assure him that “j’etais une grande fille”. He was there to practice his French too, after all. I was a big girl, I said. And I’m suddenly doubting my translation, but as it was the first sentence in French I spoke, I’ll give myself a break.


I had this impractical impression that somehow the moment the plane landed, everything would come back to me; that I would know intuitively where everything in the airport was, where the shuttles picked me up, how to buy RER and metro tickets and how they worked and how to navigate my way around Paris without looking at my map every two seconds. It wasn’t only because my plane came in another terminal entirely that this was far from the case. Everything was as new to me as if it had been my maiden voyage. Apparently five years is not yesterday, and I’ve never really had a tactile memory anyway.



On the shuttle to the hotel I somehow struck conversation up with a family right behind me who weren’t sure they were in the right place and didn’t speak a lick of French. Each shuttle services several hotels and there are also several shuttles, so it can be confusing. Turns out they were from Utah and had been on my flight and were going to my same hotel. While I was turned around talking to them my backpack kinda slipped off my lap a bit, so I turned to the woman next to me to apologize (in French) and she responded “c’est correcte”. That may be French but it is typically Quebecois French so then I plunged into conversation with her easily in my rusty Quebecois. Upon arriving at the hotel, the family asked me if I would help them check in and ask for information about Paris. The family consisted of Joe, the father, Gwen, the mother, and Joseph the 18 yr old son. They were from Morgan, Utah but when I first asked them I heard “Oregon” so the fact that they were also LDS didn’t come up until a bit later. Turns out Joe is a pilot for Delta and was able to get seats on the plane last minute, maybe 2 days before. So they were really going on the fly, to celebrate Joseph’s graduation. Being unprepared and not speaking French, they thought I was a golden find and asked if they could tag along my Paris wanderings. They were just about as happy to help me as I was to help them. I should mention that I never did learn their last name. It was from their phone that I called home to tell Mom I’d gotten in ok.


We decided to leave for Paris some 45 minutes after checking in and then we were off. It was nice, really, not only to be of use but to feel not entirely alone. They paid for my ticket both to and from Paris (8 euros a piece) in exchange for my service as their guide into Paris. We got into Paris around 2:30. I was supposed to meet up with Jonathan after he was off work, which was at 3:30 so that didn’t really give me time for museums, plus I still had to contact him somehow. So we decided to go to Notre Dame which doesn’t take so much time and which is free to enter.

I have some very serious doubts as to whether or not I had ever been in the Notre Dame de Paris before today. I remember climbing it and looking out at the labyrinth expanse of city with gargoyles as company, but I have been in too many grand cathedrals now to be certain. It was an impressive sight, though more or less than I remembered I can’t really say.


We crossed the street afterwards in search of water. We were all dying of thirst. Me, I was also on a quest to find a phone booth, having picked up a phone card in the train station. Joseph spotted one for me and then they went off to find water while I made the call to Jonathan. Jon didn’t answer and I left a message, explaining my phone situation and that I hadn’t forgotten him and that I’d call back. I came out to find that my delta family had bought me a water bottle and wouldn’t let me pay them back.


Gwen and I were zombies now. We weren’t awake enough to really be aware but it’s all clear now, looking back. So the 2 of us plus Joseph decided to lay back on a patch of shaded grass in a small parc just kiddie corner to Notre Dame and take a power nap while papa Joe got a feel for the territory. There were a bunch of frenchies sitting on benches all around us and their voices lulled me to sleep and just before I nodded off I remember thinking that French men weren’t as bad looking as I remembered. In fact, they were actually really good looking. Zombies, they’re funny.


Post nap I called Jonathan and arranged to meet him in an hour, which we killed winding in and out of streets and traffic. One thing I had forgotten completely is the noise of traffic in Paris. Those French really love their horns, they just can’t get enough of them. Delta family and I parted ways on a bridge overlooking the Seine river, just beyond Notre Dame. It’s a famous view, hard to put in words. I didn’t even try to take a picture. We hugged like we’d known each other for days and not mere hours. Weird how traveling does that to you.


With some difficulty I managed to find the metro exit where Jonathan was waiting for me. He’s good. After 4 years he recognized me with my hair pulled back and my sunglasses on. Or maybe my bag or dress was the tip off, I don’t really know. As for him, he blended in well with the multitude of nicely dressed men. Not a tshirt in sight.I had to do a double take because he looked younger than I remembered.


We went to this scrumptious fruit restaurant-Paradis des fruits-and ordered something like smoothies. He remembered so many of my friends-Liz, Ghazal, JD, Chris and we talked about old Utah times as if, yes, it was only yesterday. Then we discussed school and jobs and where we think we’ll be in 5-10 years. This is when I found out that Masters programs in Franch are not very competitive or selective and that not only could I get in easily but that it would be free (well, 200 euros a year so yes, basically free). This is also when I realized that I had caught the bug again; much quicker this time and perhaps for good. You know of course, the bug I’m talking about: the I’m-going-to-move-to-France bug that I was supposed to shake off by going there again. I started thinking, though, about how much luggage I would have to haul around for such a move, not to mention all that I would have to leave behind and the bug quivered. Ah, my fickle ways.


As for Jonathan, he wants to move to the US, if possible. We make a fine pair, we really do. I sometimes wonder if I am truly independent enough for such a move. My short time in Paris had taught me one thing: that everything I knew about getting around I had at best learned from someone else or more likely, I had followed until it became intuitive. What I was capable of on my own was another story entirely. At 25 years old, people are still taking care of me, left and right. My companions on my mission, no matter how long they had been out, seemed to end up taking care of me. My co-workers take care of me, and I often get the impression at school that I could easily be one of the students, for all that I have yet to learn. The fact that packing all by myself for France was an entirely new thing that struck me as out of place at the time sums up how much I am taken care of at home. Then Eric takes care of me at the airport. Then Delta family looks after me, even though I was the one who was supposed to be looking after them. I explained this all to Jonathan, my half successful attempts at becoming an independent woman. You wouldn’t have understood it either, without me giving you three detailed pages of my dependant adventures. He laughed, told me I was being silly and that I was independent and then told me he was paying the bill and that I could be independent the next time we met up for dinner. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the desert I had. Double chocolate goodness, it was so rich I couldn’t finish it. It was also my first trespass into the world of French gluten. Gorgeous.


Jon walked me to the metros. I told him I was a big girl but that didn’t stop him. He told me which line to take and where to get off and I thought I had him then, but no, he wanted to give me a metro ticket. I told him I was never going to be an independent woman if no one would let me buy my own tickets. ‘You’re right’, he told me. Then he walked me to the ticket machine. “Alright, independent woman,” he said, “you’re not allowed to put the machine to English.” As if I needed to (bluff). I did everything right and he coddled me the whole time, congratulating me for my knowledge of language and buttons. Which is why I love him, of course.


And then, of course, the machine wouldn’t accept my American credit card.

And the machine only took payment in coins, not bills.

And I only had bills.

And all the ticketing offices were closed for the night.

And I if Jonathan hadn’t been there, I would have had to walk my way to the Arc de Triomphe and then back to Notre Dame to take my train, which I would have been unable to ride if my Delta family hadn’t already paid for my ticket. Independent woman, indeed.


Jon didn’t even rub it in my face. And he told me that if things turn out bad in Marseille that his Parisian apartment will be vacant in a few weeks and he’ll come down from Lille to give me the keys. Bases covered.


I wrote in one of my mission letters home that all metros have that same metro smell. A kind of stale, winded smell that rides on the light scent of something-a circuit maybe- burning. The metro cars themselves have that same smell hidden underneath the perspiration. I don’t know what people have against deodorant, I really don’t. Every step down I take into the metro takes me back in an instant to all I have travelled in before. Montreal, Rome, Barcelona, even Rennes. The Parisian metro however bears the distinction of a people who don’t go out of their way to find a bathroom. Not the whole metro, mind you, but every corner or so your nose catches a glimpse. It’s a smell that takes me no where at all, but rushing past that corner where I caught it.

I emerged from the metro to find the Arc de Triomphe at dusk, exactly as wonderful as I remember it. I spent the next few hours wandering down the Champs Elysée and then finding my way through longs streets to the Eiffel tour. I was alone and I ended up taking the same path I had walked on my last night in Paris, almost 5 years ago to the day. It was not intentional, either, just simple navigational logic. I walked past the Mcdonald’s where I’d had my last supper. Full of proper French food, I had no desire to enter, not even for nostalgia’s sake. There were a couple of moments where I had to catch myself, to keep a few tears from escaping. They seemed to stem from my soles instead of my eyes. My feet had a strange feeling in them. They felt at home. Then again, my shoes had walked those streets and what’s more they were French shoes to begin with. But nostalgia can play tricks as sure as light can. I felt the absence of Mom and Chris, my previous travel companions, on certain streets. I turned my music up and much as I missed them, I was glad I had a chance make Paris my own again, set the past back where it belongs and keep walking.


I got off the RER and heard my name. Family Delta was getting off from the next car down. It’s a strange town, Paris.