Year: 2011

Yesterday, I had the grandest plan for this, my second full day in Paris.  I was going to get up early, go to the Richard Lenoir outdoor market, then make use of the free first Sunday in many of the cities museums.  Initially, I thought I would go to the Cluny, because I truly love the tapestries and other weird medieval stuff in there.  Then, I thought, well, I SHOULD go to the museum of modern art at the Pompidou, because I have never been there before.  But then it occurred to me that I could go to the Louvre, for FREE.  Well, I knew that I would probably not be able to do them all unless somehow I got up at 6 AM which was basically 200% impossible.  So I decided to figure it out later, which is what I did, kind of.

Unfortunately, I could not sleep last night at all.  I was watching that cheesy TNT production of the Mists of Avalon dubbed in French, and it appeared that they were going to play the entire gazillion hours of that mess, but at half past midnight I thought well if I am going to get up to go to that market I had better get some sleep.  Alas, there was some kind of drum and bass party going on in the ‘hood; the sounds so low that if I had been tired, I would have slept through it.  Kind of like a booming sound from time to time.  Then it started to rain.  I lived in San Diego too long I guess, we never check the weather report in those parts, there is no need to; so I guess I was kind of surprised it was raining after such a gorgeous sunny day.  (Why my last six weeks traversing the US didn’t correct me in this seriously lame way of thinking is a mystery to me.)  Anyway,  I like the sound of the rain, especially on the roof of an attic apartment in Paris, but that, the drum and bass party, and some truly bizarre, also unsettling, dreams kept me from getting any sleep until whatever time in the early morning, so I slept until 10:30.  Thereby, missing the market part of the day, because heck if I am ever going to get out of here right when I wake up.  It takes some hours.  Next time I am not going to fight it, I am going to watch all of the Mists of Avalon dubbed in French.  Lesson learned.

So over my coffee I thought, I will go to the Louvre, and then after that, I can go to the Pompidou.  If I can motor through them, then I will head on down to the Cluny.  HAHAHAHAHA.  That is pretty funny, huh?  Even I know myself, that this is a completely insane undertaking.   To make matters even more, uh, me, I had stashed all my cash somewhere in the apartment so well that I could not remember where I put it.  I actually had enough to go out (since I only can spend 25 euros a day, it is not that hard to find laying around the house) but I knew that if I did not find it I would just obsess about it for the rest of the day.  I finally remembered where it was and managed to get out of here at 12:30. I swear, I drive myself crazy sometimes.

So. Off to the Louvre on the metro which was easy and weirdo free, but then I got into that carrousel du Louvre shopping center and was hit full force with the assault of every other person on the planet being there at exactly the same time as me.  Well not really, but it sort of felt like that in that moment.  Add to that half of them texting while walking and the other half taking  photos of their kids in various unphotogenic settings…. then I saw the line to get into the Louvre.  Quel horror! Mi dio!  No freeking way.  There were hundreds if not thousands of people waiting to get in there.  Then I saw a Virgin megastore.  Je adore Virgin megastore, buh buy Louvre.  I went straight to the listening stations.  I wondered, if I buy something that I wanted to buy at home, and will eventually buy at home, does it count towards my budget?  But then I thought, well, that might be problematic, since it could get me into all kinds of snafus with wine, mustards, chocolates etc.  Because let’s face it I pretty much want to buy stuff.  So I decided to just listen to some records for future refererence.  But then after about 10 minutes of listening to the new Mogwai record I was like, are you out of your mind? It is free museum day!  Come back here when museums aren’t free. So I hung up my headphones reluctantly, but the cool thing is I can go back and listen for hours if I want to.  At least that is what I told myself.  I swear – I totally drive myself crazy sometimes.  I am starting to wonder if I drive other people crazy too.  It would not surprise me in the least.

I walked to the Georges Pompidou thinking if the line was long, I just would not go in.  It was a little rainy and very cloudy today but not really cold, so I figured all the museums would be crowded.  But when I got to the museum there was no line to get in.  I think that the universe wanted me to go in, because later in the day, there were lines, and plenty of them.  I am now wondering if there was some kind of trippy Mists of Avalon thing, where the goddess lowered the fog, and let me in, then put the fog back up. Whatever it was, I am so, so, SO glad the Louvre did not work out, and that I was able to get in with no fuss, because the Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou is one of the most incredible museums I have ever been to.  EVER.

I love modern art especially from the first half of the 20th century, but for some reason I end up going to museums with medieval and Renaissance art.  This is why, I guess, I never went to the Pompidou before (except to have a drink on the terrace upstairs.)  Now I feel so lame.  I saw so much today – so much color, so much beauty, so much ugliness, so much weirdness.  It was… an assault on my senses, and a good one.  A great one in fact, though I did get quite dizzy and overwhelmed from it all.  Along with the Braques and the Kandinskys and the Picassos, there were some really crazy surrealist films shown in narrow corridors lined with paintings.  Not too many people went into watch them, or to look at the paintings, and there was a Dali in one of those corridors, with sand in the painting.  From his house in Cadaques, I guess.  I was intrigued by the little Man Ray black and white portraits of his friends/compatriots (hello, Alice B. Toklas.  What up?)  I spent hours staring at giant canvases full of little bits of color, those trippy films, plus the greatest hits of the above painters.  After a while I felt as though I was going to pass out, and not from hunger (though I had only had a banana and a chocolate croissant to eat all day.)  So I went downstairs to the cafe that overlooks the main floor and entrance of the museum.  I spent a happy hour there, drinking a little bottle of white wine and getting over my very real attack of Stendahl’s Syndrome.  There is an area where they show little kids how to do create art, and the people watching was awesome times infinity.  But outside, the line was getting not only long, but insanely long.  When I was done I wanted to go back up and look some more, but the lines were crazy up there, too.  So I walked around the top level with its fantastic views, then got out of there.

I started to walk home but of course, walked in the completely opposite direction and refused to get my map out because this is the way I roll.  (This, I know, can drive some people other than me crazy sometimes.)  It was only when some dude from Cherry Hill, New Jersey asked me for directions that I finally got my map out.  And I was walking, I dunno, somewhere totally wrong.  Which was OK until I hit the scuzzy Rue St. Denis, it brought all those weird dreams I had last night back… I think now maybe I was dreaming of the future last night.  Got my bearings finally and headed down the Rue Rosiers when I realized I was totally starving and also, thirsty and that it was 6:30 PM and all I had all day was a banana, a chocolate croissant, a little mandarin orange and a 1/4th bottle of white wine.   I totally wanted a falafel, the urge was intense, but the lines were long, and we all know I can’t fathom dinner without wine with it.  So I walked a bit more and spied a wine bar and was like I have to SIT DOWN, NOW so I went in.  I ordered a Sancerre Rouge and the waiter said, small, or medium?  Well, medium of course.  A medium was 8.40 euros, but it was pretty big and came with a plate of salami (bonus!) so I spent at least another happy hour there.  Maybe longer.  At the table next to me there were a group of youngsters who ordered giant crepes with boatloads of chocolate on top.  It took a great deal of willpower to not run my finger through one of those bad boys.  Seriously.

I think it was Ernest Hemingway who wrote, when one is hungry, the colors of the world are more vibrant, outlines sharper, beverages more tasty.  This is not exactly the way he said it, but this is the way I remembering it now.  I am not hungry, but I can truthfully say that traveling with constraints has sharpened the outlines of my days here so far.  I want more.

Back in June of last year, I got this crazy obsession to spend a month in Paris.  In those foggy days in my little apartment at the beach in San Diego, this obsession seemed to totally take over my life for like, I don’t know, 72 hours.  Maybe that doesn’t seem like too long but it was as I was TOTALLY obsessing.  Also I didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, and that made me obsess even more.

Well, enough about obsessing.  Whatever happened in that 72 hours, I managed to find an apartment for 1000 euros for the month, and I managed to convince myself (with the help of quite a few other people, who also obsess a lot about Paris, I have a feeling) that I could live here, for 25 euros per day after rent.

Well, now I am here.  For a month!  And the rent is paid. Now I have to stick to the rest, but I already kind of blew it.

I got here yesterday.  The only snafus of the day were at the airport – I needed to get a crapload of euros (like 800) to pay for my apartment when I got here, and the first ATM I went to was first shut down, then opened back up a few minutes later, then said my card(s) were no good.  So I checked with an info guy and he directed me to an ATM in another terminal.  En route I had a fairly comical interaction which was indeed so comical, I’m not completely sure I would even consider it a snafu.  I was pushing my cart with my stuff on there, and there was a sort of cart “accident” in front of me, so I slowed down but the guy in front of me, who was one of the ones in the cart accident, backed up and grazed his heel on my cart.  He about had a meltdown there.  He was going on like I had severed an artery or something… seriously, he could not have felt anything unless he was one of those glass people like that dude in Amelie.  Anyway after that 5 seconds of fuss I was at the other ATM and got the money and got a cab and then voila, I was here.

Once I got here, and got into my little attic apartment in the Bastille area, I went out for lunch then supplies.  This is where I sort of blew my budget, on my very first day.  Actually, after spending 45 euros on a taxi and then 1000 on the apartment, I was kind of like “what the hell I just won’t count day one.”  So I went out and spent 20 euros on some substandard Thai food and crap wine and then another 75 euros but on a lot of food and 4 bottles of wine.  It doesn’t count, plus it is going to make the next few days way easier!  After this though, it is all about the budget.

In the late afternoon, after unpacking all my goodies, I took a short nap and then walked down to the Seine and the Notre Dame.  There weren’t that many people in front of Notre Dame, but there sure were a lot of youngsters drinking down on the quai.  Which brings me to this: there are a lot of youngsters drinking in public in general.  Now, I am not against public drinking, in fact I am a serious advocate of it.  As long as those involved are nice about it and don’t litter.  Or sit in the way of folks from the neighborhood who are out for a walk, especially if you are going to play quarters with a couple of 12-packs of Kronenburg.   I was crossing a bridge over the canal that leads up to the Place de la Bastille to get back home, and there are these concrete post thingies coming up at either end, and some kid is passing me with his beer and then proceeds to deposit his empty bottle, right there on the post.  Dude.  Can you not find one of the gazillion garbage cans the city of Paris has put all over the friggen place?  This is one of the moments when I really truly wish I was born with the language gene. (If someone can please tell me, how to say “Pick up that bottle and put it in the garbage, young whippersnapper!” that would be great.  (Only, if you are going to suggest a comparable French word for whippersnapper, please don’t mess with me and give me word that would get me in trouble with the whippersnapper and/or the police.)

The Place de la Bastille was a little nutty too.  Heck, I thought all the partying I saw there before was due to the Techno parade that I went to twice there.  Wrong!

I love my street though and there is everything you could possibly want or need within a five minute walk.  And the only thing I can hear, even though the crazy Place de la Bastille is right up the street, are the birds singing.

Today I got a bit of a late start (normal for me) and had no real plan, but it being a beautiful day, and a Saturday, I headed out to the Parc Villette. Got on the subway, and of course some weirdo sits next to me.  He starts poking me and I just shake my head.  He pokes me again.  I shake my head again.  He pokes me again.  Asks me if I speak French.  No, I say.  Espanol?  No, Italian.  Heh.  That shut him up.  (By the way I don’t really speak Italian.) Then he pokes a woman standing in front of us.  I think he asked her for the time, because she sort of smiled and pointed at her wrist a la “dude, you have a watch.” But he poked her again so she told him the time, then he got up and left.  Me and her exchanged a shrug, the “what a weirdo” shrug which, thankfully, is kind of universal.  My first full day in Paris, and already I have the What a Weirdo Shrug Exchange with a local.  Awesome!

There is not much green space in Parc Villette, but a lot of museums and an exhibition hall and a merry go round.  It is big, a canal runs through it, and it was packed with families enjoying the warm weather with their kids.  As it is everywhere, it was fun to watch the little kids run and play.  The rock venue the Zenith is there; and there were a lot of young girls sitting in a long line waiting to get the spot on the rail for this evening’s show.  I had no idea who it was so went to see if I could hear what appeared to be a sound check.  But it was Sting singing King of Pain and there is no way, no how these girls are lining up for Sting.  Turns out it is Enrique Iglesias. Also, that was not a sound check.  Unless Mr. Iglesias is covering a Sting song, something I highly doubt.

I took the metro back to Oberkampf, then walked all the way back up the Canal St. Martin.  The whole canal was lined with people hanging out, talking, playing music, eating, drinking.  I even saw four chicks playing an accordian and three wind instruments.  I walked and walked, back towards the Bastille, sort of having a race with a tourist canal boat.  I’d be way in front, but then I would stop to look at something, and the boat would catch up.  Then I was in front, then I stopped to buy an orange.  Then the boat was in front.  As you can see, traveling with me is a thrill a minute.  I did learn that when the tourist boat on the Canal St. Martin has to be lowered in those lock thingys, it makes the most cool refreshing breeze.  Kind of like walking into a cave.

Once home, I had a real bee in my bonnet to go out and have some wine by a canal like everyone else in Paris seemed to be doing.  So I got some Burgundy and some potato chips and headed down to that canal that goes to the Bastille from the Seine, which is decidedly more upscale than the Canal St. Martin but a lot closer to my apartment.  There, I spent the late afternoon writing, reading, and drinking red wine while the sun set over the rooftops across the canal.  Well, I say reading but what I was really doing was watching people walk by, or drink on their yacht, or reveling in the fact that I could drink Burgundy out of a glass while the cops drove by.

Now I am back in my apartment, where I will eat Alsatian sausage, mashed potatoes and some sauteed tomatoes.  This is actually most likely my meal for the next three nights.  Before you think I am unhappy about this, or that I am crazy to come to Paris and not eat all those fine restaurant meals, know that this is the way I want it to be.  If you could have a month in Paris and eat sausage at home, or a week in Paris and eat out all the time, what would you choose?  I know some would say the week; but for me, it is all about The Month.  And I am so lucky, and I know that.  Lucky.