Paris for a year

Today marks the two week countdown to the marathon.  The banners are posted once again, like before the semi-marathon. "Marathon de Paris dimanche 10 avril 2011," cautioning the Sunday regulars to the bois de Vincennes to reconsider the timing of their weekly outing.  Emotions are high among those who will toe the starting line.  Although I may be imposing my perspective on others, it feels as though there is a spirit of competition and comraderie among those of us who call the woods of Vincennes our running home, its château our unofficial mascot.  The exchanged glances as we pass feels different, a kind sizing up to try to determine whether we are actually as prepared as everyone else seems to be, knowing all the same that you can't always judge the worth of runner by his or her body...within reason.

When I returned home, I considered going out for a movie (they're about half price at my nearby theater on Sunday before 12h30), but then opted for a quiet afternoon in front of my computer, reading the news and then sifting through my notes from the previous day to write a little of my dissertation.

While reading the New York Times, I stumbled across an article entitled "A Paris Farwell."  Although my "farwell" won't be coming for another 3 1/2 months or so, I found myself projected into the future my the prospect of having to say goodbye in a much more tangible way than in the past.  We never really know what the future will bring, but it is unlikely that I will return to France as often as I have over the past ten years.  Since 2001, 2007 is the only calendar year marked by the complete absence of my feet in the Hexagon.  2001 marked my maiden voyage and set the stage for the years to come.  Although I arrived into CDG - Paris Charles de Gaulle, I spent the majority of my first 6 weeks here in the sleepy city of Tours.  Just after my 21st birthday in 2002, I returned to France to visit the families that had hosted me during my first trip.  2003-2004 marked my first true Parisian experience, under the auspices of the Middlebury MA program and endeared me to the 14th, 5th and 6th arrondissements.  In 2005, I experienced Lyon, thanks to a fellowship which kicked off my graduate career at UVa.  2006 introduced me to the Côte d'Azur (the French Riviera) and Provence (Arles, Avignon, Nîmes, le pont du Gard, lavender, Roussillon, etc.)  Trips to New Zealand and Australia in 2007 made a French trip impractical.  In 2008, I had the chance to head back to Lyon and Paris to visit my dear friends Alix and Céline, from their year abroad at UVa.  2009 led me back to France for a similar journey, and in 2010-2011, well, here I am, perhaps for one of my last long séjours abroad.  Being that only a few months away from the beginning of my 30th year, I must accept the reality, both exciting and sobering, that certain decisions in life need to be confronted sooner rather than later.  As I write these words and evoke these emotions, I regret very little and am looking forward to what the future may bring all the while savouring the past with which I have been blessed.

The opening lines of this article drew me in, as they more or less mirror my feelings and relationship to Paris.

"I’ve always been one of those girls. A die-hard Francophile. An American helpless in the face of Parisian charms and pleasures (...) who could never seem to shake the City of Light. I went for a college semester, I went with boyfriends, I went to eat chocolate. And finally (...) I went to live my dream."

"... my vision of Paris has been altered. What was once mysterious is now intimately understood. What was once mythical is now more real (though, admittedly, still magical). To some extent, Paris will always belong to the Truffauts, Fitzgeralds and Bernhardts of the world. But now some of my own history runs through its streets too."

"Weaned as I was on “A Moveable Feast” (...) when I moved to Paris, I saw it clearly divided between the artsy Left Bank and the buttoned-up Right Bank. The Left Bank was for thinkers and dreamers; artists and musicians; students and stargazers who famously sought inspiration — and, peut-être, absinthe. It’s where Josephine Baker shimmied, where Hemingway feasted and where Sartre and de Beauvoir had endless philosophical debates.

The Right Bank was for bankers at the Bourse and flâneurs on the grand boulevards. It was where manicured gardens, symmetrical squares and majestic monuments reigned supreme; a mélange of foreign embassies, tony boutiques and chichi cafes, all steps from where King Louis XVI and thousands of others were guillotined at the Place de la Concorde during the French Revolution."

(...)

"On an amazing market street filled with patisseries, fromageries and boucheries, nothing made me happier, or feel more Parisienne, than meandering up and down the pedestrian blocks, inhaling the irresistible smells of roasting chickens, stinky cheeses and warm, yeasty baguettes."

Great emotion wells up inside me as I read Ms. Thomas' account of her American experience in Paris, for it could just as well be describing mine. At least intially. She is writing for the Times Travel Section, so her account eventually devolves into a guide book listing of all the gourmet desserts she has consumed and the upscale tables she has visited. While I have certainly consumed my fair share of French delicacies, my experience in Paris, particularly on this trip is less notable for what I have consumed than for what has consumed me. I feel brought into the fold of Parisian life in a way that I could not have been if my financial means allowed greater expenditures. Sure, there are times when I would love to be able to take advantage of all the "culture" that fills theater halls, covers museum walls, and is sold at vendors' stalls. And yet, it is the phenomenon of recognition, of people and places becoming familiar that begins to make Paris another home. Frequent trips to the supermarkets and the bakeries in my neighborhood allow me to identify when the employees are having a good or bad day, for I have seen them throughout their many moods. Walking through the halls of my apartment, I can now offer a genuine smile of familiarity to the people with whom I exchange a neighborly "bonjour" or "bonsoir". Boarding the bus with the students going home for lunch, I recognize faces and the behavior of certain children. Running through the woods, I identify the regulars, either for their faces or running or walking movement. I even recognize certain people who make their living in the woods, either doing work for the city of Paris or providing more intimate services for certain men of the city of Paris. I even have begun to encounter familiar faces walking down the street or in various places of commerce. At the University, I continually cross paths with current and former students and with colleagues. Every once in awhile, on my way to the tennis club, before arriving and exchanging greetings with my little Parisian family in Joinville-le-pont, a familiar face in a passing car will give toot of the horn, a wave and a smile.

These and many more experiences and encounters have shaped my months in Paris. The streets of the city provide their own stage, and I am relishing the opportunity to play a year-long cameo role.

déjeuner suédois

To celebrate Kelly's return to Paris from Stockholm, we met up this afternoon for lunch at the Swedish cultural center in the Marais, a neighborhood in central Paris.  Kelly's text the night before offering the center as a noon meal destination surprised me.  I didn't realize that cultural centers were in the restaurant business.  Upon receiving the message, I looked online and learned about the "café suédois", which I assumed was a small room in the corner of the cultural center that served coffee, pastries and a few fish sandwiches.  While they do serve each of those items, they are much classier than I ever would have expected.  This is Paris, after all! :)

Above, you will notice the selections of our petit Swedish smorgasborg in the beautiful open courtyard of the centre culturel suédois.  Served on IKEA plates with coordinating glasses and silverware were a tuna salad sandwich and a herring/potato salad sandwich. (There was a sign posted just inside the threshold of the café thanking IKEA for the generous donation of the servingware and the furnitre.)  For dessert, we selected a carrot cake and a lingonberry (sp?) crumble both accompanied by a dollop of crème chantilly (whipped cream).  The food, the weather (beautiful!) and of course the company made for a lovely midday, early spring outing in Paris.

American Gothic Parisian-style

And it ends with a bang!  After a solid month of weekends with friends, playtime is over.  Now begins the countdown to both the Paris Marathon, my two week trip back to the U.S.  Not to mention the fact that major steps need to be taken towards knocking out my dissertation.

However, before all that craziness begins, it's time to take a look back on another magnificient weekend in Paris.

My dear friends from Lyon arrived right in the middle of my busiest day of the week, and thus, I was unable to greet their arrival and accompany them during their first hours in the capital.  However, being the autonomous beings that they are, M and A managed to entertain themselves just fine without me.  When our paths did finally cross in Saint Mandé, it was wonderful to be able to welcome them to my French "chez moi", and return the favor of hospitality.  I have now lost count of the number of times I have taken up residence in their living room in Sainte Foy.  

The next day, Marlène and Alix were able to enjoy a lazy Friday morning, while I headed out the door just as the sun was rising to finish out my week.  With morning classes, afternoon tennis, and an early evening nap, it was not until around 7 that the three of us we able to meet up again and truly kick off the weekend.

In grand American-Parisian style, we met up on (or near) the Champs-Elysées at one of the many exits of the Franklin D. Roosevelt metro station.  Our search for a bar led us just a few streets from the French Presidential residence to the intersection of FDR and rue de Ponthieu.  After about 15 minutes of indecision while waiting for our server to resurface after seating us, the weekend had officially begun with two fruit juices, shaken and twirled spectacularly through the air by our houdini of a waiter, and a glass of rosé. (I know, living on the wildside!)  But the Ponthieu served more as a short meetup with siblings and friends before heading out to the evening's main event: authentic Mexican food at Anahuacalli in the 5th arrondissement.

This was not your average Tex-Mex.  In fact, there was nothing average about our evening among these Mexican ex-pats.  In great conviviality, eight of us, three Americans and five French, enjoyed pitchers of margaritas, chips and salsa, delicious main courses of mole, enchiladas, and fajitas, and strong, liqueur-filled coffee.  Unlike Mexican (Tex-Mex) restaurants in the States, this one was not promoting the chip-and-dip/salsa culture.  For a table of 8, we received two small bowls of chips (maybe about 15 chips per container) and two sushi-soy sauce size mini-bowls of red ("non-spicy") and green ("spicy", it's all relative) salsa per bowl of chips.  I tend to be of the "chips with my salsa"school as opposed to the "salsa with my chips" one, so I was a little disappointed by the miniscule serving, and the reluctancy of the servers to refill the two tablespoons of salsa that filled each of the bowls.  That being said, they could not be accused of causing us to spoil our appetite and thus, our enjoyment of delictable morsels that were to come.

Over dinner, there were a few words about an earthquake in Japan, the extent of the damage, none of us could have imagined until we began watching video footage posted on the internet in the days that followed.

The next day, we skipped the morning in favor of the afternoon (although I did manage to see the last minutes of the AM with 45 min run).  The object of our outing represents the next step in my ongoing love affair with the Château de Vincennes.  Like a new crush, I have been admiring the Château for some time now, but mostly from a far.  During my first months in Paris, I would catch a glimpse of the flag and the top portion of the dungeon's tower peeking out from behind the trees while running or biking through the woods to go to tennis.  Exhibit A gives you an idea of my initial sightings of the Château albeit from much closer up:

So as to be a bit more neighborly and decrease the physical and affective distance between me and my crush, I began to cirle the path around the Château a part of my running route in a sort of "march around the walls of Jericho"-type rhythm; although I'm sure I made it around the castle more than 7 times!

 

 Lacking the courage (and equipment) to send the walls crashing down with the blow of a ram's horn, I sought the go ahead "thumbs up" from my friend Kelly before finally taking the next big step and finally crossing the threshold past the Château's outer defences:

And in we go!

This is actually the front - we went in through the back door.

Once again, lacking the gumption to go it alone, I brought Alix and Marlène along for the inaugural visit.

  Clearly they loved the castle as well for they say that imitation is the highest (and perhaps most sincere) form of flattery.  

 

I've still got a little work to do...

Dungeon

La Saint Chapelle

Post-promenade play in the Parc Floral de Paris

Simon and Garfunkel, anyone?

Mlle Courbon

 

Finding no place for myself in "Parc Floral de Paris", I was feeling a little "lo"

To be continued...