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Europe on Two Martinis a Day - Part 5 (Paris)
Friday, August 29th, 2008 06:32 pmA long time ago I had a French student who was less than happy about going back to Paris for the summer. "Jean-Do," I asked, "How can you possibly not like Paris?" "Because it ees ferl of fercking Parisiennes!" (I am not exaggerating the accent; this is the guy who said he didn't want to improve his pronunciation because "ze English gurrlz, zey jerst leerrv ze Fronsh accon.") This attitude of the rest of France to Paris goes some way towards explaining the complex feelings we Britons have towards France as a whole. Calling it a love-hate relationship would be oversimplifying a little. It's also an inferiority-superiority complex, approach-avoidance, self-other, and just about every conflicted thingummy imaginable. We despise the poncy Frogs, we've fought a dozen wars with them (although in the last two we were technically on the same side), we believe, with an insularity that goes way beyond racism, that "wogs begin at Calais," yet deep down, a part of us secretly wants to be French, which is why so many Brits are pushing up house prices in Provence. We want the food, the wine, the sexy language and the whole je ne sais de vivre just like the Goths and Vandals wanted to speak Latin and live in villas with hypocausts. I imagine this is pretty much how normal French people feel about Parisiennes. I don't know if there any exalted beings that inspire these feelings in Parisiennes—if so, they probably live on Mt. Olympus, and their main worry in life is deciding which vintage of ambrosia would go best with the camembert.
Anyway, I was all for skipping France, just like I wanted to skip Germany (and pretty much did). But you can't take your wife on a tour of Europe and not take her to Paris, even if it is full of fercking Parisiennes. Paris is the City of Lovers, remember? That means if you don't take your significant other to Paris, it means you don't love her. Erfurt, you can safely skip; skip Paris at your peril. (That last sentence had anastrophe, anadiplosis and double alliteration, so you should take it seriously.)
As usual, there was the frantic search for a hotel. We found one online, then found it physically, and found it just about acceptable. It was a tiny room with the normal noisy French plumbing, but it was forty Euros for a place near the Gar de Nord, so we couldn't complain. We then had to find something to eat and drink, which was less successful; we sat in a cafe in our street, where I had a chewy chicken sandwich and a glass of wine, but Nalan didn't like the look of anything on the menu and just had a bottle of water. My wine cost me €3.00, which was a little on the pricy side; her water cost €3.50, which a fellow customer informed us was normal. "In Paris, you don't drink water," he explained with a smug smile. "If you're thirsty, drink wine or beer." Fercking Parisiennes.
I woke early. Our bargain hotel turned out to be next to a building site. What was bizarre was that I was woken by the sound of labourers shouting to each other in Turkish. In my befuddled state, I wondered if this whole holiday thing had been a dream and I was actually still in Ankara. But the day got better from there; it was time to treat Nalan to the condensed one-day Paris tour I had discovered the last time I visited this beautiful city in 1990.
First stop: the Seine. You can do a good tour of Paris without going far from the Seine, and you could probably get a pretty good sense of the city without even leaving its banks. The Seine is Paris.
You don't need to take the boat trip (unless you want to recreate that scene from Kiss of the Dragon). Just toddle along the bank, looking at the sculptures, the bridges and the houseboats that remind you of Anais Nin. (Well, they do if you're into literary gossip and erotica. If you don't know Nin, let me put it this way: she was the first celebrity blogger.) The Seine will take you to Notre Dame, which does not disappoint. Notre Dame is totally Notre Damey.
From there, I was tempted to go to the Louvre, just so I could feel like I was in Tomb Raider or The Da Vinci Code, but we didn't have a week to spare. Nalan was dodging security guards to spend a few more minutes in the Van Gogh Museum, so God knows what she would be like in the Louvre. Instead, I took her to the Pompidou Centre, which is the Mecca of modern art. The conversation went something like "Omigod, Matisse. Omigod, Braque. Omigod, Picasso. Omigod Kandinsky. Hmmm, a Dada room. Not too keen on Dada. Omigod, Dali."
After Nalan had recovered from her multiple orgasms, there was not much time left, so we had to walk briskly back along the Seine to catch the train to Barcelona. But it was this hurried walk that summed up what is great about Paris. The banks of the Seine were full of people. Most of them were sitting, chatting, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine. Some were waltzing. Some were tangoing. Some were even doing capoeira. Maybe the fercking Parisiennes aren't so bad after all.
Anyway, I was all for skipping France, just like I wanted to skip Germany (and pretty much did). But you can't take your wife on a tour of Europe and not take her to Paris, even if it is full of fercking Parisiennes. Paris is the City of Lovers, remember? That means if you don't take your significant other to Paris, it means you don't love her. Erfurt, you can safely skip; skip Paris at your peril. (That last sentence had anastrophe, anadiplosis and double alliteration, so you should take it seriously.)
As usual, there was the frantic search for a hotel. We found one online, then found it physically, and found it just about acceptable. It was a tiny room with the normal noisy French plumbing, but it was forty Euros for a place near the Gar de Nord, so we couldn't complain. We then had to find something to eat and drink, which was less successful; we sat in a cafe in our street, where I had a chewy chicken sandwich and a glass of wine, but Nalan didn't like the look of anything on the menu and just had a bottle of water. My wine cost me €3.00, which was a little on the pricy side; her water cost €3.50, which a fellow customer informed us was normal. "In Paris, you don't drink water," he explained with a smug smile. "If you're thirsty, drink wine or beer." Fercking Parisiennes.
I woke early. Our bargain hotel turned out to be next to a building site. What was bizarre was that I was woken by the sound of labourers shouting to each other in Turkish. In my befuddled state, I wondered if this whole holiday thing had been a dream and I was actually still in Ankara. But the day got better from there; it was time to treat Nalan to the condensed one-day Paris tour I had discovered the last time I visited this beautiful city in 1990.
First stop: the Seine. You can do a good tour of Paris without going far from the Seine, and you could probably get a pretty good sense of the city without even leaving its banks. The Seine is Paris.
You don't need to take the boat trip (unless you want to recreate that scene from Kiss of the Dragon). Just toddle along the bank, looking at the sculptures, the bridges and the houseboats that remind you of Anais Nin. (Well, they do if you're into literary gossip and erotica. If you don't know Nin, let me put it this way: she was the first celebrity blogger.) The Seine will take you to Notre Dame, which does not disappoint. Notre Dame is totally Notre Damey.
From there, I was tempted to go to the Louvre, just so I could feel like I was in Tomb Raider or The Da Vinci Code, but we didn't have a week to spare. Nalan was dodging security guards to spend a few more minutes in the Van Gogh Museum, so God knows what she would be like in the Louvre. Instead, I took her to the Pompidou Centre, which is the Mecca of modern art. The conversation went something like "Omigod, Matisse. Omigod, Braque. Omigod, Picasso. Omigod Kandinsky. Hmmm, a Dada room. Not too keen on Dada. Omigod, Dali."
After Nalan had recovered from her multiple orgasms, there was not much time left, so we had to walk briskly back along the Seine to catch the train to Barcelona. But it was this hurried walk that summed up what is great about Paris. The banks of the Seine were full of people. Most of them were sitting, chatting, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine. Some were waltzing. Some were tangoing. Some were even doing capoeira. Maybe the fercking Parisiennes aren't so bad after all.
