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Jet Lag
We arrive in the 11th Arrondissement - sleepless,
luggageful, cranky - by plane, train, Metro and on foot. Our
friend Christelle, who I'd expected to be home to let us in,
is elsewhere. We have to find a tabac to buy a phone card to
call her on her mobile. No one answers at the number she left
on her note.
We sit in a cafe, exhaustion inoculating us
to its charms. I look at my phone list to find another French
friend to whine to. On the list I notice that Christelle's number
does not match the one I've been dialing! She didn't write the
wrong number. Her fours - elegant French loops - looked to me
like sixes.
Armed with the correct number, I arrange a
rendezvous with Christelle two blocks away, and there I secure
the keys which allow us to enter her apartment and apply the
magic jet lag recipe.
The Magic Jet Lag Recipe (if you've never
flown east to Europe you won't appreciate the magic) ...
Ingredients:
1 or 2 overtired travelers
1 bed
1 morning and 1 afternoon
dinner
Apply the travelers to the bed as soon as
possible after they deplane from their red-eye flight. Sleep
them until evening. Return them to life. Have them dine fabulously
with friends and talk until normal bedtime when they will sleep
again with hardly an interruption.
Metro
The most revealing thing about the Metro is
that, from the time it was built, its trains ran on the opposite
track from every other train in France. This was to ensure that
it could not be connected to suburban trains and bring riffraff
into the city. I swear this is true. You could look it up.
Mince*
We're told that it's their eating habits that
make the French so healthy. In Paris there is another reason.
The Metro interchanges (I am convinced) were designed to require
the longest possible walking distance between lines. You can
actually walk further changing from the Number 11 to the Number
4 at Chatelet Les Halles than you would have walked if you had,
well, walked.
* French for skinny.
Velib
We decide to experience Paris's socialist
bicycle system, Velib.
The nearest Velib station has almost twenty bikes but only one
is in good repair. Since our destination is close, we ride the
good one plus two with flats and one with a bent wheel. They
get us to the Place de la Bastille without any problems, but
being a summer Samedi, Bastille is crowded and all three Velb
stations there are full. There's no place for us to park. We
push on, trading one bike at a time at various stations until
we have a majority of working bikes and then find parking for
all of them at the place we'd planned to walk to. Fine, we'll
just walk in the other direction, back to the Bastille.
Promenade Plantee
We climb the stairs to this former elevated
railway line so one of us can be amazed and another proud to
have thought of coming (and the two Parisians shrug expressively).
The intensely varied landscape alternately hides and reveals
the city. Chains of reflecting pools, mini bamboo forests, rose
bushes, lavender bushes, wisteria vines, cherry trees, and 57
other varieties at least, free the trammeled urban mind.
Potato Chips, Other Food and Mourning
Chips should be pronounced sheep in
French, but since they're foreign they are pronounced cheeps.
French cheeps cannot compare with Cape Cod Chips. Score one for
American cuisine. The only one.
Catty corner from Christelle's the bar cafe
L'Armagnac, analogous to your local coffee shop (sort of), serves
traditional dishes - Confit de Canard, Tartare, Cheeseburger.
My mouth insists it is a captive and cannot leave the place ever.
The cheese shop around the corner teaches me that I have never
actually tasted Muenster, Brie and that from now on I should
worship them and at least five others (but only when they taste
like this). The Boulangerie around the same corner, with its
violently crusty baguettes called Tradition starts my every day.
I mourn leaving Christelle, perfect host.
We wave to her and reverse our journey.
There must be worse airports than Charles
De Gaulle. Fortunately I've never flown out of one. The Parisians
showed great consideration in designing this reason for us to
be happy to fly away from them.
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