The plane shudders and pitches as the wheels touch the ground, finally encountering friction after hours of sailing above the clouds. A disinterested French voice comes over the speakers with scripted information. We peer out the window into the blackness of the morning, trying to discern proof that we’re really here. The blinking runway lights and symbols begin to blur as tears well up in my eyes. Charlie and I squeeze each other's hands. "Bienvenue a Paris," says the voice.
We swell with pride as the woman at the mobile phone kiosk asks whether we’re Canadian, having noted competence in our use of the language paired with an unusual accent. We’ll take it. Outside the terminal a man straight out of a French new wave film greets us with a smile, the trunk of his taxi agape. He wears a flat cap, a sparkle in his eye, and a bushy white mustache sits atop his upturned lip. On the ride into the city, the three of us manage to stumble through enough of our two common languages to get acquainted. Unsurprisingly, the conversation almost immediately turns to politics, as is common with the French, and just as unsurprisingly, he disapproves of our current head of state. Out the windows the banlieu –the Parisian suburbs– have come into view, conspicuous by their large graffiti murals. The sun is coming up and the sound Jacques Dutronc’s Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille (It's five o'clock, Paris is waking up) playing in my head drowns out the mediocre Russian tango coming the cab’s radio. Yet unopened storefronts zoom by as the driver accelerates suddenly again and again, braking just as suddenly for pedestrians, cyclists, and other obstacles that seem to come at us from all angles. Every time we slow, zombie-like beggars shamble toward our windows, paper cups extended outward. Garbage sits on curbs waiting to be collected. The metal shutters pulled down over the storefronts give the impression of a ghost-town. It’s so ugly and cold at times, yet so alive and human. I look over at Charlie, whose eyes are wet with nostalgia.
We turn a corner and everything is familiar again. The modest stone façade of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette juts out of the intersection where we turn onto rue des Martyrs. Our old haunts catch our eyes, most of them intact with few changes to the overall geography of the street. We pull up to the door of our rented flat. Our driver hoists our heavy suit cases down onto the pavement and we bid him au revoir. We both inhale with anticipation, take stock of our surroundings, and decide to immediately proceed around the corner to our old street, rue de l'Agent Bailly. I feel like I’m dreaming. Somehow I can’t believe I’m here, and yet somehow I can’t believe I’ve ever been gone from here. It’s like meeting up with a dear old friend after several years have lapsed, requiring no effort whatsoever to reconnect, as if you had just seen each other yesterday.
We make a right onto the cobbled street, easily recognizable by the cubist mural that extends to the intersection with rue Milton. The street sign is missing, but someone has pasted up a photo printout of it. The cobbles are uneven and we must navigate our suitcases carefully on the narrow sidewalk to avoid the brown obstacles deposited there by the neighborhood’s dogs. Well, some things never change. As long as this high-walled cutoff street continues to provide relative shelter from the prying eyes of judgmental Parisians, unscrupulous dog owners will direct their companions here to do their business, knowing they can likely get away with not picking it up.
The blue tiled number “5” is missing from above the heavy green door. From the debris in the nearest windows we can deduce that the very old building, once a convent, is undergoing some much needed renovations. We can’t remember the door code and they have likely changed it anyway, but we would have loved to peek into the little courtyard from which we accessed the precariously decrepit staircase to our second floor studio. Instead, we head back toward rue des Martyrs, resolving to pass through again, perhaps repeatedly, with hopes of gaining access.
We roll our big suitcases in front of us down the hill toward the church, peering in the windows of waking businesses and smiling when we recognize faces of the same shop owners we used to interact with on a daily basis. Busy locals zip around us, rushing toward the demands of city life, and we do our best to stay out of their way. We roll past a familiar old local sitting where he always was, on the low ledge of a tall shop window, smoking a cigarette. He wears a tattered knit vest and jacket and a flat cap, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Poopdeck Pappy (Popeye's father). As we schlep by, a sparsely toothed grin spreads wide across his face. He practically shouts with delight, “Bon voyage!” We nod and thank him.
Once we’ve surveyed the street and found mostly everything to be right where we left it, we decide it’s time for coffee and breakfast. We settle on the bistro just two doors down from where we’ll be staying, Café Marguerite, it’s red awning and round-seated wicker chairs on the sidewalk promising the Parisian people-watching experience we’ve come for. We position ourselves at the end of the row of tables so that our baggage will not be in anyone’s way. As we settle in, the puffs and wisps cigarette smoke from other patrons waft down the sidewalk, offending no one. A pretty server immediately comes out and inquires as to our wants, disappearing and reappearing quickly with two cups on saucers. We order a couple of tartine, oven toasted baguette smothered in crispy cheese and choice of protein. Mine has come in the style of a croque madame, so it has ham and béchamel too, with the soft yolk of a perfectly cooked egg shining up at me like a sunrise. The flavors are perfect, not necessarily remarkable, but exactly what they should be; exactly how they’ve always been done.
We’ve just declared ourselves sated to the waitress and are digesting happily, although shivering and sniffling in the morning cold. A kind looking elderly woman taps her cane against the pavement as she approaches us. She has curly white hair, fancy gold-rimmed glasses, and greets us with perfect Parisian sing-song, “Bonjour, madame et monsieur!” At first we're surprised at such a warm greeting from a stranger, but she quickly introduces herself as Christine, a neighbor from the apartment we’ve rented for the next three weeks. She says she has come to let us in. Charlie runs in to pay the bill and Christine discreetly pockets the paper tubes of sugar we've left on our saucers. "In case there's a war," she says. She prefers to speak French and we let her, appreciating the ease with which we understand her clean accent and perfect grammar. Once she has given us the keys and instructions, we follow her into a modernly renovated flat that looks out onto a square courtyard. A typical elaborate metal and stone watering trough sits to one side. We realize we’ve been in this courtyard before because we had visited a doctor who practiced there when we lived in this neighborhood. We had gone to inquire about immunizations and malaria medicine for a trip to Kenya upon our departure from Paris. I’ll never forget how he told Charlie that he didn’t have to take any malaria medicine if he didn’t want to, adding, “We’re not totalitarians like in the U.S.” That was while Obama was president.
Finally unencumbered of our luggage, we bid Christine goodbye and head back out onto the street, our internal compasses set for the white domes of Sacré-Cœur that we can see rising up above the buildings at the top of Montmartre. Our journey up is meandering and we opt for narrow quiet side streets rather than winding boulevards. We’re become aware again at how the confusing triangular layout of Paris’s streets almost ensures we’ll get lost, but for now we know that anything uphill is the right direction. As we near the top, the population density increases and we find ourselves surrounded by tourists. We reach the bottom of the large stairway leading up to the west side of the basilica and I curse how steeply it rises before me. Somehow we fight through the physical exhaustion of what is now a full 24 hours without sleep and make it to the top.
There the crowds swarm on the steps of the bulbous basilica, its white domes and façade in stark contrast with the blackness of age shadowing its arches and windows, seemingly dripping from beneath its gargoyles. It’d be a beautiful study in chiaroscuro for all of the artists hanging around on the nearby plaza offering to draw caricatures of tourists. Usually I hate crowds like this, but I barely notice it today. I contemplate the quiet temple preceding over the city, then gaze out onto the 5,000 years of humanity spread out below. A thin morning haze has settled over everything, out of which a mix of Gothic church spires and skyscrapers rise. Behind me a snaking line leads into the church, making me feel disinclined to attempt to enter it. Instead we move away through the swirl of languages, smells and buzz of activity, seeking the solace of a quiet street.
We zigzag down narrow passages and alleyways, assuming we are more or less heading in the right direction but not particularly concerned if we aren’t. The words of a friend’s poem leap to mind: “What are you dreaming about, my little one?” asks an old stray cat of a childlike version of me who is “sitting alone on a cobbled street in Montmartre…” The answer is complex, but I guess the best way to sum it up is that I'm dreaming that this is all mine, that I don't ever have to leave. I'll take all of it: the noise, the crowds, the confusion, the stress, even the dog poop. No questions asked.
Eventually we find our way back to the apartment and promptly take a two-hour nap. When we wake we take our first refreshing shower, ridding ourselves of the germ-ridden grime and dried sweat of a long-haul flight. We venture out again for treats from our favorite bakery and sweets shop and then resolve to rest a bit. It is very hard to stay awake, but we manage to hold out for the promise of kebab from our old haunt, Chez Cleopatre, a few blocks away at the intersection rues Condorcet and Rouchechouart. This was the hearty, cheap food that got us through culinary and grad school, respectively. For a measly €11 (about $13 USD) we get two containers of fat sandwich grec filled with shaved roast meat, sautéed with onions and garnished with tomatoes, lettuce, and the fabled Sauce Algerienne. It's basically just mayonnaise mixed with harissa, but Jesus Christ, it's good and a welcome accompaniment to the huge helping of french fries they serve there. Bellies full, we only make it to 7:45 before falling asleep for the night.
We swell with pride as the woman at the mobile phone kiosk asks whether we’re Canadian, having noted competence in our use of the language paired with an unusual accent. We’ll take it. Outside the terminal a man straight out of a French new wave film greets us with a smile, the trunk of his taxi agape. He wears a flat cap, a sparkle in his eye, and a bushy white mustache sits atop his upturned lip. On the ride into the city, the three of us manage to stumble through enough of our two common languages to get acquainted. Unsurprisingly, the conversation almost immediately turns to politics, as is common with the French, and just as unsurprisingly, he disapproves of our current head of state. Out the windows the banlieu –the Parisian suburbs– have come into view, conspicuous by their large graffiti murals. The sun is coming up and the sound Jacques Dutronc’s Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille (It's five o'clock, Paris is waking up) playing in my head drowns out the mediocre Russian tango coming the cab’s radio. Yet unopened storefronts zoom by as the driver accelerates suddenly again and again, braking just as suddenly for pedestrians, cyclists, and other obstacles that seem to come at us from all angles. Every time we slow, zombie-like beggars shamble toward our windows, paper cups extended outward. Garbage sits on curbs waiting to be collected. The metal shutters pulled down over the storefronts give the impression of a ghost-town. It’s so ugly and cold at times, yet so alive and human. I look over at Charlie, whose eyes are wet with nostalgia.
We turn a corner and everything is familiar again. The modest stone façade of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette juts out of the intersection where we turn onto rue des Martyrs. Our old haunts catch our eyes, most of them intact with few changes to the overall geography of the street. We pull up to the door of our rented flat. Our driver hoists our heavy suit cases down onto the pavement and we bid him au revoir. We both inhale with anticipation, take stock of our surroundings, and decide to immediately proceed around the corner to our old street, rue de l'Agent Bailly. I feel like I’m dreaming. Somehow I can’t believe I’m here, and yet somehow I can’t believe I’ve ever been gone from here. It’s like meeting up with a dear old friend after several years have lapsed, requiring no effort whatsoever to reconnect, as if you had just seen each other yesterday.
We make a right onto the cobbled street, easily recognizable by the cubist mural that extends to the intersection with rue Milton. The street sign is missing, but someone has pasted up a photo printout of it. The cobbles are uneven and we must navigate our suitcases carefully on the narrow sidewalk to avoid the brown obstacles deposited there by the neighborhood’s dogs. Well, some things never change. As long as this high-walled cutoff street continues to provide relative shelter from the prying eyes of judgmental Parisians, unscrupulous dog owners will direct their companions here to do their business, knowing they can likely get away with not picking it up.
The blue tiled number “5” is missing from above the heavy green door. From the debris in the nearest windows we can deduce that the very old building, once a convent, is undergoing some much needed renovations. We can’t remember the door code and they have likely changed it anyway, but we would have loved to peek into the little courtyard from which we accessed the precariously decrepit staircase to our second floor studio. Instead, we head back toward rue des Martyrs, resolving to pass through again, perhaps repeatedly, with hopes of gaining access.
 |
| A cat stenciled on the wall on rue de l'Agent Bailly |
We roll our big suitcases in front of us down the hill toward the church, peering in the windows of waking businesses and smiling when we recognize faces of the same shop owners we used to interact with on a daily basis. Busy locals zip around us, rushing toward the demands of city life, and we do our best to stay out of their way. We roll past a familiar old local sitting where he always was, on the low ledge of a tall shop window, smoking a cigarette. He wears a tattered knit vest and jacket and a flat cap, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Poopdeck Pappy (Popeye's father). As we schlep by, a sparsely toothed grin spreads wide across his face. He practically shouts with delight, “Bon voyage!” We nod and thank him.
Once we’ve surveyed the street and found mostly everything to be right where we left it, we decide it’s time for coffee and breakfast. We settle on the bistro just two doors down from where we’ll be staying, Café Marguerite, it’s red awning and round-seated wicker chairs on the sidewalk promising the Parisian people-watching experience we’ve come for. We position ourselves at the end of the row of tables so that our baggage will not be in anyone’s way. As we settle in, the puffs and wisps cigarette smoke from other patrons waft down the sidewalk, offending no one. A pretty server immediately comes out and inquires as to our wants, disappearing and reappearing quickly with two cups on saucers. We order a couple of tartine, oven toasted baguette smothered in crispy cheese and choice of protein. Mine has come in the style of a croque madame, so it has ham and béchamel too, with the soft yolk of a perfectly cooked egg shining up at me like a sunrise. The flavors are perfect, not necessarily remarkable, but exactly what they should be; exactly how they’ve always been done.
 |
| "Oh shit, I forgot to take a picture." |
We’ve just declared ourselves sated to the waitress and are digesting happily, although shivering and sniffling in the morning cold. A kind looking elderly woman taps her cane against the pavement as she approaches us. She has curly white hair, fancy gold-rimmed glasses, and greets us with perfect Parisian sing-song, “Bonjour, madame et monsieur!” At first we're surprised at such a warm greeting from a stranger, but she quickly introduces herself as Christine, a neighbor from the apartment we’ve rented for the next three weeks. She says she has come to let us in. Charlie runs in to pay the bill and Christine discreetly pockets the paper tubes of sugar we've left on our saucers. "In case there's a war," she says. She prefers to speak French and we let her, appreciating the ease with which we understand her clean accent and perfect grammar. Once she has given us the keys and instructions, we follow her into a modernly renovated flat that looks out onto a square courtyard. A typical elaborate metal and stone watering trough sits to one side. We realize we’ve been in this courtyard before because we had visited a doctor who practiced there when we lived in this neighborhood. We had gone to inquire about immunizations and malaria medicine for a trip to Kenya upon our departure from Paris. I’ll never forget how he told Charlie that he didn’t have to take any malaria medicine if he didn’t want to, adding, “We’re not totalitarians like in the U.S.” That was while Obama was president.
Finally unencumbered of our luggage, we bid Christine goodbye and head back out onto the street, our internal compasses set for the white domes of Sacré-Cœur that we can see rising up above the buildings at the top of Montmartre. Our journey up is meandering and we opt for narrow quiet side streets rather than winding boulevards. We’re become aware again at how the confusing triangular layout of Paris’s streets almost ensures we’ll get lost, but for now we know that anything uphill is the right direction. As we near the top, the population density increases and we find ourselves surrounded by tourists. We reach the bottom of the large stairway leading up to the west side of the basilica and I curse how steeply it rises before me. Somehow we fight through the physical exhaustion of what is now a full 24 hours without sleep and make it to the top.
 |
| Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, completed in 1914 |
There the crowds swarm on the steps of the bulbous basilica, its white domes and façade in stark contrast with the blackness of age shadowing its arches and windows, seemingly dripping from beneath its gargoyles. It’d be a beautiful study in chiaroscuro for all of the artists hanging around on the nearby plaza offering to draw caricatures of tourists. Usually I hate crowds like this, but I barely notice it today. I contemplate the quiet temple preceding over the city, then gaze out onto the 5,000 years of humanity spread out below. A thin morning haze has settled over everything, out of which a mix of Gothic church spires and skyscrapers rise. Behind me a snaking line leads into the church, making me feel disinclined to attempt to enter it. Instead we move away through the swirl of languages, smells and buzz of activity, seeking the solace of a quiet street.
 |
| An idyllic street in Montmartre |
We zigzag down narrow passages and alleyways, assuming we are more or less heading in the right direction but not particularly concerned if we aren’t. The words of a friend’s poem leap to mind: “What are you dreaming about, my little one?” asks an old stray cat of a childlike version of me who is “sitting alone on a cobbled street in Montmartre…” The answer is complex, but I guess the best way to sum it up is that I'm dreaming that this is all mine, that I don't ever have to leave. I'll take all of it: the noise, the crowds, the confusion, the stress, even the dog poop. No questions asked.
Eventually we find our way back to the apartment and promptly take a two-hour nap. When we wake we take our first refreshing shower, ridding ourselves of the germ-ridden grime and dried sweat of a long-haul flight. We venture out again for treats from our favorite bakery and sweets shop and then resolve to rest a bit. It is very hard to stay awake, but we manage to hold out for the promise of kebab from our old haunt, Chez Cleopatre, a few blocks away at the intersection rues Condorcet and Rouchechouart. This was the hearty, cheap food that got us through culinary and grad school, respectively. For a measly €11 (about $13 USD) we get two containers of fat sandwich grec filled with shaved roast meat, sautéed with onions and garnished with tomatoes, lettuce, and the fabled Sauce Algerienne. It's basically just mayonnaise mixed with harissa, but Jesus Christ, it's good and a welcome accompaniment to the huge helping of french fries they serve there. Bellies full, we only make it to 7:45 before falling asleep for the night.
Another awesome story of your travels!!
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