A False Spring

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come back and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural....When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.

-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I've been reading A Moveable Feast, which I borrowed from Roch et Sue just before leaving for France. It's a really beautiful book about living in Paris, and I'm so glad I started reading it just as were beginning our lives here. I don't think it would mean as much to me if I had never been to Paris.

Anyway, my friend Terry was visiting for a week, so we spent the weekend crossing things off her “must-see” list.

Saturday morning she woke up early and headed out to the Musée d’Orsay. David left for a bike ride to Versailles, and I suddenly found myself alone in the apartment. Of course I spent the time doing nothing constructive, just surfing the internet and downloading music.

At 2:00 I met Terry at the Sacre Coeur metro stop for my now-regular tour of the church and Montmartre. Although this time we decided to climb to the top of the dome, which gave us an even better view of the city.

We had lunch in Montmartre and noticed that there were Scottish flags everywhere, not to mention lots of guys in kilts. We asked the plaid-clad gentleman sitting next to us what was going on, and he told us that there was a big rugby match that night, Scotland vs. Paris. I asked, “So why are the French waiters all wearing Scotland pins?” He answered, “Good for business”, which was a good point, there had to be more Scottish tourists up there than Parisians.

Next we took the metro to the Madeleine area, where Terry had read about some good shops. We paid a visit to the uber-chic gourmet food store, Fauchon. I have never been in such a fashionable store that was entirely dedicated to food. Everything was wrapped in neat black and pink boxes, and the staff was all dressed in trim black blazers, dress pants, and pink scarves. An elegant man explained to us in perfect English the difference between whole and pieced fois gras, then offered us samples.

I bought chocolate and mustard for David, and Terry got all kinds of good stuff to take home. On the way out we stopped to ask the chocolate counter about a cute chocolate bunny we saw in the window. They told us that the bunnies came in sets of three, that there was only box left and one of the bunnies was broken. So they gave us the other two as presents. Score!

For dinner we met Dave in Châtelet at one of my favorite restaurants. I can never remember the name, so I always call it “The Duck Place”. Terry and I had duck, of course, and Dave had pot au feu (pot of fire), which is like a meaty stew.

Sunday morning we went to the market, comme d’habitude, and I went through the usual embarrassment of trying to communicate with the merchants. The weather was cold and rainy, so there wasn’t much activity on the streets.

Terry had one day left on her museum pass, so the three of us decided to visit the Pantheon. On the way there we passed by rue Cardinal Lemoine and stopped to pay homage to Hemingway’s apartment at 74.

74 rue Cardinal Lemoine

Ernest and Hadley Hemingway's Apartment

The Pantheon was in the middle of “Un Jonquille Pour Curie” (“A Daffodil for Curie”, who is buried there), a fundraiser for children’s cancer research. The steps of the Pantheon were covered in sod and there were daffodils everywhere.

Dave and I weren’t interested in paying 8 euros each to see the Pantheon, so Terry toured on her own while we watched children’s entertainers and took pictures of the flowers. It was cold and bitterly windy, so when Terry finished we walked to a café to warm up with coffee and hot chocolate and a piece of tarte au pomme.

Afterward, Dave headed home while Terry and I went to the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. She visited the top of the Arc while I wandered, then we went perfume shopping on the Champs. At the Marionnaud store a salesgirl offered to “perfume” Terry, then proceeded to douse her neck, hair, and scarf. Terry said, “So that’s how French girls smell like perfume all the time!” We were both coughing for the rest of the night.

Monday I took the day off and the weather was even worse. Terry and I went to the Notre Dame and she went to the top to visit the gargoyles (I cheaped out again). I ducked in and out of souvenir shops to keep warm, and when she came back, frozen stiff, we walked to the Ile-Saint-Louis to a Berthillion ice cream café.

What a stupid idea, getting ice cream on such a blustery day, but Berthillion ice cream is famous and we were there, so why not. She ordered a café au lait and I another hot chocolate to warm up. We were both surprised when our drinks came in parts; she had one small silver pitcher of coffee, and another of milk, and I was given a pitcher of milk with a tiny pitcher of chocolate. Mix accordingly.

Between the ice cream (caramel and honey nougat) and the hot chocolate I was feeling a little over-sugared and ill. So I opted out of the final check on Terry’s list, the Eiffel Tower.

I went home to make dinner and Terry came back a few hours later shivering. We shared a bottle wine that she had bought for us and I finished the evening doing my French homework buzzed.

I paid for that the next day in class.