ParisByParis

from my upcoming book....a peek into chapter one

PARIS LE PREMIER FOIS

It was the first of what was to become numerous flights across the night sky to Paris. The Frenchman kept me up all night pacing the cabin and reporting our location over the vast ocean. When we arrived at CDG in the morning I had the foggy head of someone who had not slept all night, for I hadn't.

Standing by the luggage belt trying to find our luggage was made even more of a challenge while inhaling the clouds of cigarette smoke that was thick in the air. Dodging long hot ashes coupled with trying to grap 50 pound bags all while squeezed between countless people was not the welcome to Paris I had anticipated. Soon this all changed when a voice previously only heard over the phone became a smiling face and a loving welcoming hug for my brother in law Daniel and his wife Christine appeared to chauffeur us into Paris....and chauffeur us they did.

We drove the highway in Daniel's Peugeot into the city entering through the northern gate of Porte de Clignancourt, briefly stopping to purchase a couple of take away sacks of shrimp chips from a traiteur chinois that we gratefully munched in the car. Daniel began his Paris tour with several wild passes around the Arc de Triomphe before heading down the Champs Elysee all the while the car filled with the laughter and talk of brothers reunited. Of course I understood little but it mattered little while watching Paris pass outside my window. With no mention at all, I happened to be looking out the left side when there she was, la Tour, the Eiffel Tower appeared and was quickly behind us. This was my first encounter with something that would become such a part of my life one day and looking back it was fitting that I saw her without mention from anyone else.

We went to the Latin Quarter for crepes at a place that the Frenchman remembered from his 'student days'. Many years later, living alone in Paris, I would pass this place and all of the memories of that trip would wash over me....and the photo the four of us took out front would come to life. The evening ended on the Bateaux Mouche somewhere on the Seine, my head hanging down and me hanging on to consciousness while the Frenchman said to our hosts that it was time to go to the hotel.

I woke up in the 13e in a little hotel owned by the Frenchman's youngest sisters' husbands family. The door opened and the Frenchman stood with orange juice and the obligatory croissant saying that we would go to the Eiffel tower if I would get up. Needless to say, I got up. A bath in the claw footed tub, next to the bidet looking out the long french window was restoring. After we walked all around the tower we took the long elevator rides to the top, peeked through the metal wiring with all of the other tourists before stopping at the restrooms complete with a madame pee pee crocheting something or another....more on the culture of madame pee pee later.

Lunch was in another chinese restaurant near the hulking St. Eustache near les Halles, this time with brother Olivier, an attorney in Paris who still lived in the family town of Pointoise just outside the city. Delicious food and pitchers of wine and another smiling face of anotber of the Frenchmans' family became part of my consciousness and identity.

Lucas Carton was at the time one of the Michelin 4 Star restaurants in Paris and it had long been on the Frenchman's agenda to eat in one. His sister Beatrice had made the arrangements and reservations. The evening started at a winebar down the street behind la Madeliene where we met his cousin. Needless to say by the time we walked to Lucas Carton just a few blocks away the multi course Dom Perignon champagne dinner was not going to be fully appreciated, at least by me. Each course consisted of some sort of mushroom in a cream sauce accompanying a meat or vegetable and a different vintage of Dom Perignon champagne. I think there were 8 courses including dessert but who was counting. When the bill came I do remember the number 800 as in euros and that I told the Frenchman that I would have much rather paid a visit to the Louis Vuitton store to spend that sum. That visit was to come on a later trip.