Paris: A City in Four Acts

Last week, I mentioned I have had the privilege of visiting Paris three times.  Well…I miswrote a little, because looking back, it was actually 4 times, I’ve just been counting the 2nd and 3rd as one because they were technically on the same trip, although about a month apart.  But considering that two distinctly disconcerting things happened on the second and third visit, it seems only fair to recount them separately.  Actually, my first 3 experiences  left me disliking the place so much, that I would probably never had returned had I not been forced.  Ok.  “Forced” is obviously a strong word, but let’s just say it would not have been a plan I made among other options.

My introduction to the city was with my family.  And the only reason it left me with a bad taste in my mouth is because I was a teenager and an ungrateful imp and I regret my behavior.  At the time, I was so miserable to be there and tethered to anything that I did not enjoy it.  I was in fact highly resentful.  And now of course, looking back, I have additional angsty feelings because I can see myself not enjoying it and how much my parents were trying on my behalf, and well, that just really sucks.  Watching yourself make bad decisions in the past is like watching that lone idiot at the end of every horror movie who insists on running back into the house.  Just…run to the neighbors or something, you implore.  You unspeakably stupid, depthless character!  How could you possibly think that is a good idea?  But they cannot hear you, they do it anyway, and of course, they reap the consequence of their actions.  Knowing that idiot is yourself is an especially torturous feeling.

My second foray into Paris was something of an accident.  It was the very beginning of a 3-month European backpacking adventure.  I’d just graduated college and said, eff you, grad school!  I’m gonna go get weird and really introspective instead!  I wanted to kick off all that artistic brooding in Norway, and I had a ticket from London.  I thought.  Turns out my flight left from the other UK airport that starts with a G, and I wasn’t on it.  So I had to take the Chunnel to get to the mainland, and that was way overbudget for the start of a trip.  I emerged in Paris in a time before wifi had caught on, and my only sources of information were transit hub kiosks and internet cafes.  From both of these places, I quickly learned that there were no cheap hostels in the entire city.  I didn’t want to stay, but it was getting late and I was getting sick, so I opted for a night in the cheapest place I could find, which ended up being a sketchy motel on the outskirts of town.  I checked in, went out to buy a carton of orange juice for dinner, and retired to my room, unwilling to return to the seemingly hostile streets where people heard my English and refused to speak to me.  It was 2005, less than two years after invading Iraq, and foreign sentiment for Americans was at an all time low.  Probably, they were upset about the ‘french-fry’ to ‘freedom-fry’ fiasco.  Can’t say I blame them.

Anyway, one of the guys working the reception desk took a liking to me.  Apparently.  He invited me out for drinks as I was checking in.  I politely declined.  After I returned for the night with my orange juice, my room phone started ringing.  I picked up.  He wanted me to meet him at the bar.  No thanks.  Phone rings again.  I don’t answer.  Phone rings again.  And again.  I hear footsteps and low conversation outside my door.  Someone knocks.  I do not answer.  Phone rings again.  I pick up.  Quit calling me.  I am trying to sleep.  Heavy breathing on the other end.  I finished my orange juice, set a number of booby-traps in route to my bed and moved my backpack directly in front of the door so I’d hear it knock over if anyone with entered in the middle of the night, and fell asleep with a pocketknife unfolded under my pillow.

My third trip was odd.  To give a little context, I’d been traveling for a month or so, and was in Portugal when I decided to give Paris another shot.  I had just over a week before I had to be in Madrid to visit a friend who was coming from the US to meet me.  So I thought, why not?  In Portugal, I found to no great surprise, that the French rail-workers were striking.  Therefore, there were no direct trains from Lisbon to Paris.  Standing in line to book another route, I met a Canadian guy, Todd.  Tad?  Todd.  Well, we hit it off and were both headed for Paris, so we decided to make the journey together.  For something like 2 or 3 days we were constant companions for one another, but it remained unquestionably platonic.  So much so that even as we shared sleeping arrangements, Todd…Tad?  Tad elected to sleep in full clothing and on top of the covers.  Nor did he make even the slightest of passes during waking hours, honestly.  We had intense, lengthy discussions about US politics, social justice, and activism, and there were no disagreements.  When we finally made it to Paris, I had two days before I had to turn around for Madrid.  The first day, we hung out, walked around and enjoyed the sights, talked.  The second day was Thanksgiving.  We went to the Louvre.  For the first time in days, we split up to see the museum and because I wanted to leave early to call my family back home, but we agreed to meet later that afternoon.  I went out, made the call, and returned to the museum to meet him.  He wasn’t there.  I waited a while, but after more than an hour passed, I decided to go back to the hotel and see if he’d gone there instead.  But he wasn’t there either.  And upon closer inspection, neither were his belongings.  On the bed, under a notebook, he had left the cash balance to cover his share of the room for the one remaining night we’d booked there.  There was no note of explanation, despite the fact that money was left under a notebook with numerous blank pages.  A couple of items for your consideration:

1) He stole nothing.

2) As I said, this was a time before cell phones and portable internet.  There is no way he could have been alerted to any sort of emergency while in the museum.

3) The timing was such that he would have had to leave almost immediately after we split up at the museum to come get his things and leave by the time that reception told me he checked out.  So basically he paid admission to the Louvre and then forfeited it, just to give me the slip.

4) We only had one more day of traveling together, so it’s not like there was a looming expanse of time he had to spend with me.  On the contrary, he had suggested we meet up later in my trip, just because we traveled together so well.

5) Am I really that disagreeable?!?

Abandonment and rejection—whether they be societal, parental, romantic, or absolutely platonic and baffling as f*ck—are never pleasant.  And rather than accept the most logical explanation that mine was too odious a friendship to endure for even 24 more hours, I have concluded that he was most likely a spy.

And that rounded out a solid three strikes against Paris.

So it stands to reason, the only way I was going to go back there was if my hand were forced and there were no other (cheaper) options.  And that is exactly what happened.  As recounted in my last post, Paris was the only remaining international flight out of Atlanta that night, and due to the benefits I possess in working for an airline, it was actually cheaper to get on that plane to France than it would have been to book a hotel in Atlanta.  And by that time, I was tired.  There was a seat on the plane with my name on it where I could just as easily sleep for the next 7 hours.  Choice made.

I arrived in Paris to find it was still the most exorbitantly overpriced, hostel-hostile city in the world.  But I thought it prettier than I remembered it, and at least this time I had my laptop and was able to find lodging within 10 minutes of landing, as opposed to walking the streets in search of internet.

It turns out the most difficult of my previous experiences to wrestle with was the first.  My dad loved Paris.  It had a special meaning for him and my mom, and he’d brought us there to enjoy it, that my sister and I could share in understanding a city he sentimentalized so much.  I doubt I ruined the first remembrance for him, but I’m sure I did not contribute to many fond memories made during our family vacation together.

Part of this most recent trip then, was simply re-walking those narrow winding streets and experiencing  the neighborhoods he wanted to show me.  My hostel was close to Montmartre, and there’s an artist’s market on the other side of the hill where he’d bought a picture that hung in our house my entire childhood.  I searched for the corner and the streetlamp depicted in it, but without his affirmation I can’t be sure whether I found it.  I visited the artists market, ate pastries.  It was difficult to process through all the guilt I’ve associated with the city; regret embedded between the stones, regret holding up the buildings.  But through his eyes, I finally saw it.  The charming cafes where people watching has become a national pastime, the ornate façade of the Opera, the murky green gleam of the Seine rolling blithely past Notre Dame, it was there all along.

I just couldn’t see it until now.  Thanks, Dad.