As an expat, one of our international delights is something much greater than finding the best hamburger in town, or the best cocktail bar. What truly is the most satisfying part about living abroad is having friends come and visit. I think I can speak for us all when I say that there's nothing better than seeing familiar faces in your new home where you can share your view, your own French film of an intimate portal into the City of Light, directed by you.
Last week over instant message chat with Brett, somewhere in between him bitching about his unreasonable boss, and me complaining about the egregious lack of follow-up from school, he nonchalantly mentioned that he was using some vacation days before busy season, and was traveling to Brussels for the week. Brussels! That's right next door! I immediately insisted that he come to Paris for the day as a perfect supplement to his vacation; a day trip in Paris with a local! At first he resisted my invitation, saying that he'd do Paris on another trip. Do Paris on a another tip? Was he out of his mind? He's coming from LA for pete's sake! That's not exactly a short trip. It's like taking a vacation in Montauk from Russia and not heading into Manhattan, saving it for the next time. Séb, who has been wanting to meet him since their meeting on Skype back in February even further the enticement, and offered him his guestroom-slash-office in his apartment for the night, dinner included. How could he resist? He finally agreed, and sent me his train itinerary the following day. This was Brett's first visit to Paris. Project!
Because Brett and I both share an appreciation for the film Before Sunrise, and the sequel Before Sunset, I planned a themed tour inspired by some of the locations, although the film takes many creative licenses and that the stream of locations don't always make sense geographically. Only in Hollywood can you turn the corner at La Sorbonne and magically skip over the little stream of water called the Seine be in the Marais.
The tour started in the iconic Shakespeare and Company, a store every writer coming to Paris should see, and made our way through all the little nooks of the 5th. The initial plan was to follow the film and have lunch at Le Pure Cafe in the 11th but because we were famished, and roasting like shawarma under the sun of the unpredicted 80 degree plus day, we stopped one of my favorite left bank cafés. At the charming La Pâtiserrie Viennoise for a late afternoon lunch of cold rosé and Parisian ham and cheese baguette sandwiches.
Day two, we crossed over from one Delpy film fantasy to another, and made our way over to Père Lachaise to see Jim Morrison's grave, even though neither of us particularly like The Doors. Can you believe I have never seen his grave? I pass through this cemetery fairly often when crossing from the 11th to get to the 18th and have never took the time to look for it, until today. Another bonus of having in friends in from out of town, you get to play tourist. At his grave which was barricaded by a metal barrier in an effort to control vandalism was surrounded by a large group of tourists speaking amongst each other in their native tongues of Italian, Spanish and of course, English. Like us, none of them looked like die hard fans in there running sneakers, knapsacks and tour books, and talking about their dinner plans at Chez Georges that night. Brett brought up a great question, would his grave be such a tourist attraction if it were in the States, like somewhere in Pamona California? Why has this become such a destination for visitors of Paris? We were prime examples, we were there too but didn't exactly know why. What's the appeal?
Brett had an excellent introduction to Paris and am confident that we will be seeing him around these parts again. In his 24 hours in town, he understood what all the fuss was about where he experienced the French acapella group that practices at Séb's apartment on Thursday night, Paris in the rain, the pleasure of stopping for a coffee several times a day at one of the million brasseries the city has to offer, a drunk man at Pili Pili in Oberkampf who was hanging over his cocktail, asking him if he thinks that we are all created equal, and what makes him more special than Mozart, and seeing a bunch of Ecole Militaire officials in uniform enjoying after work mojitos with glow stick straws at a café in the 7th (yes, we were totally coming back from seeing the Eiffel Tower). I love how quirky this city is.
On my way home from dropping him off at Gare de Nord, a man walking behind me walking through the station as I was heading toward the line 2, thanked me for my show. My show? I looked around and saw that he could be talking to no one else but me, but preferred to not challenge him and sped up to lose him. Another man behind me mumbled something that I didn't quite catch and looked down at my bag to see if something was hanging out. No, nothing hanging out. Finally a young girl stopped me, motioning me to look at my backside. Are you guys ready? As it turned out, my dress had been tucked into my stockings since we stopped at the MacDo in Belleville to use the bathroom. I was not wearing underwear. In short, my ass crack was seen by all on the metro from Belleville to La Chapelle as well as all of the travelers at Gare de Nord.
I'm mortified right now. Just mortified.
The butt crack portion of our 24 hours in Paris together didn't fit in either of my film fantasies, but I guess I'm at the point where I'm realizing that life is a movie, and I'm just the dumb actress trying to keep up with the script.
Bon week-end à tous!