The Sun Also Rises

Midnight trains from Paris through the south of France. Heading towards the Spanish coast. First stop Hendaye, then San Sebastian, then small Basque towns. The month of June. In love. With questions and drink and time and food to help get some answers.

Sounds like a story. Okay, so it's the plot of Hemingway's the Sun Also Rises, but it's also the story of my life. Really.

Midnight on the first of June my lover and I were out of our berths, heads half hanging out the window trying to catch whatever glimpses we could in the waning moonlight-le clair de lune. Munching a chevre and sun-dried tomato fougasse purchased earlier from another of our favorite bakeries, Coquelicot, we reveled in the night's magic. The magic that comes from silence broken only by the clanking of the train running on silver rails. Magic that can only exist when one is leaving an incredible city like Paris, for the more wild and wooded hills and coasts of the Basque region of Spain. No more metros. No more Louvre. No more streetlights on the Seine. But heading towards...

...Rainy hillsides ten thousand tints of green, dappled with sun-baked tile roofs and stunted horses and fat sheep. No more bustling museum-bound tourists, just the hollow bells hung on goats necks that roam fairly free through the steep hillsides. Bocadillos, Spanish omelets, and pintxos(better known as tapas, but served with heaps of the Basque pride of their local ingredients). My much loved Rose has been traded for txakoli-an INCREDIBLY tasty Basque white wine that is almost ciderlike and, much to my delight-somewhat sparkly as well.

Unlike Hemingway's protagonist, instead of fishing for trout in the hills we stay at a beautiful caserillo in the hills, taking short walks up to a small Spanish church that looks out over fog draped mountains. We take our time.

San Sebastian still beckons, as does Bilbao, Pamplona and Barcelona. I doubt I will fall in love with a bullfighter, and Jay probably won't get into any bar fights, but no two stories are exactly alike. Our story is stranger than fiction, but Hemingway would be proud. Our last evening in Paris crested with a beautiful sunset, but on a midnight train bound for España, we dreamed of what we would find when the Spanish sun rises.

Minuit dans Paris

Merci, merci beaucoup, Woody Allen.

His latest film, Midnight in Paris, is-like many of his site stimulated films (Manhattan, VickiChristinaBarcelona), a tribute to the city and its charms. And let me tell you, a city as charming as Paris deserves tribute. What is most intoxicating about the film is the theme that one always wishes to be in a city during it's most magical time-New Orleans during the bebop era with Thellonius Monk, Dizzy and Clifford Brown, New York in the Jazz era, Chicago in the 20s during prohibition when things got wild-especially the women. Woody Allen's latest is based on a character's desire to not only live in Paris, but the Paris as he imagines it was in the "Golden Era" of the 1920's-Hemmingway, Gertrude Stein, the Fitzgeralds all captured by perfect Paris romance and longing to add their art to the Greatest City in the World.

Don't we all feel like this? Walking through the small streets in Montmarte don't I wish the flashing pharmacy windows were replaced by small apothecary jars and petite colorful advertisements for "cure-all elixirs!"? Instead of ramshackle kebab and frite shops run by hygiene-foregone foreigners, wouldn't it be lovely to see a family run fromagerie? During the film the protagonist-a Hollywood screenwriter turned half-attempted novelist-walks out of the most wonderfully lit brasserie and when he turns back to it, he instead finds a florescent doused laverie-laundromat. An all too common sight in Paris these days I am afraid to say.

One of the best lines of the movie is spat from the most despicable character (played by the usually so darling Rachel McAdams), but I love this line all the same; "ugh, if I have to see another one of those cheap cliche French cafes..." I hear ya sister. The "French Cafe" is on every corner and they-as far as I have bothered to research-sell the same menu: steak frites, croque, mixed salad with potatoes and hard boiled egg. It is not that these foods aren't fine and carb-full filling, but without desire to elevate, cultivate, or distinguish themselves, every one of these brasseries is exactly the same. Ok, that one has a red awning, this one is green. How I long for a "Midnight in Paris" where if I was out late and wanted to have a bite to eat I would not have to choose between the Quickburger, the KFC, or Le Salle de Diamant-an "upscale" bar with white furniture that serves a shot glass sized beer for 12euros.

I guess what I am really getting at is, thank you Woody Allen for pointing out that I am not alone in waxing romantic notions about the Paris of the past. Though, in circa 2011 I have to deal with McDonald's cups blowing into me in the Tulleries, at least I don't have to worry about catching cholera and xanax is a real step-up from snake oil.

Dead Words

The dearly departed's last words. THE last word. Lingering sentiments, fond wishes, the text on a tombstone. Here lies...

Prose, poetry, and proverbs adorn cemetery walls and tell-tales of who rests in towering tombs. Sepulchers adorned with famous phrases bidding sweet sleep to the dead. It has been this way since Pharaohs pontificated and were embalmed with their words wrapped mummy-style and chapters chipped on their caskets in hieroglyphic hymns.

By chance on a bright sunny spring day in Paris, my lover and I visited both the Montparnasse cemetery and the Catacombs nearby. A rather grim day spent, I assure you we topped it off with a rather carb-filled dinner to lighten our spirits. There is mystery and morose mystique in mausoleums. But more than that, a tête-à-tête trail gurgling back and forth along each cell of skulls.

French poets, priests and unknown scribes give voice to the bones brought here from their damaged graves centuries before. "When the trumpet sounds, the dead will rise again", "goodbye does not hold our talent, spirit or legacies", "Ici repose les morts du cimetiere des Innocents". Titles and tender thoughts are woven within the wet walls of the catacombs, and like all forms of graves, words linger long after we have departed this world.

For my part, I plan on leaving strict instructions in my will as to what words must be chiseled on my crypt: "Here lies in eternal repose Dawn M. Pyfer nee Bassett, along with her last secret".

That, or

"Here lies D. Bassett, she was not as fond of clams as she was Gin".

I haven't quite made up my mind.

Naples...

...does the pizza make up for this? Get angry people. Get real angry. It's a damn shame for the birthplace of such a splendid food to be treated like a giant dumpster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples_waste_management_issue

Roman Holiday

Along a river bank during sunset, parrots wing from branch to branch in the trees above us. A meal of deep-fried-in-olive oil artichoke and mozzarella smothered aubergines. Ruins braced by small deli's and gelato shops. Small lizards crawl over sunburnt plaster walls, leading up to paintings of the Virgin and Child protected by glass-enclosed intricately framed boxes.

This is Rome.

A quiet and friendly place, plenty of proscuitto and pasta for everyone. Outside the stampedes inside the Vatican and along the Colosseum you can find the most precious alleys and piazzas with fruit stalls selling melon, small tabacconists selling 2euro 66cl Peronis, and little Jewish panificos selling the best(and cheapest)white pizzas.

All in all, our little Roman holiday was blissful and full of so much beauty that coming back to Paris seemed disappointing-until I remembered that we can see the dome of Sacré Coeur from the street of our favorite fromagerie, and though we may not be able to get a good Italian beer for a few euros, we can get a great bottle of Rose for the change found in the bottom of my purse.

le Liliputian

Petite. That’s our apartment in Paris. That’s everyone’s apartment in Paris. Rather than complain, Jay and I have taken to cajoling and complimenting each other on our tiny Nid d’amour (that’s love nest). Take for example the bathroom, as Jay puts it, one can only wonder at the sheer genius of the French who figured out a way to fit a shower (albeit one resembling your high-school locker but with running water), into an airplane bathroom. This picture says it all really, except you can’t tell from this angle that the water heater is suspended directly overhead of the toilet. Yeah.

One of my pride and joys of our almost-adequate-abode is our very own beer and chevre fridge! While we may not have a freezer that can hold more than 1-2 ice cube bags(amazing blue sandwich-sized bags that you fill a one-way valve with water and freeze then smack on the counter and viola! A bag of little ice cubes!), it does hold 4 very large beers, a big piece of chevre rolled in herbs, and the leftovers from last night’s pico de galo that Jay made(we have really gotten into Mexican food living in Paris-no doubt a side effect from seeing more crepes, croissants and cassoulets then we ever thought possible). Our beer fridge is SUPPREMELY important since, with very few exceptions, you can’t buy refrigerated beer here. Instead it comes straight off the shelf in aisle 4 of the Franprix at room temp. You CAN however buy Mon Cheri candies by the dozen in a box at the 8-a’-Huit for 9 euros with enough boozy liqueur in them to (combined with the sugar), give you a mind bending buzz. These little chocolate gems are contraband in the states which is why before I come back for a visit I will be filling a suitcase with them and strapping as many boxes to my ribcage and thighs as my pencil skirts will allow!

Storage options are limited in our minute-maison as well. I have taken to stacking lamp shades where our TV used to be and the TV now lives behind the cupboard that has become my dresser. We never used the TV since the one time we tried we found French television to be primarily new music videos of artists we thought to be retired or dead, episodes of Friends with French dubbing (believe it or not it does NOT make Jennifer Aniston less annoying), and strange game shows with such loud volume that it makes it difficult for us to hear our neighbor playing the Doobie Bros, “Takin’ it to the Streets”.

All in all, I am enamored and inspired by how little we need to live a very full and beautiful life: episodes of Parks and Recreation downloaded on our computer, a shelf to hold our baguette and bottle of olive oil, a table to play Scrabble on while snacking on French chocolates, and a bed to collapse in after walking from the 9^th to the 1^st to enjoy a falafel and shop for the perfect pair of seersucker shorts.

le Vrai Paris

Sometimes the best things about a place, are the things never mentioned in a travel brochure. They don’t make the latest Crave guide, and you won’t find them in Eat.Shop books. None the less, you find them and they color your day far brighter than the tulips in the Tulieries, or the less frequented, Cite de Fleurs.

One fine example is the locks on bridges all throughout Paris. Small bridges over quays of the Seine, large famous bridges like that of Pont Alexander III, or just random padlocks left along some water walkway not much traversed. Jay and I stumbled upon this padlock horde near Notre Dame Cathedral-the most famous love locks bridge-Pont de l'Archevêché-and wondered what started it all. From what I could discover, it was a tradition started in China where you leave a lock on a fence and "throw away the key". All in all, the contemporary juxtaposed against the ancient architecture is such a perfect depiction of Paris. The old mingling with the new. The foreboding with the funky. The traditional with the trendy.

One thing is for certain, Paris will surprise you. Even with all the films, poems, songs, photographs, tour books, guides and postcards; until you come spend time here, until you wander, get lost, find a better bakery than the ones David Lebowitz rants about online, you haven’t seen Paris at all. And you will never know all it’s secrets. You won’t unravel it’s mystique. A lifetime would not suffice to crumble away its fromage façade, because Paris is through and through every bit as wonderful as you want it to be, and so much more than you could ever imagine.