RUNNING ERRANDS IN PARIS

WALKING AGAIN

2010

 

 

When I wake up I can’t make sense of the time. I have to turn on my cell to confirm: it’s really 11.15am. I have slept for 11 hours. Today Oswaldo has to work on his talk and I am ready, out the door, with my map and a mission to find the Rolex place (coisa de brasileira) in upscale Monceau, in very little time. The weather is grey, cool, but pleasant. Crossing Place St. Michele and dodging traffic with the ubiquitous motorcyclists, I walk to Chatelêt to catch the Metro which eventually leaves me at the entrance of the charming Monceau park, full of late blooming flowers. Across the park in a quiet palais I find the Rolex place, where they can do nothing for me ‘je suis desolée, Madame,’ a phrase you hear a lot. Walking back in the direction of home I notice again the great number of smokers everywhere. All the bars are empty inside, make you want not to sit there, and outside practically everybody is puffing away. Outside office buildings ashtrays are filled to the brim and stinky. We have ventured an estimate of 7 out of 10 people on the street are smoking, and, since there are a lot of tourists, does this mean that all Parisians smoke and only the tourists do not - or is Paris a guilt-free smoker’s haven to which smokers from all over the world congregate to smoke in peace? Intriguing question. 

Street people are dotted here and there in Paris, we saw a lady with an old dog on Pont Neuf yesterday, and today I spot a man nodding off next to his two curled up cats outside a designer shop. When I was last here, in the freezing of January 2006, I saw even old ladies prepare on the street bundled up in rags like Russian dolls.

When I get tired of walking I get on the Metro at Place de la Concorde - I’m getting the hang of this - and get off at Rue de Bac and to walk the length of Blvd. St. Germain back to our place. I stop to get a nice crustyvegetarienne sandwich and a raspberry tart and take both home to Oswaldo to share a late lunch. Then we leave again to find the place where he will lecture. I drop him there, and meander back in the intermittent rain with my rolling backpack, shopping for food, flowers and candles and looking forward to working and eating alone while Oswaldo dines with the logicians. 

I ponder my difficulty with speaking French. I understand maybe 70% of what people are saying, but if I speak in French and they happen to speak English, they will invariably answer back in English. I wow to myself that by the time I leave they will answer in French!

RUNNING ERRANDS IN PARIS

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

THESE GUYS ARE EVERYWHERE: RIO, KATHMANDU, BUENOS AIRES, AND PARIS - BEEP, BEEP