le dimanche
Sundays are what make Paris different than the United States. It's still a day of rest here. Even Monoprix, a big, boxy Parisian store that is half Target, half Whole Foods, is closed on Sunday.
That's not to say the streets are dead. Even here in my corner of the 7th arrondissement (7e), where it's usually very quiet, the market street rue Cler starts bustling around 11 a.m. Rue Cler is shut off for the pedestrians so they can shop at the dozens of stores. Butchers, bakers, olive oil makers, fishmongers, wine sellers, and produce merchants all do brisk business with the Sunday morning crowds.
I squeezed my way through the rue Cler crowd around 11:30 Sunday morning to get to Café du Marché for a coffee and salad. Because I don't speak the language fluently, crowds are especially disorienting. My mind, which only wanted to get me through the crowd to the café on the next corner, had to handle the additional baggage of giggling children, bantering adults, barking butchers, and a man singing over a hand-cranked organ.
Fortunately, my French is improving, so I heard a few words jump like porpoises out from the sea of sound. Children's voices always get my attention first; I gauge my progress by how well I can understand them. It's pretty frustrating when I can't understand a five-year-old, which is still often the case.
I finally made it to the café and squeezed into a booth. And I mean "squeezed." I'll use that word often here. Paris doesn't have much space for anything. This is an old city, everyone wants to be here, and it's not expanding anytime soon. To sit down in a café, you often have to pull the table out to get to the booth. The tiny apartments are the same way. I've already broken two glasses just trying to negotiate my way around my "kitchen" (a sink, two ranges, and two shelves inside a portable closet).
Paris isn't sounding very restful, is it?
Well, rue Cler was completely cleared out when I left the café. The crowds were gone and the shops were closing. The street was silent except for men whistling and apples being dropped in boxes. I turned left on rue de Grenelle and walked toward Champs de Mars, which I have to cross to get to my building. The streets were so empty that the clacking of my shoes on the cobblestone actually echoed.
Most stores are closed on Sundays, so when I saw an open boulangerie (bakery) and realized that I was feeling too lazy to cook dinner, I stopped in for a baguette. This is always safe bet: the French government regulates the price of a baguette (today, it's 0.85 euro).
I was lucky enough to stop in right after they had pulled a fresh batch out of the oven. On an especially cold Paris afternoon, nothing feels better than a warm baguette in your hands (except maybe sitting right underneath the overhead heater when you get stuck with a patio seat at the café). I picked off chunk after chunk as I walked through the Champs de Mars.
Looking up at the perfectly trimmed trees and realizing I was carrying my baguette parallel to the ground--not perpendicular, which is more natural--I realized that the first lesson of living in Paris had sunk in: Everything Is Just So.
You have to hold your baguette just so, or it will break in half as you are carrying it, especially if it's warm. The trees in the parks are trimmed just so. You have to walk on the sidewalk just so, or you'll step in dog shit (this is a completely justified stereotype of Paris, by the way). No one dares leave the house without tying his scarf just so. At least in my neighborhood, which is admittedly a bit chic (although considerably less so since my arrival), all the dogs are just so: I haven't seen any mutts; just pure bred, beautiful dogs. Parisians seem less enamored of cats, which surprises me. Parisians seem like cat people: cats are aloof, sleek, and they move gracefully. But I think the Parisians realize that there is much more variety in appearance to be found in the wide range of dog breeds. With more variety, more beauty. So Parisians have dogs. However, they train them to behave like cats. Seriously: they walk like cats, and they never bark.
The culture, also, is just so. Parisians do everything together. They say the same things each time they greet. They know when to go to rue Cler, and they know when to go home. I'm always just missing the wave. I wake up too late and get to rue Cler just as it's closing. I run out of cigarettes on Sunday and realize that every "tabac" is closed (only tabacs are allowed to sell cigarettes in Paris). I say "Bonjour" to the boulanger, but freeze up trying to decide whether she's "Mademoiselle" or if she's old enough to be "Madame."
Hopefully I'll catch a wave soon. I feel like I've been further up on the swell lately. At least I know now that if I hold on to the baguette too tightly, it will break. That's a good lesson to learn.
That's not to say the streets are dead. Even here in my corner of the 7th arrondissement (7e), where it's usually very quiet, the market street rue Cler starts bustling around 11 a.m. Rue Cler is shut off for the pedestrians so they can shop at the dozens of stores. Butchers, bakers, olive oil makers, fishmongers, wine sellers, and produce merchants all do brisk business with the Sunday morning crowds.
I squeezed my way through the rue Cler crowd around 11:30 Sunday morning to get to Café du Marché for a coffee and salad. Because I don't speak the language fluently, crowds are especially disorienting. My mind, which only wanted to get me through the crowd to the café on the next corner, had to handle the additional baggage of giggling children, bantering adults, barking butchers, and a man singing over a hand-cranked organ.
Fortunately, my French is improving, so I heard a few words jump like porpoises out from the sea of sound. Children's voices always get my attention first; I gauge my progress by how well I can understand them. It's pretty frustrating when I can't understand a five-year-old, which is still often the case.
I finally made it to the café and squeezed into a booth. And I mean "squeezed." I'll use that word often here. Paris doesn't have much space for anything. This is an old city, everyone wants to be here, and it's not expanding anytime soon. To sit down in a café, you often have to pull the table out to get to the booth. The tiny apartments are the same way. I've already broken two glasses just trying to negotiate my way around my "kitchen" (a sink, two ranges, and two shelves inside a portable closet).
Paris isn't sounding very restful, is it?
Well, rue Cler was completely cleared out when I left the café. The crowds were gone and the shops were closing. The street was silent except for men whistling and apples being dropped in boxes. I turned left on rue de Grenelle and walked toward Champs de Mars, which I have to cross to get to my building. The streets were so empty that the clacking of my shoes on the cobblestone actually echoed.
Most stores are closed on Sundays, so when I saw an open boulangerie (bakery) and realized that I was feeling too lazy to cook dinner, I stopped in for a baguette. This is always safe bet: the French government regulates the price of a baguette (today, it's 0.85 euro).
I was lucky enough to stop in right after they had pulled a fresh batch out of the oven. On an especially cold Paris afternoon, nothing feels better than a warm baguette in your hands (except maybe sitting right underneath the overhead heater when you get stuck with a patio seat at the café). I picked off chunk after chunk as I walked through the Champs de Mars.
Looking up at the perfectly trimmed trees and realizing I was carrying my baguette parallel to the ground--not perpendicular, which is more natural--I realized that the first lesson of living in Paris had sunk in: Everything Is Just So.
You have to hold your baguette just so, or it will break in half as you are carrying it, especially if it's warm. The trees in the parks are trimmed just so. You have to walk on the sidewalk just so, or you'll step in dog shit (this is a completely justified stereotype of Paris, by the way). No one dares leave the house without tying his scarf just so. At least in my neighborhood, which is admittedly a bit chic (although considerably less so since my arrival), all the dogs are just so: I haven't seen any mutts; just pure bred, beautiful dogs. Parisians seem less enamored of cats, which surprises me. Parisians seem like cat people: cats are aloof, sleek, and they move gracefully. But I think the Parisians realize that there is much more variety in appearance to be found in the wide range of dog breeds. With more variety, more beauty. So Parisians have dogs. However, they train them to behave like cats. Seriously: they walk like cats, and they never bark.
The culture, also, is just so. Parisians do everything together. They say the same things each time they greet. They know when to go to rue Cler, and they know when to go home. I'm always just missing the wave. I wake up too late and get to rue Cler just as it's closing. I run out of cigarettes on Sunday and realize that every "tabac" is closed (only tabacs are allowed to sell cigarettes in Paris). I say "Bonjour" to the boulanger, but freeze up trying to decide whether she's "Mademoiselle" or if she's old enough to be "Madame."
Hopefully I'll catch a wave soon. I feel like I've been further up on the swell lately. At least I know now that if I hold on to the baguette too tightly, it will break. That's a good lesson to learn.
posted by disappearingink at 9:23 AM
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