Falling in Love in Paris

Well, I didn’t fall anywhere near love, but I was able to fulfill my fantasy of meeting a young and handsome man in Paris. His name was Karim and he was Moroccan: lovely dark skin, jet black features, a soft melodious voice and kind eyes. I was sitting at a park writing when he shyly approached me. By this time I was used to getting approached every few minutes, it seemed, by some man trying to pick up a young foreign woman. Somehow he was different and very charming. We spoke in both French and English, laughing when we couldn’t understand each other and smiling when we could. We ended up walking through the tiny cobbled streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, visited galleries, watched street performers, and held hands the whole way. We kissed on the Seine and walked like lovers under the Pont Neuf Bridge. And then I got bored, writing later, “I wish I could have enjoyed him for longer.” Off I went with the faint hope that I’d want to see him again, as he would wait for me at the same spot the next day at 4:00pm, but Paris swooped me up again and I didn’t want to share my time, even with a handsome young man.

Jim Morrison’s Grave and Apartment

Yes, a stop along my Paris way was to Jim Morrison’s grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery. I was a HUGE fan in high school (yesterday, while getting ready to pack, I found yet more artwork that I did with his name and photos- silly girl stuff). Actually, as soon as I decided to go to Paris, his grave was one of the first things on my list. The headstone was gone at this time, but it was still a must to go see it. The experience was pretty lame, although I did get the grave to myself. I wrote in my journal, “It wasn’t really all that great, just an empty feeling of taking pictures of something that was so exhausted from being looked at.” I also had jotted down the apartment that he allegedly died in (where he was found in the bathtub). I couldn’t get in, so I took some pictures of the outside and, well, that was all I could do. My Jim Morrison pilgrimage was finished.

Photo: Jim Morrison's grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery

A Cheap Hotel in Paris

An oxymoron, you say? Well, I did find one on this trip, the perfect little hotel for just me. The Hôtel de Rouen, located on the rue Croix des Petits Champs in the 1st district (the heart of downtown), offered me the “maid’s chamber” on the top floor for 25 euros a night. It was the only room on the floor and had a shower and the toilet just outside the door. I had my own little TV and a floor to call my own. Not all was perfect in paradise, though, as the place was a zero star establishment, not the cleanest, and definitely not somewhere you’d want to stay too long. I made it 8 nights. Even now, the hotel rents their single rooms out for 38 euros; not too shabby for a place to rest your head in Paris.

Photo: Hôtel de Rouen, where I had a floor to call my own

Jardin de la Villette

I happened upon the Villette garden in the 19th district to my great surprise. Not just another park, this wonder was 3 kilmetres of paths with 10 themed gardens. It was a wonderland, as I put it in my journal. “It’s a circular space outside, walls all around except for the open sky. There’s water falling down the sides of the stairs as you walk down, and there’s these really strange sounds coming from who knows where. I don’t know if the wind is catching them, somewhere, to make the noises, or if they’re from another part of the park. There’s 10 themed gardens in this park… Photo: The big dragon slide with smaller slides coming down from the sides. The lineup was looooong.

"This place is amazing. What I was in before was the bamboo garden, which is what was probably making those lovely sounds. I’m now sitting in the garden of mirrors, where children can play (each garden has an age limit, I guess depending on the danger level) and big mirrors are put up for them to hide behind. Next I’m onto the garden of dunes, where it’s all hilly and on some of the down slopes there’s little activities: ropes, a big chair, nets, tunnels. It’s incredible… There’s caterpillars designed similar to the dragon (see photo) for the kids to climb up and down on.” How I longed to be a kid!

Paris for Beginners

The most amazing thing that Paris did for me on this trip was to open up my world. I had grown up just outside of Vancouver, Canada, and have spent my whole life here. Although I did a lot of travelling all over the world when I was younger, other culture and countries just didn’t hit me with the same poignancy as travelling alone. Not only did I fall in love with the city, I fell in love with the life of a wanderer. I walked through the streets all day, sat in cafés, read on park benches, wrote along the Seine and took pictures hoping to catch the images in my memory forever. It was the first time that I got out of my young brain and OUT into the big world. Paris just happened to be the city I chose and the city that agreed with me the most. After so many years, it’s still one of my favourite places on earth, but back to my earlier experience…

Photo: The Pont de Bir Hakeim, where Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider met in Last Tango in Paris.

Louveciennes and Anaïs Nin

I was an Anaïs Nin fan after reading her many volumes of diaries. It was imperative, then, that when I visited Paris, I had to see her former house, the place she described in her writing as both a prison and a refuge. The small village was easy enough to get to but I thought I would never find her house. There were no signs, as this was certainly not a tourist attraction, but I eventually found my way. What I found was the house she had written about with longing that had a sole plaque on the wall in her honour. I tried to peak around the walls and saw some movement in the backyard before walking away. It was an uneventful trip but somehow worth it, as I got to see the house she spent a few years living in. There were rumours of it being bought by a developer and split into 3 lots for new real estate. I have no idea what ever happened with that, but I’m glad I saw the house when I did.

Photo: Plaque on the outside wall of Anaïs Nin's old house

Sightseeing in Paris

For the first week, I did all of the “tourist” things, meaning exploring the famous sites and buildings. I spent a day at the Louvre, walked along the Champs Elysée to the Arc de Triomphe, went to the Château de Vincennes, the Picasso Museum (probably my favourite overall), the Conciergerie, Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, etc. It was a magnificent and quick tour of the city and had to be done. I kept seeing smaller and less crowded places that I saved for later and picked my favourite neighbourhoods (Le Marais) and haunts. What I couldn’t get over the most was that I had seen Paris through the eyes of filmmakers, photographers, travel shows and writers for so many months, but I was HERE, really HERE, seeing it in person. It made everything all the more romantic and visceral, somehow. After one week, I was so hooked on Paris I never wanted to leave.


Photo: The Arc de Triomphe from the Champs Elysée

The First Day

Again, the view from my hotel window down to the rue Saint-Antoine. These are the peaceful but angry protesters againsts M. Le Pen. Police cares lined both sides of the street.

After settling into the hotel, I still had the whole afternoon and evening free. What had made me the most curious on my way from the station was the people crowded on the sidewalks: this certainly couldn’t be a usual occurrence? There were gendarmeries at all corners around Place de Bastille and along rue Saint-Antoine, with clear shields and serious faces, their cars parked along both sides of the street. What was going on? This was the moment I learned about the importance of protests in French culture. Citizens were protesting a candidate in the upcoming election, Jean-Marie Le Pen, with signs charging him with racism and discrimination. They had taken to the streets and were marching with signs down rue Saint-Antoine and up to the Place de Bastille. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why they were protesting and trying to get my bearings in the Marais district, as the city as a whole seemed too intimidating. Dinner was a panini at one of the street-side shops where the young men always seemed to be smiling and flirting with the passing women. I was asked to go for a drink at one of the bars at the Place de Bastille that night but decided to pass: my body was starting to feel incredibly heavy as the long flight and no sleep began to catch up with me. It was an early night to bed on my first day in Paris.

My First Step in Paris

The view of rue Saint-Antoine from my hotel room, L'Hotel de la Herse d'Or. This is the 1st day of May, La Fête du Travail, when there are many street protests and people selling lilies of the valley.

How does one describe their first step into a city that has an incredibly distinguished history? I had built up this dreamy place with romantic notions of berets, baguettes, fashion, kissing and beauty at every turn. It did not disappoint me. My initial step out of the Gare de Lyon produced tiny tears in my eyes. I had finally arrived and a wave of awe rolled through me. Having studied a map while on the plane, I simply strode out of the station and into the chaos, along the streets I had seen so many times in photos and films, and made my way to the hotel without a glitch. I had arrived in what would become my little slice of Paris for the next month. L’Hotel de la Herse d’Or, located in the Marais (4th district) was the base where I would begin and end each glorious day.

The Beginning: Dreaming of Paris

Le Château de Longchamps at Bois de Vincennes, Paris (who would have thought this would exist in Paris?!)

My fascination with France came to me sporadically in the summer of 2001. I had just finished my theatre acting program and was working at Tony Roma’s as a hostess. I was living down by the beach in the west end of Vancouver and, while marvelling at the beauty of this city, began daydreaming of all the other beautiful places in the world. I had been to many cities in the States, throughout Canada, even to China and Korea, but never to Europe. Like a flash of lightening Paris sparkled in my mind and I knew I was hooked. I had no more than my high school French (which I almost failed in grade 12) and didn’t know any more about the city than it hosted the Eiffel Tower, nothing more to differentiate it from any other major European city. But Paris I had chosen and Paris it would be. I saved up for the next few months and booked a flight to spend the next April in Paris. It was a trip that would change my life.