The Inaccurate Tourist

23. Guest

These weeks started with the long-awaited Coupe de Site. This is a yearly event held on the work site, with sports, games, food and prizes for the kids. The departments are organized into teams, and the preceding weeks were all of the preliminary matches of football, volleyball and chess. Only the finals were held on the day of the Coupe de Site.

Our department's name was Rubis and I had signed up to play in the chess team and to run individually in the three kilometre cross-country. Unfortunately, as many of my friends can tell you, I don't know how to play chess, but since chess isn't as popular as petanque, the rest of the team encouraged me to participate. Similarly, I hadn't really prepared for the run either.

I'm pleased to report that, despite the fact that I hadn't won a single chess game during the preliminary rounds, I did my duty at the finals. We won three of our four matches in the finals -- and I wasn't the member that lost.

But the best part of the week was my first guest. Nancy is a long-time family friend, and since she was living in Merry Old England, we decided to work out an exchange. She arrived on the solstice, the longest day of the year and also the fête de la musique in France. In many cities, bands and musicians set up in all sorts of venues and all corners and the streets close for pedestrians. Unfortunately, the métro wasn't cooperating with us and we missed several hours, but we still had a decent walk, listening to the bands and watching the people.

At about midnight, we ended up at the Jardin de la Tuileries, which is a garden in front of the Louvre in the centre of the city. We were both famished, so we decided to eat at one of the carnival booths and then go up the Ferris wheel for a night view of the city. We skipped the first booth after watching the cook giving her dog water from her cupped hands before returning to the grill, but we grabbed a place in line at the second tent to get a merguez (spiced sausage) on a bun. I've really enjoyed the quality of the sausage in France, and even the carnival sausage was pretty impressive.

We missed the Ferris wheel, because the carnival closed while we were eating. The last métro had gone by as well, so we had to walk back to my place. Although Nancy and I are both power walkers, it took over an hour to return. It was a very pleasant and warm night.

We followed our late night with an early morning. We were going to get to the Eiffel tower at it's opening to beat the crowds, but I wanted to take a detour to show Nancy one of the nearby open-air markets close to my house. It's very small, with just a single cheese vendor and a couple of vegetable booths. We stopped at a little boulangerie for a chaussure aux pommes and a coffee, and chatted with some American tourists who were leaving that day.

At the end of the street was the gate into the Montparnasse cemetery, which we had been discussing earlier. I thought it would be good idea to duck in and visit Jean-Paul and Simone again, but we ended up doing a longer tour. On the other end of the cemetery was another, larger open-air market, so we strolled through it as well, looking at the fish and cheese, flowers and vegetables, olives and breads. Nancy bought some fresh raspberries for later, and we found a vendor selling the same tablecloths I picked up in Provence.

We had already covered a dozen kilometres by foot, and it was only noon on her first day in Paris. We took the métro again towards St. Michel so Nancy could buy a journal in the Latin Quarter and we walked towards the Seine to sit in another terrace and sip another coffee.

We went through the square in front of Notre Dame. Because this is such a high-traffic tourist area, there are usually signs warning the crowds about pickpockets. I've yet to see a pickpocket, but the american couple from the morning had two attempts made on their wallets. There are also people asking for spare change, typically asking if you speak English first.

This was the first time I had been inside Notre Dame. It was very crowded, and the visitors weren't very worshipful -- there was more loud chatting and flash picture-taking, which seemed to shrink the inside of the church. The lines to the towers were extremely long, so we decided to sit in the shade in a little park between Notre Dame and the Seine and eat the raspberries with a little Sugar Twin, watching little Italian children excavating a sandbox.

We continued along the Seine towards La Samaritaine, the grand magasin. They weren't going to get any business from us this week -- we just poked around a bit and went up to the panorama on the roof. I had discovered this view the week before. There's an elevator most of the way to the top, but you have to take a few staircases before reaching the tiny platform at the top. It's an incredible view.

If you check out this panorama, take a couple of seconds to check out the area around the elevators before going down. There's a series of creepy, dusty little dioramas telling the life story of the founder of La Samaritaine.

We continued along the Seine to the Tour St. Jacques, which has been shrouded in mystery... er... scaffolding for a number of years of restoration. The tower is actually the remains of a church (St. Jacques-la-Boucherie), and I go there frequently because it is a convenient métro stop, because I like the sphinx head fountain at the Place du Châtelet, and because I like the chocolate and banana crèpes there.

With our chocolate crèpes in hand (they were out of bananas), we went through La Marais (the section of town noted for it's Jewish and also it's gay population). Nancy pointed out to me that certain areas of Paris do smell distinctly of urine -- a fact that I had happily been unaware of (up to this point), thanks to my winterfresh arrival. I guess all major cities have their curses -- and despite the incredible beauty of Paris, some portion of the population seems to be determined to afflict it with urine, litter, graffiti and dog excrement.

We finally made it to the Louvre, where we stuck our sore feet into the fountain. Everybody else had the same idea -- it felt great, absolutely bohemian.

The long line outside the Louvre is a trick -- it's just a line to get down into the pyramid, and you can skip it entirely by finding the entrance to the stores underneath the Louvre. Once inside the pyramid, the line to buy the actual tickets are much shorter, and you can skip THEM entirely by buying your ticket using your credit card at the machine.

We bypassed all of this by deciding to pass on the Louvre entirely -- after a day of walking, a museum stroll would have reduced our knees to grit. We had already put off the Eiffel Tower for the next day. The Louvre would have to wait as well.

Outside the Louvre, Nancy was propositioned for a caricature -- we were approached several times by the artists and they always assumed we were married, probably because we weren't holding hands. They never asked me if I wanted a caricature; they were obviously afraid of the steely glint in my eye (or the interesting shape of my nose). On the other hand, Nancy wanted to have one done. The artist said he would do it for fifty euros (which is milk-coming-out-of-nose funny, and I hadn't even drank milk that day). It wasn't hard to bargain for much less, although she never made it to my proud two euro mark.

Afterwards, Nancy thought of a great trick if you want a caricature done. If they see you carrying a rolled-up piece of paper, they'll offer you significantly lower prices to have a second one done for comparison -- so you should be carrying a rolled up piece of paper in the first place.

We métroed to the Arc de Triomphe, where we were treated to a woman posing ridiculously for her friend.

You can see La Grande Arche of La Defense, the modern, skyscraper section of town here. The giant, square arch is one end of an alignment that includes La Grande Arche, the Arc de Triomphe, the obelisk in Place de la Concorde, the little Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel and the glass pyramid of the Louvre. We're frequently reminded that Notre Dame Cathedral can fit inside the arch.

We were also treated to the sight of Turkish fans cheering the win of their team in the World Cup quarter finals. The French were strangely indifferent.

We walked along the Champs-Elysée for a while, then took the métro back to my place for a quick rest, before the next big cultural experience -- the grocery store. We had a quick munch of some typically French things (the cheese, the terrine with foie gras, the bread, etc.) as well as some tasty little English things Nancy had brought me (the savoury egg, the chicken lattice and the celebrated cornish pasty).

The next day, we managed to make it to the Eiffel tower. This was my first time up the tower, but I unhappily forgot my camera. So I'll have to offer more details on the tower next time.

We had a lunch beside the Trocadero overlooking the Eiffel Tower, starting with a kir and ending with a café. I believe that chicken and pasta were involved in the middle of the dinner.

We returned home so Nancy could pack up her things and pick up her inline skates, and then headed to Les Invalides for a promenade (as is my Sunday habit). We went around Les Invalides a bit, as usual, then went up and down the road along the Seine, which is closed Sundays for pedestrian (and roller) traffic. Nancy gave us a few pointers, and we were feeling confident enough to try the roads a bit, crossing the Seine and continuing on the other side past the Louvre.

We left directly from the centre of the city to the airport, had a quick coffee, and exhausted, said our good-byes.

Alright, I admit. I never actually played in the chess finals -- I was a reserve player, so I was just there to cheer our team on. Silently. On the other hand, I came in fourth for the three kilometre cross, at 11 minutes 43 seconds.

Do you think you could be a guest as good as Nancy? We'll see.

Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at June 28, 2002 12:00 PM