well, little darlin', here comes the sun. today, the first official day of spring, the temps are predicted to hit 80 and the cats are clamoring for each open window. we're all ecstatic as the long season retreats. a dismal success of a winter, for sure.
we saw what we hope was the last of the snow on monday morning. which, as you can imagine, was uber-depressing for two people who just returned from the most beautiful city in the world.
paris! paris was a dream. you'd laugh if i described it the way i want to, the way it felt. an uptight american having that cliche european experience. revelations and renaissance. so, i'll leave that to hemingway.
speaking of revelations. the coffee, oh my goodness, the coffee. i'm currently gulping flavorless mug after mug of maxwell house, doing it more for the habit than the pleasure. but in paris, those 3 ounces were quite literally the highlight of my day. even the hotel coffee was seventeen times better than what i'm drinking now. i also sort of fell in love with sugar cubes.
it wasn't as if the hotel was a dive, though. our window looked out onto the south side of the city, long rectangles of parisian apartments seemingly stacked up to the horizon (we learned how much they cost to rent, just in case a very, very rich long-lost relative leaves us millions of dollars). the other side faced the stately eiffel tower, just across the street.
i was so much more enamored with the tower than i expected to be. it is massive and a little ugly, but it's symmetry is staggering, and the force of its cache is just inescapable. virtually everyone knows the image of the tower, so sitting under it is like communing with a billion people you've never met. those were my favorite moments in paris: sitting in its shadow on a spread-out coat, drinking cheap wine from the bottle, and looking around at the dozens around us who were doing the same, necks bent to admire the old thing.
when we weren't sitting and drinking, we were walking. walking and walking and walking. paul and i make good travel companions, because neither of like to commit. during our first visit to a city, we rarely wander into tours or museums; we'd rather keep moving to see all the little things you just can't find in the louvre.
and oh, the little things we found. the best metro lines for peering into posh apartments at dusk. dog parks teeming with, i must say, the politest off-leash pups i've encountered. street food i wouldn't trade for the fanciest french bistro. the bars with the cheapest pints and most entertaining bands (neil young done with a french accent is way weird, we learned). we tucked ourselves into the streaming hordes of students near the sorbonne and the window shoppers of the champs-elysees.
we were terrible with the language. that was the worst part. not being able to communicate. to be funny or gracious or sarcastic. to ask for a tuna sandwich. a few times, in all my confusion and fluster, my high school spanish strangely surfaced, instead of my phrasebook french. so we got better with body language, apologized profusely. i just smiled like an idiot and nodded no matter what.
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i'm pretty sure gus is going to lose his little dog mind if we don't go play ball in the sunshine, like, now.
to be continued.
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