Travels in Paris

  Ah, Paris, City of Lights

                                                                              

City of Love

                                                                  

City of Gold Statuary

                                                                                  

but most of all city of , je ne c’est quoi, city of very serious people who never smile, wear any kind of athletic gear, or eat, I'm convinced, more than 500 calories a day.

                                                                                  

       They say the French have a love affair with food. Mais, oui, judging by this, 

                                                                                    

which I happily savored at the Musee D’Orsay restaurant. A work of art, to be sure. But this is tourist food. The typical French breakfast of a hard boiled egg and bread (sounds like prison food to me), is followed by a lunch of coffee and a piece of ham, and then a leisurely dinner consisting of a tiny piece of protein with a tiny bit of carb, eaten at a snail's pace of 2-3 hours, accompanied by a couple of glasses of wine. I guess the slower one eats, the more food one thinks one has consumed. Quelle bonne idée!

But then the bastards burn every calorie off by, and I’m not kidding about this, WALKING! 

   They walk to work.

     They walk to shop. 

                                                                                   

     They walk their dogs. 

                                                                                

    and they walk just to walk. They also bike.

                                                                                    

 This is probably one reason why they never smile. They have to concentrate so hard in order not to get flattened by the many cars, taxis, motorcycles and scooters that zoom precariously in and out of traffic, that they get permanent “serious masks” for faces.

I think the other reason they never smile, is because they deprive themselves of all that wonderful food only the tourists eat at the destination restaurants, and café’s where they push large portions of American style food on you for breakfast. Juice, croissants, small baguette with butter, coffee, marmalade, pain au chocolate, ham and breakfast salad. This is called “Breakfast Americaine”.

                                                                                  

And they KNOW you’re American. One time, I walked into a café, nicely dressed in a black tailored coat, the required scarf, black pants and black shoes, (no sneakers, God forbid) and a waiter sat me down and brusquely announced, “Breakfast Americaine”, then walked away before I had a chance to say “Bonjour”. Mon Dieu! Maybe it was because I wasn’t as thin as everyone in the restaurant. Maybe I had my scarf knotted the wrong way. Maybe it was because I was smiling. I imagined a conversation with my waiter. He says, "You cannot fool us. You are not a REAL Parisienne!" and I reply, with a big American smile on my face, "Then you won't be wanting any of my REAL Euros!" But I kid.

And continuing to smile, I walked the streets of Paris, drinking in the beauty of the city at every turn,

                                                                                    

  devouring the heady smell of French lavender in the luscious surroundings of the Jardin Des Tuileries,

                                                                                 

  consuming every detail of Notre Dame,

                                                                                    

               imbibing the very light reflected off the batobus as I cruised down the Seine.

                                                                                 

       I’m getting hungry. Hand me a croissant, will you, Pierre? Preferably avec le chocolat.