Winging it in Paris
Saturday morning, the sun was out but not yet biting down hard. I was at Jardin du Palais Royal under the tree shades chilling out in front of ... a fountain. I hesitated to call it a fountain because it looked unremarkable: a couple of tubes shooting out water?
People sat in a singular circle along the fountain, separated by an invisible line dividing the fountain into two halves: the shaded and the sunned. I was on my way to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, thought to stop at a café but decided to walk further, thus settled in the shaded side of the fountain. On my right, a man was engrossing in his newspaper. On my left, a father and daughter pair; the daughter played on the iPhone while the dad enjoyed some quiet time. No one seemed hurry to go anyway or do anything. So I stayed, until the sun rays slowly crept into my shades.
Took a photo of a gallery on Rue Bonaparte. The gallery manager spotted me and came out to invite me in. We ended up chatting for a good half an hour about Gursky, arts, our backgrounds and the upcoming Brussels Gallery Weekend. He spoke good English. Later I complimented another man for speaking good English, he sarcastically said to me that’s because although he grew up in Paris, he is not French. “They don’t try hard, because they think they are French already.”
“Lunch? Where you at?” My cousin finally woke up. I looked up then texted him the first brasserie I saw. “Ok.” There was only one thing to do today. Eat brunch. A very long (could be longer but there was no air-con nor breeze), accompanied by many glasses of wine, downed with animated conversation (we were mostly wiping away sweats and whining about the lack of air-con), alongside my favourite cousin Max (debatable), and fabulous Katie.
A cheese burger! Are you serious? Having a Stormtrooper tattoo doesn't give you immunity to commit food sin in Paris.
We went to Shakespeare and Company afterwards. I braved the sauna-like condition ventured inside and bought a book: Inside a Pearl. Edmund White’s Paris memoir. We then wandered to Île Saint-Louis for sorbets at Bathillon. Walked passed Notre Dame. We didn't stop. At that temperature, sorbet tops all.
Jesse and Celine. If you don't know the reference, you've missed out.
Licking the last bit of sorbet off my cone, we all had enough, it’s time to get in a taxi and enjoyed some air conditioning! Ten minutes later, finally saw a taxi with green lights. Katie said: ”It looks like it's going to turn right!” We hurried across to the right, readied to hail it down, but it drove straight ahead! I laughed. Max smoked. Katie was working on getting an Uber.
Uber came, we popped in. The driver was very environmentally conscious so all windows were down and no air-con. Traffic was atrocious. We hopped out after ten minutes. “Now what?” I asked. Max smoked. Katie was working out how to take the metro/bus. Sensing the pattern here? Only one person in the group had a brain.
We watched French against Argentina. Max had a personal stake in French winning and he generously promised to paypal me a cut. 4-3! We cheered and went out on to the street. Music was blasting; the PRIDE parade was in full swing; we danced silly with the crowd.
