Paris' Parting Charms

Alright--our last post from Paris.

So in short, Paris charmed our butts off. It took Erik a bit longer to figure out he'd really fallen in love with the place, but by the last few days, Erik was sad that he was going to miss it. We capture below a lot of the exceptional sights of the city but sadly little of the day-to-day beauty. The city's true charm lies not in the Eiffel Tower but in the architecture, the cafe culture, and the Parisians themselves. 

Architecture: despite being highly uniform, it is an open, inviting, loving architecture. It is an architecture that tells you that you're wonderful. It is big-windowed, lined with huge balconies with manicured wrought-iron guardrails. The Parisians have plants and decor pouring out of these windows to the streets, which are lined with trees, lights, and open doors when wide (avenues/boulevards) and remain charming when narrow and windy. (This lies in stark contrast to the "rusticated" Milano--first floors are literal fortifications, doors are closed, windows are shuttered, outer walls are bare.)

The cafe culture means the cafes are lively at all hours. Parisians seem to use them for business, for work, reading, relaxing and, most importantly, socializing. It means they never fail to have customers (even though their usage spikes in the evenings), and those in groups are bright and chatty with each other, and are often as not seated outside on tables that spot the broad sidewalks. No section of Paris (that we visited, and that's many of them) seems to be without them in spades. I suspect the French spend a lot on coffee. 

Above, a pair of French cafe's with the work of "Misstic," the sought-after graffiti artist.

The most important part of Parisian charm is surely the Parisians themselves. In shops there is an irresistible custom of greeting each other upon entry and saying goodbye when leaving. Youngsters, in the evenings (starting early and ending late) flock to the banks of the Seine or the canals with beer, wine, and cigarettes, and congregate in groups. Like in the cafe's, they are lively and chatty and happy. On weekend (and maybe weekday?) nights along the Seine, one can find organized or impromptu dancing by folks with big or tiny speaker setups--everything from swing to waltz to dubstep. A few folks practice fire juggling. Every Parisian we talked to alluded on their own to either liking or loving their city, with no thoughts of leaving. There's really not anywhere I've been to quite like it.

A highlight: Fete de la Musique

As the name suggests, the Fete de la Musique is a large music festival that centers in Paris but actually apparently happens all over the world (it's June 21 every year). It seems the whole greater metro area comes out for the Fete, packing the streets and shutting down traffic from about 7pm onward. Acts ranging all genres play to either tiny (if they're amateurish) or gigantic (if they're awesome) crowds. Nobody seems to have money hats or whatnot out on the ground, which I found a bit interesting. Below are 3 videos of our favorite groups.

Awesome Marching Drum Band

Classic Rock / Blues / Western Cover Band

Superb, Goofy Klezmer Band--Erik's Favorite (Never figured out who they were, sadly)--we only got the very end of one of their acts due to the gigantic crowd

Parisians were also fairly active in voicing their opinions, compared to my experience in the States. There may be as much Facebook tomfoolery but here there's a lot more speaking out. Parisians do indeed live up to their reputation of being unafraid to share their points of view and tend to be very direct. Erik likes this.

A March/Protest Calling for Justice for the Young Gay Kid Killed by Skinheads in Early June

We decided to have our own night on the Seine on our last night in town (Friday). We went to a Lebanese place for takeout (we'd had a lot of French food already; deal with it), and it did not disappoint. Not only was it novel, but it was particularly delicious (well-executed and unique hummus, shwarma, and especially desserts--even the beer was especially crisp). We paired with a store-bought Rose (rose's are not sweet in France and while we'd had a very good one before this was "meh") and some super-dry cider. 

The Way to Heather's Heart is Through Her Stomach

I took some photos that tragically under-call the density of people on the Seine--it was still "early" and it filled up more after these photos, and other parts of the Seine (just upstream) had a whole lot more. But, y'know, we were right by Notre Dame and Ile de Cite and that was cool :)

Downstream From Our Perch

Across the River From Our Perch

Panoramic Of Our Perch, West-North-East

We actually joined the Parisians in some swing, which was awesome until Erik's calf tweaked and we had to stop, so instead we took pictures of some of the dancing. It was here we met a Frenchwoman with an Irish accent that told us for a bit about how great the city was. She was a heck of a dancer, too.

Parisian Swing!

Final noteworthy bit that has photos associated: We went to lunch with Heather's awesome cousin Amy to... I forget where. But it's apparently very famous. Our waiter was "super-French," terse, demanding, and insisted we order and finish up quickly. Despite this he was somehow also a bunch of fun--I think (and Amy says, and I will believe her as she's spent years in Paris) he had no bad mood/temper but simply had a high-turnover shop and a more old-school style of service (where, as we joked, "the customer serves the waiter"). Amy's irresistible charm won him over to our side and they were laughing about jokes I didn't understand, but he quickly converted to giving us all the time we needed, joking with us, and giving us many (apparently extra) bonbons by the end. He even got pictures with us at the end!

Amy, Heather, and Erik

Our Awesome Waiter, Air-Guitaring

So that's it. I nearly shed a tear for the place. At time of writing we're finishing up a day-and-a-half in Milano, which... shall we say, helped us appreciate Paris all the more, although it had its own interesting bits, which you'll see in my next short post. After this, off to Lake Como for 3 days, then Florence and Venice to round out Italy. 

We're doing okay for lacking any Italian... English around here really is a Lingua Franca (heh) and we witnessed at dinner 3 people, all of whom had different first languages (none of which were English) using English to understand one another (I think they were Italian, Spanish, and... Slavic of some sort). This, I thought, was very cool and alleviated some of my guilt.