Parisian Life

Our first morning here starts overcast and rainy. The French summer in full effect I guess.

It always seems the best idea (to us at least) to learn a city is on foot, so that’s what we do. Setting off it’s immediately clear that it’s going to be damp for most of day, drizzly but still hot.

Walking south from Batignolles we find coffee (allongée s’il vous plaît) then manage to piece together a path through the 17th, 9th and then 1st Arondissements and into the Place de la Concorde (Fun Fact: Louis XVI was executed here in 1793!)

Some places don’t meet up with the mental picture you create in your head from movies or books or songs or whatever (Los Angeles, I’m looking at you) but Paris isn’t one of them. It’s as stylish and old and busy and as relentlessly cool as you imagine. Everyone is casually moving at speed in Valentino suits on Vespas smoking Gauloises whilst looking disinterested. Its quite a blow for the ego to discover you are not nearly as cool or interesting as you first suspected. Certainly not here.

Walking down through the Tuilleries past the Louvre and then over the Seine we go searching for one of Alissa’s white whales “L’As du Fallafel” apparently the best falafel in Paris or perhaps Europe (as per the esteemed New York Times) for a Jewish/French/Middle Eastern lunch. It doesn’t take long to find the right back street in Le Marais as there is a queue snaking around the takeaway counter outside. Good sign that. We quickly make our way in and really the only choice that should be rightfully made is to order the falafel pita and to be fair to them, its pretty blinking good. Is it the best falafel ever? Well this one is good but its pretty easily trumped by Falafel Metro in Tauranga (hands down, sorry New York Times). Perhaps it’s to do with it being plonked in the middle of the Jewish quarter in Le Marais where its busy and the streets are tight so it feels even more bustling like a hive that people love this place. It’s the kind of area where you can feel like a local just by walking with purpose down the street dodging electric bikes. Everyone else can see you’re NOT a local however as your probably not scowling or smoking or looking wistful and you are attempting to stuff a giant falafel sandwich in to your mouth but the internal experience still counts.

The boys at this stage are quite casual about being here, because of the long buildup perhaps to it they are mostly interested in the shopping we are doing. Nothing exciting when I say shopping, today it was Teva sandals, some rubber tips for the hiking poles and a headtorch but new stuff is new stuff and that’s always the goal. Materialism has worn off yet.

After walking around the Notre Dame and it’s burned roof we managed to keep moving and walk all the way up past Les Halles and staying on Rue Montmartre all the way back to our apartment. I contemplate some bold attempts at the Can-Can outside the Moulin Rouge but don’t want to put them to shame. Big day but we managed to see a huge part of Paris in one day so I say well done to us.

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