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The Bartender
in Paris!
A First-Person Guide to the City of Lights
The Eiffel Tower
doesn't look THAT far from this bridge. But it's a long walk.
My first look at Paris upon emerging
from the Metro onto the streets of Paris was of a McDonalds. Great,
I thought. Here I am in one of the world's most vibrant and oldest cities
and the first thing I see is America's great contribution to world culture,
the fast-food hamburger franchise.
A day later, I was in a cafe, lunching on a French Country Toasted
Sandwich – Croque Seguin – with a glass of excellent French
wine in the shadows of Notre-Dame. I had found the true Paris.
My feet ached. My shoes had split wide open from all the walking I
had been doing and the right foot began a slow retreat to inactivity.
It required a limp – and wine – to survive. Still, I walked.
I walked to the Louve. Down the length of Champs Elysees. To the Arc
de Triomphe and the Eiffer Tower. The length of Rue Saint-Germain. Around
Ile St.-Louis, the quaint village in the middle of the Seine. Through
the Latin Quarter. To Bastille and its row of small bars and pubs. Massive
building after massive building greeted me at every turn with a majestic
presence. Guided only by instinct and inspiration rather than a guidebook,
I wondered what they all were, though.
Plenty of cafes
and good French wine provided a walking relief.
The people were friendly. Prepared for the worst, I was pleased with
the best. Snooty? Arrogant? Impatient with foreigners? Didn't see it.
Fortunately, the only stereotypes the French lived up to were of being
great wine makers and chefs.
For dinner the first night, I wandered around Saint-Germaine looking
for an active cafe with a menu I could understand. I settled for a place
that was relatively quiet but had one of those waiters that looked as
if he were on the French Olympic relay team. Come to thing of it, he
should be on the French Olympic relay team; perhaps his performance
could have won the city the 2012 Games.
He dashed around as if on hot coals or being chased by a jealous husband
with a shotgun. Air France didn't fly that fast. The contrast to the
slow-paced dining experience was not lost on me. While I sipped wine,
he was hooked up to an oxygen tank, I presumed.
Poised to pounce? Using crosswalks was important to the hobbled writer.
One of the first things I learned about Paris was the use the street
crossings. I went in cautious, to say the least, due to the French and
their driving reputation. On the plane to Paris, I was reading Bill
Bryson's entertaining book Neither Here Nor There, which warned
that "Paris has the world's most pathologically aggressive drivers."
It goes on to say "the French have had this reputation for bad
driving since long before the invention of the internal combustion engine,"
meaning going back to the days of the horse-driven carriage.
So it was with much caution that I approached each street crossing.
The drivers didn't seem that bad – Bryson apparently has never
been to Mississippi – but why take chances. Some streets do come
from all angles and others are multiple lanes. The crosswalks seemed
to offer safe passage. Parisians use them too, though they are bolder
than I, walking when it's red if no car is immediately on top of them.
Sometimes, it's difficult to see whether the rather primitive stickman
figure is red or green in bright sunlight and this presented some tricky
decisions, especially as the limp became more pronounced and my ability
to quickly elude danger diminished.
At night, Paris
really came to light for The Bartender, especially along the Seine.
Paris turned out to be a very pleasant experience. So what if it has
the occasional McDonald's?.Surrounded by structures like Notre-Dame
and the massive Louvre and absolutely captivated by the lights and sights
along the Seine at night, I hardly noticed. What really stands out about
the city is its tremendous buildings, history, cafes and landmarks.
And also, I'm quite happy to report, its people.
The Bartender can be reached at bartender@pubclub.com
 Take
Our City Tour of Paris!
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