Notes of the Traveller or Impressions
August 2000. After Germany we went to France. The following chapter describes our adventures in Paris.
France
Paris. The city of dream for many people. It is still. We came to the Gare de L’Est by train. The trip from Frankfurt to Paris took 6 hours. It was not bad but we stayed in one place for about 40 minutes and were 30 minutes late. It was already dark when we came there. It was getting late and we were just lucky to change our Deutch marks to French francs. It seemed a lot but as we found out later 100 francs is very little in Paris. In the same Thomas Cook office we bough a map of Paris and it is the best map that exists, I think. Very detailed, with every streets. I used it all the time in my walks. The guy there was very nice, I spoke French with him and counted the money. We put up at a hotel there not very far from the train station. The first night there we put the TV on and they showed Aida—we just caught the final scenes. The same Aida that we’ve missed in Germany. Certainly we were very excited just to think that we were in Paris. We never thought about being there. Richard pretended to be a French and it was very funny.
People here are helpful: the first hotel we came to had no rooms available but they called to the other one and reserved a room for us there. But on the other hand French are rather arrogant too. Polite and arrogant—the combination you can meet only in Paris. But in the very first evening we were unpleasantly surprised by prices: they were high. Hotels are expensive too but it was not even one star hotel.
On the next morning we moved to the cheaper one where the porter was very nice. We almost became friends. He called me “Madame” and I tell you it’s exciting to hear this. We liked being in Paris very much and decided to stay for a month. For that we should find an apartment.
My French was not really good but enough to handle a simple conversation. Ami (the name of the porter—it was actually his name, isn’t nice?) was so amiable as encouraged me to speak French all the time. I liked it! He even corrected my mistakes. I wish we spent more time there. Actually the only way to speak the language is to communicate with people.
Paris grasped my imagination. Unfortunately you cannot stay in the excited state of mind all the time but I cannot say that the spell was completely broken either. Paris is a city that does not look like other but this difference is very subtle.
Everybody is looking for his own thing in Paris. Or rather in the world. I don’t believe that Paris is a dream for everybody. For example Richard said to me that he had never dreamt about going there but he enjoyed staying in this city. Indeed this city has its own character, I would say, a strong personality if we can talk about personalities of places.
I cannot say that I found what I was searching there but I saw a glimpse of it. To catch this thing you need to live more in the place and speak the language better. But I enjoyed the atmosphere of the city.
But to tell you the truth our perception of Paris is still based mainly on the novels of the previous century (at least of the pre-war period of the XX century) and this stereotype is no longer true. No more artists sitting on the curbs of Montrarnasse. It is not a “cultural centre of Europe” but thanks to Weimar we didn’t expect it. In a way it’s just a city. But…
The very first thing that strikes you when you are in Paris is that there are lots of ancient buildings of the XVII-XIX centuries. Paris owns the most part of its charm to these buildings, that’s what makes this city look unique. Streets are usually narrow, even boulevards and avenues are not very wide compared to Moscow, for example. The traffic is very heavy. Streets or rues are much alike and yet each of them has its own peculiarities, own character. I was surprised to learn how easy it was to orient in this city. Just a pleasure. Streets are always where they are to be according to the map, we never had a trouble to find any house with a certain number. In fact houses have an interesting structure there, at least I’ve never seen anything like that. The typical Parisian building, if you look from above, reminds you of a triangle or a square—with a patio inside. So part of the windows face the street and living there you always hear the noise from the streets. Those of them that face the inner yard are quiet. And every door goes to a certain street so if there are doors on the both sides of the walls they belong to different streets. Usually a house is between two or even three or four different streets that cross each other. Thus in theory the same house can have four (!) different addresses if we suppose that there are doors on every side of the house and this house is standing along on the crosses of the several roads. So it’s impossible to make a mistake. If you try to find an address in Russia you’ll understand what I mean and why I describe it in such a detail. Because it is real enjoyment. You never have a problem with finding any street or house there, all you need is a good map that we had.
Some streets are cobbled with old stones (something like we saw in Weimar) and if it is some quiet and narrow street behind the main road, from certain angle it really looks like a medieval street. These views are striking, even in Toledo I haven’t seen views like that.
But not all buildings in Paris are old. Unfortunately the modern trend to build apartment blocks touched Paris too and there are some quarters with high buildings. But there are not many of them and I suspect that they stopped building them now.
Speaking about modern buildings there is one in Paris that stands aside from the others. It is very high, a kind of sky-scraper. It is as high as the Eiffel Tower (I don’t know which of them is higher) and makes a perfect orient item. We lived not far from it. This sky-scraper is situated right near the Gare Montparnasse. Travellers usually never mention it and my friends in America were very impressed when I wrote them about it. They never heard about this sky-scraper from their friends.
There are many churches in Paris but they don’t irritate there like in Germany. French is a Catholic country. We went in several of them and surprisingly there are many people attend masses there. We even had a chance to see the finish of a mass in Notre Dame but think it was some mistake. Usually they don’t allow tourists during religious ceremonies inside. But it is interesting to watch people in churches. Looks like some of them (not all) are real believers and respect the church. For others it’s just a kind of theatre. I think the best I liked was St. Francois Xavier. But I am not very interested in churches.
What else characterize Paris? First of all, the huge number of restaurants and cafés. And there are always people sitting on the terrace and watching other people passing buy. We experienced that pleasure a couple of times too. So this part of imaginative Paris came to be true. Walking along the streets of Paris you get an impression that Parisians seldom eat indoors. For some periods it even seems that they do nothing but eat. It is surprising a little as all this food and drinks are rather expensive. A cup of café au lait there costs as much as a pack of excellent Mexican natural black coffee! So we made our own coffee in the morning in the special coffee machine and poured in a cup some cold milk that we bought in the nearest supermarket. But it’s not the same!
Cafés are situated in every big department store, museums and famous sightseeings. In the streets you will often see little food shops but they are not really good. The best place to buy food there are supermarkets: the prices are lower there than in other places and here you can usually find what you need. Depends though on location: on the back street the supermarket is not so good as in the boulevard or the wider street.
One time we were lured in a restaurant by a sly Chinese who smiled with his 33 teeth. The cuisine was kind of Mexican, an owner was a Chinese and a waiter was a Negro. Very interesting.
When we lived in a hotel managed by Ami we came to one café too. I ordered in French and they understood me. The owner was always glad to see us. On the third time he already knew what we wanted and immediately brought us that. I mentally called him Pierre because he looked like Pierre. It is amazing how people get used to a certain café that becomes their favourite and soon they don’t want to go anywhere else. Cafés have personalities too. I liked that part of the city, it was so typically Parisians, busy in the mornings, animated in the evenings. Paris is a city with active night life. Streets are always lit up and many cafés are opened late at night. I love to walk around the night city under electric lights of the street lamps.
Parisians are clothed very simply, all so-called haut couture is only for fashions shows. And clothes in the stores are not really attractive. Compared to Germany there is not really much to choose and the quality is not a German but on the other hand not so bad either. Department stores are stuck with clothes and yet it’s difficult to find anything that would satisfy you in every way.
Coiffures (hair dresses’) are also very popular here, you meet them on every corner. I went to one and they cut my hair very well and very quickly.
There are many black folks in the streets, many of them are dressed in their national costumes. Most of them of course are real Parisians but lots of them obviously came from Africa. This is a subsequence of Mahgreb company—a bright example how the country is paying for its deeds. Surprisingly not many Arabs, I don’t remember seeing any of them. Most of the blacks though do the dirty jobs: cleaning the streets, emptying garbage cans and so on. Of course there are white fellows doing the same job but not as many as blacks. Most hoodlums are also black. But in spite of all there are not many hooligans in the street and safety system is very well developed there. They have to do it: they take all their money from tourists.
Yes, the other thing that hit you while you are there is an enormous number of tourists here. They come to this city from all corners of the world. Of course most of them just go sightseeing: they buy a heap of prospects, a museum card (a little bit later about that), ride a tour bus. I don’t know what you can actually learn by this way. But we were not tourists. We belong to the extinguishing spice of travellers: we always were by ourselves and never depend on tourist groups. For me this is the best way to learn the city. I don’t like tourists though I admit that for most people it’s the only way to get to some country. On the other hand I’m sure that on the money that you should pay for tourist trip you can go to the same place by yourself. Some people like it though and we won’t discuss this any more.
Do you know what is the main peculiarity of tourists in Paris? They love to sit on the steps of the buildings. Wherever we came to some building with steps in front of the main doors like Opera or Sacre Coeur there were always tourists sitting on the steps so you should manoeuvre between them to enter the building.
The most famous sightseeing in Paris is certainly la Tour Eiffel. It’s a tall construction that reminds TV towers, only bigger than them. You know the history of this monument, of course, I’ll just remind you that it was erected first for a technical exposition at the end of the XIX century but the citizens liked it so much that decided to leave it there. Famous writers such as Dumas, Balzac and others wrote a petition to authorities demanding to take this ugly thing away. But luckily government didn’t listen to them and now we admire this unique construction. It is really a symbol of Paris and I think people would miss it if it is taken away now. Besides they make tremendous money with this tower, whenever we came there, it was always sieged by tourists. So one time we came early in the morning and took our chance. Well… it’s just a tower… interesting view from above and cold. Paris does not look like on maps from the top. Not bad though.
The Eiffel Tower quite recently was a construction above the highway: cars drove underneath it. Now the joy of driving under the most famous tower is over. You can only walk under it.
Museums of Paris
Museums of Paris are magnificent, no doubt of it. We visited several of them and they were all quite impressive. The only bad point about museums is that they are very expensive.
Of course first of all we visited the Louvre, the pearl among European museums. The former residence of French royalty consists of three huge parts and it’s impossible to look around the Louvre during one day. Actually even two days are not enough, to do it properly and watch all the exhibits you need three days. The collection of ancient artefacts is not too good, strange enough, but on the other hand the real treasure of the Louvre is the painting of XVI-XIX centuries. There are pictures representing different styles and epochs, many statures. One can even admire authenticated ceilings there painted with beautiful pictures. Though I admit I don’t know the degree of that “authentication”.
The Louvre leaves nice impression anyway. There are lots of tourists, a tremendous amount of tourists, it’s better go there in the morning. But tickets before noon are thrice as expensive as after 3 o’clock afternoon. Is it just? There is usually a long queue there in the afternoon. Once we wanted to come there on Sunday when it was free. (Many museums there are free once a month on Sundays) There was a queue there even bigger than it was in Wartburg, we could not see the end of it. Incredible. We had to skip it. It’s amazing how many people want to save a handful of francs.
It is very interesting to watch people in museums too. There are some students and not only student sitting before some stature and drawing. Tourists are crowded before Gioconda and Aphrodite de Milo. Everybody considers it a must to make a picture of these two Louvre celebrities. Though there are so many other magnificent works that nobody has ever thought about even to put in an artistic album as reproductions. By the way it is true that Gioconda is small. Nike is small too. But of course this is not the matter. Louvre is wonderful, it’s too great to be judged by usual standards. Everybody can find there what will be to his heart. There is such a variety of works there that you cannot complain. Let tourists be crowded before Leonardo’s Gioconda, which is under glass and reflects the light. There are works of Vermeer, Rembrandt and many others. There are many wonderful paintings of unknown artists too.
We were
looking for impressionists for a long time since we both liked Impressionistic
works, especially paintings of Vincent van Gogh. Finally we found that they
were in Musée d’Orsey. We went there—it was a marvellous museum,
one of the best we’ve been. It’s not so huge as Louvre, but it has a fine collection of paintings. Even
tourists there were of other kind—more interesting faces. We saw van Gogh,
Monet, Goguin, Renoir and many others but none of them were complete. Here, in
this museum I experienced for the first time the feeling of joy to look at the
original. The difference strikes you. It might not really matter with
Renaissance painting but with the Impressionists it has meaning. I was very
impressed by this museum. But my favourite became El Prado.
What else? We visited the Invalides, which is actually the museum of army, and there you can see the coffin with Napoleon (at least that’s what they declare). Actually the Invalides consists of several sections showing the most magnificent periods of French army and French history through the wars. Thus there are models of different costumes and real uniforms. By the way the French are fascinated with clothes even if it is a war uniform. Then there were fine collections of armour (my favourite). Lots of suites of armours, all kinds of swords, shields and even a real model of armoury (arsenal). On the walls there were schemes of armour suite describing all its parts. That was curious.
Then it was a corridor with exhibits devoted to the Second World War and general de Gaulle. There was a small section about concentration camps from which I remember the beautiful poem of some French poet (unfortunately I can’t remember his name).
The Napoleonic section included all kinds of exhibits and seemed to me rather chaotic. It is a very big museum so you feel tired after looking at all those things.
The Panthèon. It is more like a monument then a real museum. The most famous things there are: the Foucault pendulum and the crypt where some French celebrities are buried. Some parts of the crypt were really dark and wet—you could look there through the doors with overtures. There was a section in the crypt dedicated to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, one of my favourite French men.
In the Panthèon in the ground floor they didn’t allow people to the centre of the hall—must have protected the pendulum. There were multimedia devices describing the history of the construction of the Foucault pendulum in different languages.
Rodin
Museum. It is an interesting one too, I like the works of this Rodin, this
Impressionist in sculpture. His works are refined, they makes your imagination
work. In this museum there were some random works of other painters, like Le
Père Tanguy by the same van Gogh. The house is surrounded by a garden
with big statures of Rodin. There are the famous The Thinker, The
Gate to the Inferno and others.
The Museum of Modern Art. When you approach to the building, just looking at it you already understand what expects you. It’s a modern white building, kind of shapeless, without windows. When you enter the huge halls you can’t help feeling some emptiness that is not only in the halls but also reflects the meaning of all these modern paintings. Have you ever noticed that museums of modern art are always empty? There are never many people there but even if there are, nevertheless this feeling of huge emptiness remains. The modern painting is not even depressing, it is empty. It leaves me cold and does not appeal to me.
But enough of all these museums. I want to say what the Parisians invented—the so-called museum card. Thing that is difficult to compare to something else in its dumbness. It would rather suit to American practical mind. The museum card is a pass for the most museums of Paris. Having this card you can go to practically every museum without staying in line, like the advertising says. The idea sounds good. But the point is the period you can use the card is from one to three days (different types of pass). We tried to calculate what you could actually do. There are about 70 museums in Paris. Let’s take the card with the longest period—3 days. So if you decide to visit all the museums you can spend not more than 30 minutes in every museum and this is not considering the time to get from one museum to another. So we see another example how the good idea is realized in a dumb thing. Though let us be merciful: all these things are expected only for tourists. A real Parisian waits for a free Sunday in order to stand 4 hours in a huge line but then enjoy immortal art totally free. Isn’t worth it?
Actually there is a division between museums and monuments. The latter ones are more like constructions, there are not much exhibits to see. So la Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe and even le Panthèon are monuments in this meaning.
Yes, one can speak long about Paris and to my mind that is a real gift, one of the gifts that you can receive from the city. Memories, impressions, pictures that still lingers in your mind. That’s one of the things that you expect from this city and it didn’t fail to give it to you. It can loose all its cultural meaning, it can be just a big European capital city but it gives you impressions and supplies you if not by inspirations but by ideas. Our acquaintance François told us once that we saw the surface. Next time it will be time to plunge deeper and I already feel these depths. But then, when you get a real impression from Paris, when you shake off the superficial shiny beautification, you’ll feel the real Paris. I’m sure it is deeper and more complicated and that it can fulfil my expectations.
People in Paris are very different, some are very helpful and amiable, others are not even polite. In one boutique I asked for plastic pincette (tweezers) and the saleswoman pretended not to understand what I wanted. I still don’t know why. My French is really not that bad. People understood me. This is a very mean behaviour and I regret that people are able for this when it does not give them anything. But the other day some men wanted to get rid of old hanger, so they just gave them away to anyone who wanted. Different types of people like you always meet in a big city.
There was Ami and there was Pierre, there was François and there was a black fellow, there were many other faces. There were bright personalities and ordinaries. But we didn’t drink enough coffee on the terraces of Parisian cafés.
We had a great enjoyment just walking along the streets of Paris. Watching the beautiful houses, cafés, looking at book covers in librairies. Streets, sometimes animated, sometimes empty. Famous bridges that we’ve read about. We’ve been to Ile de la Cité, a little island in the Seine connected by bridge with the island of St. Louis. Seine is a dirty river but it is a part of Paris. There are many small squares and gardens in Paris that are so nice to sit in. The only thing I didn’t like about these gardens is that the ground there is usually covered with sand that always came in my summer open shoes.
Little squares and gardens in the centre of the city are usually full of people. Wide streets and avenues are usually very animated but it’s enough to make several paces to some side street and it suddenly becomes quiet, there are no people at all. Like in other cities.
Streets of Paris
I’ve already mentioned that every Parisian street has its own peculiarities and its own character. Now I would like to say some words about some of them in more detail.
But first one brief note of introduction. You know of course that there are four types of streets in Paris: boulevards, avenues, rues and passages. Not consider places where three or more streets are interlaced. Boulevards are the widest ones though some avenues are wide too. The difference is in history. Boulevards now are situated in the place where in old days there were ancient walls. You can still their roundesque structure on the map. Avenues are usually wide straight roads with heavy traffic. Rues (the proper word for street) are of all kinds and varieties: from as wide as boulevards to the narrowest ones. And passage is a very narrow street, usually finishing with cul de sac.
One should know that different types of streets might have the same name. Therefore there is boulevard Montparmasse and rue Montparnasse. Don’t confuse them, they are different.
The names of the streets came to us from history, some of them are very old, others are quite modern. They name their streets after famous people like there is a place of Albert Camus who died in the middle of the XX century. The bright example is that the famous Place d’Etoile is renamed after general Charles de Gaulle. So now it is called Charles de Gaulle-Etoile. Gradually they stop using Etoile and soon it’ll be just Place de Gaulle.
In a way it’s a pity—famous historic streets should remain. What will Paris look like without its famous Saint-Germaine de Prés. (It is a place but also a famous club situated right near the church St. Germaine. Pré means meadow but there is nothing like meadow there. Probably there was one in old days. Old days…) I guess it was the club that was so many times described in the novels that Paris will miss it if it disappears, I mean if it is renamed.
First, let me introduce to you the royal rue de Rivoli. It is a magnificent street, coming along the Seine. One side of this street is all shops and boutiques. The other side is empty—not far from the river. It’s along this very street where grand Louvre and Jardin des Tuileries are situated. Jardin des Tuileries is a big park with trees and chairs under them so it is very nice to sit in the cool shade of the green tree in the hot day.
Jardin de Tuileries is bordered with Jardin de Carrousel where there is an attraction park with Carrousel de Louvre—a big rotating wheel. When you are on the top you can see the roofs of the buildings. It’s an interesting view on the city that you can observe but it does not last long enough to see all the details.
There is a wonderful bookstore in the rue de Rivoli—S. H. Smith or something like that. Bookstores in French are called librairies—sounds like a library but have quite a different meaning. In this Smith librairie I saw people just reading a book, they obviously were not going to buy it. And nobody threw them out—that was really nice. One of the stereotype things that happened to be true. All the books there are in English and very expensive. There are many bookstores there with books in different languages, not only in English. One of my favourite was Gibert Joseph in Boulemiche—there was a wonderful selection there. We’ve bought several maps and some books there.
Speaking of Boulemiche I continue. Boulevard de Saint Michel is one of the most attractive. It begins from the Seine, Ile de la Cité and continues south. As usual many boutiques of all kind are situated there. Here we often visited cybercafe to use internet with e-mail. Here we saw an interesting poster made of little faces, and the whole huge picture looked like a face too.
Boulevard de Saint Germaine. This is more dignified street, it is obvious that it was a street for nobility. Some strange atmosphere still left there. I liked this street.
By the way it is known fact that Le Rive droit and Le Rive gauche symbolized correspondently a rich quarter and bohemian quarter. The Latin Quarter was situated on the Left Bank of the Seine. And we found out that nowadays it’s the Left Bank that is elegant and it was on the Right Bank of the river where we saw miserable quaters. The notions changed during the time. You would be surprised at many construction sites on the right Bank too. Some metro stations are closed because of repairing works. And another interesting thing: Le Quartier Latin is a virtual notion—it does not exist as a real part of the city like some street with a certain name. Since La Sorbonne stopped being the central university of Europe, the Latin Quarter joined to the famous Saint Germaine de Pré which does not actually exist as pré.
By the way I didn’t like at all the famous Champs-Elisées. This street looks beautiful if you just look at it, there opens a beautiful view on l’Arc de Triomphe but the street itself is very crowded with expensive shops on the both sides. Not too bad, though. But there is no romantic atmosphere like you might think listening to the famous chanson of Joe Dassin…
Montparnasse is a long boulevard. I liked it. There are not many people there. Many beautiful buildings. And, strange, I liked Magenta boulevard too, it is so typically Parisian…
There were many of them. But I see it’s impossible to describe what attracts you there. One should walk there by himself to feel the atmosphere of the street, to get acquainted with its character. As for me I often wished to see how all these street looked in the XIX century. And how they looked earlier, in medieval times. And that’s why now skipping the streets I want to describe some Parisians curiosities.
One of them, I’d say the most peculiar are the mummies. That day we’ve been to Louvre and after came out and crossed the place we saw it, as it happened later, the first among many. This mummy looks like a mummy of Tuthanhamon—I’m sure you saw a mummy on the pictures or in museums. These mummies are draped in golden material and on their face they wear a golden mask, just like on mummies of pharaohs. They stand on some kind of draped bucket or box and do nothing until you drop a coin in the special bowl. Then the mummy makes you a low bow. It is so funny, especially at the first time you see it. People liked to take picture with these mummies and I would make one too if I had a camera. Later we saw the other mummies. They usually stand in the animated places where there is a big traffic of people: place before Louvre, a bridge, rue de Rivoli. I tried to look at the face of the man. Richard noticed that it was black. Then I noticed that the mummy was very short. A child? A black child? It means that these poor children are exploited by some kind of mafia. We saw once like some man spoke to one of the mummies, took its coins and dropped some and the mummy slightly removing its mask answered him. Perhaps they did some kind of business together but it is more probably that the children were forced to play mummies. You see what can stand behind the exterior fun.
The nearest relative of mummies was an alien that we once see under the Eiffel Tower. It was very popular among people too, especially children. This alien was dressed in a kind of cosmonaut’s suit like in Hollywood movies and under his drapery on which he stood a recorder was hidden so you could hear cosmic music. Red lights were flashing in his helmet. He was in better position compared to mummies because he moved all the time, teased children and seldom stood still. But his face was also hidden by helmet.
Is it possible that all those things were controlled by mafia? It is. One more thing: on the same place under the Eiffel Tower tall black fellows tried to sell automatic birds. Perhaps they were in the same business… I really don’t know but the idea seems not far from the truth…
By the way it was interesting to find out that the French are pure Latinos by nature. I thought that they were kind of “civilized” nation but they are rather careless, some of them are very dirty and stinky. Most of them would rather take a perfume than a bath. Streets are full of trash, though to tell the truth they clean it every day. In metro there are graffiti on the walls and once I saw a man pissing (pardon!) against the wall.
In fact they even look like a Southern type of people. Most of them have black or dark hair, brown skin. I don’t remember many blonds in this city. I don’t know what part in all these the African elements plays but it seems to me the matter is not only in Africans there.
In fact there is not much to be surprised at. It is known the French language belongs to the Romanic group of Indo-European languages. So if we consider Spanish and Italians to be Latinos, why French should not be?
It’s strange though that no one ever mentioned this. I am the first then. A discoverer of known things.
In fact we saw several couples of different colours but what was interesting: usually there was a black boy and a white girl. Very seldom, maybe only once or twice I saw a white man with a black girl. Perhaps Racist prejudices still exist but at least they are not on the surface.
And now I would like to tell more about Parisian metro.
Metro in Paris
That was a unique experience, I’ve never seen something like that. I am accustomed to Moscow metro and I have to make a statement (in spite of my francophony) that Moscow metro is much nicer. The trains are bigger and longer, there are more seats in every car and the nicest thing about that: trains run every minute. Actually this is the only nice thing in Moscow that you can admire without the bitter aftertaste in your mouth. Cars are clean and look more or less new. I mean they are not shabby and are well painted. And one more thing that is peculiar for Moscow is the structure of underground. There is usually one platform at every station and two train lines run across each side of it. So no matter which direction you want to go, you come to the same platform and just wait at the side you want.
I hope I put it clear. In Paris metro things are different. First, there are always two (sometimes more) platforms: each one for certain direction. One side of a platform is against a wall. So if you were careless and didn’t pay attention where you were going, you can easily catch the wrong train. We did it once though we usually watched where we were going. The whole system seems more chaotic but that just from the first sight only. The system is almost the same not considering the number of platforms. The main difference is in other things. The metro—underground section—is not very nice though in a few days you get accustomed to it. Everything is labelled and there are huge posters on the walls (maybe that’s why they made two platforms? So people could see the posters more clearly). Trains are smaller, there are enough seats. Most of all I liked jumped seats: in their usual state they are leaned against the backs of the opposite seat but when you pull it with your hand you can seat on it. Then when you stand it comes back to its back (I hope you didn’t confuse in my explanations). The point is that according to politess you can use these jump seats (it’s Richard’s term but I liked it very much) only when there are not many people there. Because if it is too crowded, it’s not good to use them, they bother other people who have to stand.
Yet in spite of all this I liked Paris metro. People there have interesting faces. Sometimes you sit and just watch them. And it is not boring to ride it if you don’t do it often enough. Distance between stops is relatively short, we used to walk on the surface and that’s why the riding is fairly quick.
There were many hoodlums in Paris metro, but they didn’t really cause troubles. Just tried to sneak in without paying. In Paris it really was a very easy thing to do.
There are many lines of metro trains and the scheme looks rather chaotic compared to Moscow scheme where there is a circle (ring) line and all the others cross it. So you should not change more than twice no matter where and from what you are going. In Paris metro you have to make more than two and sometimes more than three changes. Not very convenient but I suppose they had their reasons. Maybe it’s the relief of the earth that didn’t allow them to make a ring line.
Another interesting peculiarity in Paris metropoliten is that some stations are situated over ground. In other words, on the surface. The train goes on special bridges that are constructed for that purpose. It’s much nicer to ride the train over ground. You can look at the scenery from the bridge, which is rather high. Then, there is not much noise when the train runs outside.
Besides there are so-called RAR lines, they are like metro trains only works from electricity. A sort of trams, they also run under and over the ground. You can change from metro to RAR or vice versa using one ticket. Though sometimes it didn’t work, I don’t know why.
I liked the names of the stations. (Do you remember Chatillon, Richard?) What I really liked was that on every platform there was a huge plate with the name of the station. I especially liked this; one of the rare things that was better here than in Moscow. And some of the stations were really nicely decorated. One of them (as far as I remember Louvre Rivoli) was even highlighted with neon lamps. That was beautiful. And there was a kind of exhibition in that station too. We saw them from windows but didn’t have a chance to look at them closer. But looked pretty.
In the Paris metro you’ll see beggars and musicians who can play only one tune (Paris en Larmes). But not many of them since the gloomy fellows in uniforms go there and try to give hard times to musicians. You won’t see many boutiques there either. On main stations there are ticket machines where you can buy metro ticket and pay by coins.
In fact there are many automats of that kind, not only in metro and they sell not only tickets. I like them very much. It is something that you’ll seldom see in Russia. In the metro you can buy a chocolate stick like Bounty or Sneakers or buy a plastic bottle of lemonade. But you always take a risk buying things there because there are hooligans even in Paris and sometimes these machines do not work. On the other hand one time I managed to get a bottle of lemonade and take my coin back. Well, I sacrificed a coin to the Seine anyway. There are also machines selling newspapers.
In metro and in the streets you can see numerous posters advertising the new movies. Those posters were nicely done, by the way. They obviously renew them quite often and it’s a convenient way to learn about new theatre performances and films. Many of the films are Americans, of course, but many (more than you could expect with modern American cultural invasion) are French. I remember one French movie magazine with reviews, info and other stuff about films, actors, etc. Nicely done. I read some articles and looked through the rest before I gave it away to the neighbours.
Another interesting thing in Paris that I’m sure very few people mention because the subject is rather delicate: automatic toilets. I’ve never seen anything like that before and I think this is a wonderful invention, since it is what people use. You put two francs there, the door is being opened and you enter inside. One moment: you cannot use these cabins more than 15 minutes. The same thing with them as with machines distributing water: sometimes they don’t work. Very seldom though, one has to admit. Once we found one with a crevice stuck with coins. We managed to get some of them with the help of the knife. But it didn’t set the thing back to work. As for me I am fascinated with the technical devices of all kinds. But the ultimate bathroom we saw only in Weimar.
This is not all yet. Another automatic thing that you easily can get there is your own photograph. There are special cabins, usually in metro: you enter, drop some coins and in a minute get your smiling (or serious) portrait, coloured or black and white. It’s Polaroid, of course but we found out that the quality of pictures were surprisingly good. I would put my picture here for you to admire but I don’t put any personal information on my sites. (Like one wise man was asked why did he never shave his beard and he answered “It’s against my religion”.)
Besides numerous cafés there are many McDonalds in Paris and we used to go there because it was cheaper. We’ve been to many of them, the price is the same, the choice is the same but the places different. There was one particularly bad, looked like everybody worked there for his first day. Others were rather nice. It is good that there is some place to eat in. But what is interesting: when usual cafés are expensive, McDonalds are relatively cheap. In Spain even McDonalds was expensive, it is still a kind of marvel for them.
French are very religious, at least that’s the impression I’ve got there. But churches there are not as provocative as in German villages. People go there, attend masses, pray. Some of them are truly believers. They are all Catholics and thinking about this you understand that Catholicism fits just right to Latinos nature. It’s original ideas of sin, repentance and redemption appeal to Latin people. I can hardly imagine Germans to be Catholics and no wonder that Luther succeeded in Germany. It seems that nowadays Catholicism is more tolerating religion than Protestantism. I wonder what would happen if Luther tried to make his reform in France or Spain? Probably he would be burnt or, if lucky, exiled but I doubt he could succeed.
Because of religious reasons (according to Richard) or not but everything is closed on Sunday no matter that it is a famous capital of one of the central countries in Europe. Even food stores are closed. Sometimes you are able to find some little private shop of course but you should know where it is.
So one day on Sunday we went out and saw a supermarket open. Pondering upon the reasons why it should be and inventing such incredible hypothesis that perhaps it was still Saturday or they had underdone their normal rate of sells (to think that of French!) we came into to buy some food. We were so surprised that bought lots of thing since we thought that something was wrong. Imagine our surprise that when we returned home and looked at the receipt from the shop we found out that it was Monday! So we missed Sunday without noticing it. We were extremely glad since Sundays are boring in Paris, quite a few places are opened where you can go.
Sundays are boring there too. Isn’t strange? We used to walk along wide avenues with no people outside at all. On such days they are concentrated in the places of interests. Bu tourists don’t walk along the streets, they always ride a tourists’ bus.
But there is one place where you can go. The place where to my mind one must go if he only pretends to behave like a real Parisian. The place that exists everywhere but extremely essential only for Paris. I am speaking about Parisian theatre.
Visit to the Théâtre
The idea first came to my mind when I saw an affiche in the small metro station nearest to our place. A nice tasteful poster informed about the performance of a play titled Fernando Krapp m’a écrit cette lettre. Sounded intriguing enough but when I read that the play was based on a tale by Miguel Unamuno I set to go there. Not to mention the strongest factor: there played one of my favourite French actresses Emmanuelle Seigner. So we bought the tickets and were looking forward for the evening of the first night.
We went to the little theatre Montparnasse in the rue de Gaité. Rue de Gaité — rue de théâtres, — you read on the welcoming poster right in the beginning of the street. It is a peculiar street indeed. Many theatres, about 5 or 8 of them taking in consideration the fact that the street is not long… Naturally lots of cafés and… sex shops where you can watch a peep show just for 10 francs.
And I tell you we did not regret (I mean the theatre play of course). It was a brilliant performance. The title of the play is the first words that the main heroine of the play pronounces. Interesting feature; they were turning the light off between the scenes. I suppose they always do that but I don’t remember to have seen this before. The decorations were very schematic: just one folding screen that they folded in all the possible ways. Costumes and hairstyle were simple too. A very few characters. In this play it is the conversation that is really important and not the action in the scenic meaning. In one scene you could just see the shadows of people suggesting the men standing behind the doors and listening.
But the most amazing thing was to find out that it was the very play based on the story I had just read a few days before. (I was excited to find out that I cold easily read books and newspapers in French though I cannot understand oral speech well.)
I bought a book of Unamuno in French in Giber Joseph and read the last story first. It is called (in French) Rien de moin que tout un homme. The play was performed very close to the story, it describes the relations between husband and wife. She had to marry him on order to get rid of her family. She had an affair with a worthless man. The lover knew it but never showed that he knew. In the end this story revealed that they actually loved each other. No happy end, which is really nice. But this is a Latin country after all and not Hollywood. By the way I liked this play the best among all. Certainly I could hardly understand their speech but does it matter? I knew the story. Well, I need more practice in speaking and understanding French—communication. Ami really helped me.
I liked the actors’ play very much. I didn’t know Niels Arestrup before but his acting was impressive. Several days later I read the article in Le Figaro about this play. They said it was a debut of Emmanuelle Seigner but it was unusually good for debut. It is a brilliant beginning. I wish her success, this actress has a good future. And another thing: they both spoke very well, clearly pronounced every word. I wished I could understand better to enjoy it in a full degree. Isn’t wonderful to see alive in Paris a person who you admire? (She played Mimi in Bitter Moon, a film directed by Roman Polanski. It is another psychological drama about people’s relations. Her partner there was magnificent Peter Coyote.)
It was nice to see that the theatre was full. People seemed really to enjoy themselves, the public was very different, from old men to students. I noticed a girl, obviously a student with Dostoevskiy in her bag. Richard was very sceptical about the play but I suppose he just didn’t want to watch the play in the unknown language. After the performance was finished you could buy a text of the play. We bought one several days later. Yes, interesting, how the circumstances worked. As long as you have this Paris will be Paris.
When it is finished you return home walking a lit streets. It is so exciting.
In general French are welcoming and friendly people, especially if you knew them closer. But here the point is that they are friendly to the strangers to that degree as the life in the big city allows. But their friendliness is peculiar. Naturally there are good people as well as bastards like everywhere.
I was impressed by the work of François in the agency where we phoned to rent a flat to live. He immediately appointed a meeting. This man spoke four languages: French, German, English and Spanish. He was very busy but amiable. We had a chance to look how he worked: speaking through the computerized telephone with headphones and microphone attached he was able to deal with three or four calls simultaniously! It was marvellous. In pauses between calls he managed to talk to us. He organized everything so quickly and so well that it was difficult to demand more. And nevertheless it was clear that he was a sly guy who perfectly knew his business. François bid us to come again and offered his services. He was the last man we’ve seen in Paris. The evening we left we directed our feet to the Gare Austerlitz. The tickets for a night train for Madrid were in our pockets.
November 2000