We stood in front of the outer door on Rue Charlot, staring at the keypad that triggered the lock. When we rejoiced at the hefty tailwinds that brought our flight to Paris an hour early, speeding through the suburbs toward the city center in the oversized cab, I had forgotten that we were meeting the representative from the apartment rental website at a set time at the front door, and we were an hour early. I had a healthy dose of panic. We were all tired, having had little more than catnaps on the plane, but worse, we were loaded down with luggage that would make it impossible to trek around looking for a chair and something to drink. Just then the electronic lock buzzed and someone came out of the main door, and we wasted no time pulling our belongings in from the street. I suggested that I take the boys and look for some sustenance, but my wife knew as well as I did that finding an open café early in the morning on Saturday in Europe can be asking an awful lot. Nonetheless I stepped back into the Rue Charlot as a woman approached the door and asked if I was Mr. McInerny.
“You are early! I was coming to prepare for your arrival. Please come up to the apartment.” Michelle led us to the third floor, unlocked the door and gave us a tour of our home for the next week. She had actually lived there for a period of time, she told us, and her pride in the place showed. It was just big enough for us, and very welcoming, with each room bathed in yellows and browns. There was a large combination living room and dining room with an adjoining bedroom separated by one of those trendy freestanding, wrought iron folding walls. The real walls were hardwood, and the entire west end of the room, which faced the street, was a series of, what else, French windows extending from floor to ceiling. The kitchen was typically European, meaning the size of a walk in closet, but every inch was efficiently occupied with every conceivable cooking appliance, some of which we couldn’t identify. Opposite was the kitchen was a good-sized bathroom. On one wall was a clothes washer the size of a coffee can, but Nancy and I knew that was a great advantage that hadn’t been listed on the website. The main bedroom was at the end of the hallway, and was very large, with a queen bed, writing table, ample closet space, and two large windows. The kids would sleep in the room off of the living room and the sofa, with the fighting of course being over who would sleep on the sofa. They could have the TV and stereo, and Nancy and I would take the solitude of the courtyard.
As we moved luggage to the bedrooms, Michelle opened a bag she had brought and laid out sweet rolls and orange juice in the dining room table for the kids, and opened a bag of coffee and soon had its aroma wafting through the apartment. What a great surprise! She showed us a listing of phone numbers to reach her, as well as the keypad code and Metro maps. She handed us the apartment key, wished us a great week as she closed the door, leaving Nancy and I beaming at each other to the sounds of the kids munching and slurping their breakfast.
Anyone who flies across the Atlantic is familiar with the advice that states that when you arrive, usually in the early morning local time (but the middle of the night for your body), you should continue to go through the new day without sleeping in order to acclimate your body to the new time zone as quickly as possible. Guidebooks and well-meaning neighbors insist on this principle, particularly if the trip is only for a few days. I certainly was forced to adhere to this maxim when traveling to Europe for work, not through any conviction on my part, but because I was typically whisked from the airport to a manufacturing plant for the day and continuing, if my host was especially cruel, with a nice, long dinner after the workday. (I remember once finally climbing into bed in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, after being awake for over thirty-five hours, wondering how I had survived the ordeal.) So after doing a bit of unpacking while Alex, the youngest, flipped through TV stations to find only the BBC news was in English, Nancy and I discussed the positive merits of trying to stay up for the balance of the day. Duly noted, within the hour we were all snoozing peacefully in our beds, oblivious to the muted sounds of the metropolis outside.
Later in the afternoon we toddled, sleepy and somewhat dazed, out of the door to explore the Marais district. On the steps was a teddy bear tied to the stair railing. The kids had noticed him when we were bring our bags in and stopped to wonder at his presence. He was worn, as if he had spent a few years being hugged by some Parisian tot, but he had an ominous look to him. Sporting a bandana and an eye patch, he struck me as pirate-like, but the kids took to calling him Voodoo Teddy, and they greeted him as an old friend each time we came and went. They thought he was cute, but it made Nancy and I wonder what kind of neighbors we had.
It was impossible for me to imagine Paris without assuming scenes of old women with flower carts, cobblestone streets and gothic church spires thrusting into the sky, and I was pleasantly surprised that those thoughts were not overly idyllic. The Marais district, which is within the 3rd arrondisement of Paris, is on the north side of the Seine River, directly above the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It is residential, but still within a short walk of the main sights along the river. As we wandered toward the river for the treble purposes of waking up, finding a place to eat, and checking out the neighborhood, I noticed that the people we encountered on the street were … French. The stores and shops were open, and I felt we had succeeded in finding an apartment that was where the locals were, because no self-respecting tourist ever wants to spend too much time feeling or acting like one. Unlike the gold medal tourist sights where I knew we would hear a multitude of languages (only French from the vendors and salespeople), we had our own little French hidey-hole to come back to each day where we could be one of the people. The narrow streets harbored antique shops, tiny shoe shops and art galleries, which I assumed made ours a somewhat upscale hidey-hole.
We also gleefully noticed that we would never be at a loss to find a place to eat near home. Innumerable cafés, restaurants and brasseries lined most streets, and I wondered if the French ever eat at home. I remember reading that there were ways of distinguishing between a café and its cousin the brasserie, but at the moment I didn’t care about semantics – everything looked inviting. The cafés would seize every inch of sidewalk space for outside tables surrounded by flower boxes to provide a bit of privacy and a profusion of atmosphere. Waiters, mostly male and looking very serious and professional, if not a bit intimidating, moved briskly in and out of the cafés with trays of sandwiches, seafood tidbits and glasses of chilled white wine. There was general agreement among my troupe that sightseeing was to be immediately suspended in order to explore the gastronomic delights of Paris.
It must have been peak café time for Saturday, because every establishment was hopping and we nearly got to the river before we found a nice little square on the Rue Rivoli very near the Hotel D’Ville. We found a place that had all the things parents traveling with their children need when having a bite. The square allowed the boys to wander from the table and explore without the danger of traffic, and where we could keep an eye on them. Also, the café’s menu was conveniently posted outside so that we could make sure everyone would be happy with a selection before we sat down (this we found was commonplace and saved us several times from getting settled at a table only to find that there was nothing to appeal to our youngest). Finally, there was a restroom for the patrons, still not as common as one would expect in most parts of Europe, and a constant source of latent concern for traveling parents with youngsters.
I was looking forward to my first chance to spread my linguistic wings as we sat down and the menu was placed in front of me. “Merci,” I murmured casually, and noticed to my chagrin the menu was in both English and French. Undeterred, however, when our young waiter returned I ordered our meals in French, and was pleased that he responded in French, throwing in his own broken English when he guessed, correctly, that I was struggling. In most cases, we were to find that the French were ready to speak English to us, but when we initiated with French, however choppy, they were happy to accommodate us with their native language. So much unlike the legendary French waiters of yore we all hear about back home. Regardless, I figured that I had taken the time to buy French discs and spent several weeks in the car working with them, and I was going to see how far I could take us in situations before I had to skulk back to English. This attitude made the kids fearless also, and within days were responding and greeting locals in short, polysyllabic phrases.
The kids enjoyed wafer thin pizza and small glasses of cola while my wife and I snacked on avocado slices with shrimps and cold beer. As we languished over our drinks, the boys played among the trees that were in a sea of cobblestone in the middle of the large square. It was cloudy as we ate, but as we walked back to the apartment along a different path, with my daughter and wife pausing frequently to get a handle on the skirt and shoe fashions, the setting sun broke out of the clouds and provided grand illumination of the reds and ochres of the tapestries in the windows of the Marais antique shops.
berowne.com 