Europe, Day I
Saturday afternoon, Wistar and I drove to Dulles without incident, but once we’d schlepped onto the transit bus and huffed into the terminal, we were told at the ticket counter: “Glad you arrived so early, I should have a better chance of squeezing you in”. Nice of them to consider squeezing us in despite our reserving and paying out greatly for tickets four months in advance. Apparently making flight reservations these days is akin to telling friends you may or may not meet them at the bar at some point over the weekend. Maybe some will keep their word, maybe some won’t. Real loose, casual.
Real Loose was not how I wanted things to go after planning such a big trip, so I was glad when the ticket lady sounded confident about hustling us to our gate. “You’ll probably even get seats near each other!” We get to the gate and there’s a mealy-mouthed explanation about how the flight was oversold and how really it worked to our advantage anyway to wait another hour for a different flight. I stared at the lady and offered her no signs of comprehension or happiness. Wistar tugged at me, we sat down and waited another hour.
The flight left at 7:00pm and we ordered several drinks an hour for the first three hours. Just when I was buzzed enough to tolerate, for example, one of Al Gore’s more leaden anecdotes, the stewardess announces the in-flight movies will be Al Gore’s An Inconvient Truth and Lindsey Lohan’s Just My Luck. Lindsay had really been disappointing me lately. She was supposed to give that talk on String Theory at UVa which she missed due to exhaustion and then she’d similarly dropped the ball in meeting with domestic advisors on ethanol alternatives before Federal legislature. So I watched Gore’s movie out of spite, which was mostly excellent except for when the dark cello melody began over footage of him losing the ‘00 election, holding his head in his hands while courts declared Bush victorious. Could’ve lopped that out completely and the movie would have been perfectly fine. I can honestly say it was educational. 15% self serving, 85% genuine passion for his subject matter.
We arrived all discombobulated to Charles de Gaulle as the sun was coming up over Paris. Somehow—Wistar leading me around by the nose—we managed to get our bags and find a bus to the metro station, after which we took a metro to the part of town we occupied all week, named Pigalle. For one thing, our apartment was in the heart of the red-light district, adjacent to the Sexodrome and five blocks down from the Moulin Rouge. But also, it sits below Montmartre and Basilica of the Sacré Cœur which is one of the higher vantages the city offers. After briefly assessing the neighborhood, we went to sleep until about 2:00pm. Then we heard a faint knocking at the door. Apparently Dad and Ann had arrived an hour before and been ringing the doorbell and trying to wake us up, but we were too out-cold to notice. We apologized profusely while passive aggressive explanations piled upon passive aggressive chidings. Thankfully everyone was too disoriented from transatlantic travel to make sense of anyone else, so in the end we all just decided to get out of the apartment and schlep up to the basilica above Pigalle.
No kidding, the first thing anyone French said to any of us (besides “don’t put your bags there”) was “Ooh la la!”, directed at Wistar by a flower salesman. He evidently wanted us guys to buy flowers for our respective girlfriends, or, failing that, to shout random Euro-flirtations to the girl, maybe hoping for a date? In the walk from the basilica’s base up to the top, we passed no more than three protests and at least one megaphone-wielding agitator who Wistar says was agitating for better work conditions of some kind. Others were drinking wine, playing guitar, making out in the grass, taking pictures. Not how I imagined France at all!
That evening we ate in Pigalle at a corner brasserie which is pretty much a pub with slightly better food. I had the Croque Madame while Ann had the Croque Monsieur which is only funny if you understand French, and lame irony. After, Dad and Ann returned to the apartment while Wistar and I took a challenging walk up the long stairs to the basilica and around the north Paris neighborhood where we could see the Eiffel Tower lit up distinctly in the background. Nice evening.
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