"We're from France."

My parents came to Germany on Thursday of this last week. They are staying fro two weeks. We just came back from a 3-day trip to Paris.

I don't know why I haven't been to Paris since I came to Germany in the Fall of 2003. I had been there a couple of times before, while I was studying French. I don't remember it being something that really attracted me. But, this time, I was absolutely balled over with excitement at how much I love this city. Chris loves it too, and sitting in almost complete darkness in the courtyard of the Louvre, with those beautiful, illuminated Pyramids in the background, we vowed to one day live there.

The funny thing about living here in Europe...Chris is a graphic designer who speaks almost no French, a very fluent English, and, perfect German, of course. I am an opera singer who is about to start the newest leg of my career which will, within the next few years, hopefully, allow me to do a lot of traveling. This means that, as Chris and I were sitting there, we actually thought 'my God, it is actually possible that we may one day live here.'

The newest line of the TGV, that between Paris and Strasbourg s going to be opening up in 2007, cutting down the traveling time to Paris from 5.5 hours to 3.5. This, tied in with both Chris and my new love for this city means that we're going to be spending a LOT more time there. If anyone out there knows someone in Paris with a guest room to let, please let me know, because I want to spend as much time there as is possible. Chris and I have a new favorite city, and she's called Paree.

Oh. the trip... hmmm Well, I am still fresh from it, but I can give you some first impressions, I guess. After having researched and researched for a good room, I broke down and thought that I would go with the Hotel Bellevue that the Fodor's Guide recommended. Here's what they said:

“Here you have an old Belle Époque time traveler, proud to keep its dingy chandeliers and faded gold trimming as is. Budget groups from France and the Netherlands come for the clean, sans-frills rooms; some units sleep four. Halls are lined with stamped felt that helps muffle sound trickling up from the spacious marble-floor lobby and bar. There may be some quirks, like the hefty old-fashioned room keys and the bathtub/showers without curtains, but you're just a few blocks from hipper addresses in the heart of the Marais. Get here before the fashionista crowd turns it into a shabby-chic hangout.”

I picked the hotel because I enjoyed staying in the little shabby room with only a sink and bathroom in the hall that I stayed in years ago in Paris. That was a different time and I was much younger. But, Paris will always have a Bohemian identity for me. It will always be "shabby-chic" as the description says. The Bellevue definitely lived up to that idea. But, I dare say it was a bit nicer than I had expected. At 68€ per night, it is very centrally located only 3 minutes from the Centre Pompidou. And those clunky keys the talked about have been replaced with electronic cards. Our room was clean and so was my parent's room. They still have no shower curtains, but that is pretty typical.

What is different about Paris?

Practically every restaurant within the tourist haunts (i.e., anywhere within 2 blocks of one of the major monuments) serves their fare accompanied by a big bottle of very cold water and glasses, complimentary. Huh??? How can this be? A glass of water ordered in a paris café was always notoriously expensive especially when every American meant, even when he hadn't asked as such, that the water should come from the tap. We even saw something of complete alien origin floating in our glasses at another café: ice. Ice??? Double huh? These things were the laughing stock of every American tourist as I and my friends would sit at café to watch the tourists. Not far from many of the monuments in Paris is, also, now a little modern fountain--usually some sculpture that has water flowing from an orifice. But, unlike before, there is no "Eau non potable" signs, and they are almost always seen with lines of tourists filling their water bottles.

The real question is, though: did this particular changes occur because, 2 years ago, nearly 15,000 French died because of the country's worst heat wave. Or, through time, did the French waiter finally break down, giving in to the Americanism they had to fend off at every instance, deciding, pint plank, that 'hey, maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all.'? Perhaps even more importantly considered, am I complaining? Is there any thing wrong with this? Or, am I just another intellectual whining that Paris' quirks are slowly being eroded into a society heavily influenced by Globalism and the consumer? No, I would never say that. The 'Globalism' thing smacks of affectation to me. I do find these changes very interesting, though.

For me, this time, after having lived in whitey white, homogenous Germany for so long, it seemed that the streets of Paris were just absolutely teaming with black people. Africans every where of every shape, size, color--that's not true, most Africans are darker than African-Americans, I find, but anyway... I think that their existence surprised me, even when it shouldn't have. And, the over-arching, perhaps over-reaching thing that I noticed about the Africans I encountered was just how much attitude they had. Many of the young men were strutting around like a cock on holiday, head in the air, absolutely convinced that they were cooler than cool. And the young women looked at me with faces of total contempt and revulsion as I smiled at them, insulted at the effrontery of a friendly tourist seeing them as some kind of rude objectification. To the untrained eye, the Africans that live in Paris are all some kind of refugee, someone either n the first or second generation of people form the sub-continent escaping to the West to have a better life. But, the sociology is much more complex than just that. Many of the people, especially, I surmise those of the snooty nature, are parts of the ruling classes of their countries back home, given French passports or special privileges of their native passports, because of their wealth or social status in the ruling tribe, the ruling bureaucracy, their ruling governments. In other words, what, to many, amy seem just another black person, is someone of very high status in their homeland. This does not make them any better than anyone else. But, I am sure that someone who was treated as a king in his home country, who has the money and power to arrive in the French World's greatest city (Paris) and is then treated as another "black" might have some resentment. And, often this fear and consternation that one feels when the reality of being undervalued in a new land sets in is met with a psychological defense: being conceited and feeling that those around you are beneath you. It is, in my mind, a very interesting phenomenon. People have always tried to hide their own personal fears by trying to appear as more than they are. Believe me, I should know. My own conceit has been used for a mask for many years...

Paris is so fascinating and alive. It is so beautiful and immense, inspiring, but unfathomable and, somehow complex and mysterious. There's a lot there under the surface, the kind of "a lot" that one only gets to know by being slowly simmered there for years. This kind of steeping to the brim with Paris is something that I think Chris and I would enjoy. Maybe the wish that I made under Le Pont Marie, just before I kissed Christoph, might actually come true.