2001: Belle époque, mal époque.

by Carl Russo


1.


Everyone is seduced by the Seine in Paris, and couples
prove it along her banks—in broad daylight!



Why did it take me so long to get to France? I've been a Francophile since I played Inspecteur Migraine with my best bumbling Sellers accent in a high school French production. I knew my Godards from my Truffauts before the advent of the home VCR.

Now that I was here, I could barely understand the price of a nightlife guide when the vendor requested "Ta fa." Oh, trois francs!

Prior to the trip I'd met a guy who lives four months out of the year in a Paris hotel room overlooking the Seine and the lovely Sainte-Chapelle church. This for the price of a Motel 6 in Oxnard. I eventually beat the name out of him, and by early September my girlfriend Vanessa and I had the view to ourselves. Click the pictures on each page to expand the views yourself!

Residing in the very center of Paris, we were spitting distance from all one should see: Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Luxembourg Garden. As museum hoofers, we were able to put in five hours at the Louvre, stroll the Tuileries Garden, and take in an extensive Alfred Hitchcock exhibit at the Pompidou—complete with a recreation of one ill-fated Bates Motel room with adjoining shower.

The top-floor balcony of the Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum that proudly wears its plumbing on the outside—was the ideal spot to be for our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower as it pierced a smog-red sky at sunset. Oohs, aahs and oh-la-las escaped from our fellow art lovers.

One of the first things we noticed in France was how genuinely nice the French are, shattering the old stereotype. There isn't a bus driver, train conductor or store clerk who won't say cheerfully, "Bonjour, monsieur et madame. Merci, monsieur et madame. Au revoir, monsieur et madame." and mean it. Back home in "good-vibes" San Francisco, we'd step back if a bus driver greeted us with a smile.

Even in the rowboat at Versailles, when I couldn't negotiate the paddles backwards to glide us up to the rental dock, even as Vanessa laughed her head off in embarrassment while I splashed and fumbled and spun in circles, the dock master pulled us ashore with his long hook and treated us like Australian Cup winners.



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