Paris from my window

It’s Sunday morning, my last morning in Paris.  I’m up with the sun. I want to be awake for every last minute of Paris.  I’m gazing out of my apartment window, sipping a coffee, and I can see a young couple, perhaps just returning from a night out, having some kind of confrontation in the street.  Their movements seem very deliberate, like they're rehearsing for a ballet.  She drops her shoulders and takes four steps to the right (2,3,4.) He moves towards her. She turns her head (2,3,4) and he walks off stage.  It might be a lovers tiff, but it’s very poetic. 

No one else is up.  Sunday is definitely the day of rest in Paris.  I’ve had seven Sundays here and I’m always the first person awake.  But it’s hard to imagine that when I wake tomorrow morning, I won’t be in Paris.  As I sit here, feeling somewhat sad, I know I’ll be back.  

There have been so many adventures during this 1080 hours around Paris, and so many surprises. 

I’ll miss champagne at lunch time and days that linger till 10pm.  And it will seem odd, not catching a daily glimpse of the Eiffel Tower (she seems to stick her neck out when you least expect it).  I’ll miss the delicious set menu at L’Aigre-Doux, a weeny Middle Eastern restaurant, so cheap, just down the road from me, with the personal, gentle service provided by chef, Jaffar. I’ll miss my new friends, particularly Viv - we met at Republique metro station at 11.45am the other day and without realising it, didn’t part company until 10.45 that night. 

Paris has surprised me with its warmth and friendliness and its ability to tolerate my excrutiatingly poor French (all 3 words!) But it has also surprised me with it's aggressiveness.  I won't miss being shoved off the metro and in the street. 

I’ll never forget the fireworks on Bastille night; The bustle of the market on Rue Mouffetard; The snoozy, lazy Canal Saint Martin; That half bottle of Le Serre de Bernon, 2008 Cote du Rhone; The wine appreciation class with Philippe (who conducted the class in French, English and Spanish - impressive, I thought); La Cave wine shop; The view of Paris from the Galleries Lafayette rooftop; And reuniting with my lifelong friend, Catherine, squeezing everything out of Paris in just one weekend, and eating our way around it (Catherine has a gourmet photo-log to prove it).

I’ll stay in touch with the ladies who lunch.  I'll skim through my photos often, and I’ll cherish that note from Jean-Paul because it will remind me of how we can impact on each other in just a few fleeting moments (oh, and because it can feed my ego every once in a while).  

I'll remember the things that moved me; Jane Evelyn Atwood’s photography exhibition at La Maison European Photographie - confronting, depressing, grounding, beautiful, hard to look at yet hard not to; The male version of Tracey Chapman, busking me into a trance, near Centre Pompidou; Monet's Waterlillies at L'Orangerie; The poppies and other wild flowers, abundant on the side of the road in Giverny; And tracing the footsteps of great writers such as Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Henry Miller.

And I wonder what comes after 1080 hours in Paris...