Le Pain Quotidien
I’ve truly been torturing these poor people. I come to Le Pain Quotidien for a coffee and a croissant damn near every day, and every day my exchange leads to a new question or phrase that I don’t understand yet. I ask them to repeat themselves again and again until we both give up and speak English. But every day I come back and try again, and this time I get to speak French a little bit longer. Until then— I’m sure they’re praying I choke on my croissant. Or go broke.
My days in Paris since I last published have entailed lots and lots of wandering: wandering to the Louvre again, Musee d’Orsay, Tuileries Gardens, the Concorde, the Eiffel Tower, or to the nearest glass of chardonnay. The other day I walked the Seine from Bastille all the way to Palais de la Découverte; six miles round-trip. Naturally I stopped a lot along the way. I’d find a bench on one bridge, I’d sit, draw, read, and people-watch until I felt restless and then I’d get up and do it all over again someplace new.
I also stopped for macarons, a new scarf, a hat for a friend… the shopkeeper asked me where I was from, and then told me he has family that’s lived in California for 49 years running their own laundromat. (I’m surprised I understood all that… maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’m wrong.) Before I left he thanked me for stopping and said he had a gift for me. He grabbed a tiny, hot pink Eiffel Tower key chain and put it on my ring fingered as he hummed “here comes the bride”. In most other contexts I would’ve found this sort of creepy but it was all very sweet and innocent.
I decided to spend the yesterday enjoying the Jardin des Plantes. French gardens and parks really are something else entirely. While I will always love the naturalistic, “this is the way God intended it” style of the majority of America’s parks, there’s something to be admired about the amount of care and consideration that goes into a French park.
Perfectly manicured lawns, wide gravel sidewalks that cut the park into perfect shapes, all lined with benches and low-cut trees, so EVERY bench is in the shade. But the best part about the Jardin des Plantes was that it felt more like I stumbled into a tiny little fairy village. There was a small labyrinth that led up to a gazebo perched on a hill, and in the hedges there were small tunnels cut through the foliage for kids to wander around. There was also a zoo, an amphitheatre, a green house, and two different galleries belonging to the natural history museum: Grand Galerie de l’Evolution and Galerie de Paleontologie.
After getting sufficiently sunburned I found my way back to the concrete jungle and had a glass of chardonnay at SNR. Frankly, I don’t know what it stands for either, but I enjoyed my little happy hour there thoroughly.
I promise there are many more updates, anecdotes, lessons, and mistakes to come. But for now— the Auguste Rodin Museum awaits me.
Jusqu’à la prochaine tasse de café!
-Ken
