Rachel in Paris: We'll Never Be Royals

"But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right or wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight."

-A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

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It's officially fall break and now I'm too tired to do anything. I was too tired to plan any sort of travel, so I'm left here in Paris (Horrible, right?). I'm so tired that lately I've been turning on light switches that are already on, getting on the wrong métro line twice and not noticing for a few stops and nodding off in class (that's nothing new). This tiredness is doing nothing for my French skills, either. Today in the St-Michel-Notre-Dame station, a French mother and daughter were asking me how to get to the Eiffel Tower. I knew exactly how to get there--take the RER C southwest and it doesn't matter which branch you take--but I had the biggest struggle explaining it to them. "Euhh...on prend le RER C et c'est pas important...euhhh..." I mumbled and gestured to nothing in particular. Whenever this happens-- I'm tired a lot, so often-- people start that dreaded smirk of Oh, you're cute, kid. You must not know any French. I'm going to go ask a real French person as soon as you walk away. And then I walk away, muttering Dammit, Rachel! out loud to myself and I'm sure if I'd look back, they probably always do stop a French person.
Most of the time, I think I'm getting the hang of being a Parisian again. I'm doing a good job of wearing 98 percent black, keeping my slightly-pissed-off and disengaged composure in public (and avoiding laughing at all costs), paying in exact change whenever possible, letting my hair do what it wants to and remembering to have an umbrella on me at all times. I must look convincing because I get stopped constantly for directions (see above). The only time I break is when Americans stop me and nervously try to ask me where something is and I smile and respond in English. The look on their face of relief is really heartwarming. I'm always glad to help out a compatriot or two. I also break when musicians hop on my train and play cliché French songs because I can't resist cheesy accordion music. I usually start smiling and pretend I was just reading a funny text on my phone.

I did a great job today. The only color I wore was gray. If I wore a scarf, I'd be golden, but it is too effing hot for that.

My phone. Hmm. My iPhone was stolen out of my hands in the middle of the night during a fog installation at Paris' annual arts and music festival, Nuit Blanche, at Place de la République (Here's my long-winded complaint about it). I was convinced that I would never, ever be pick-pocketed because I'm always extremely aware of my belongings. Even in my hometown in Minnesota where I'm sure there are no pickpockets, I always carry my bag in front of me and and glance around with shifty eyes. Having my phone stolen out of my hands was a huge blow to my street smarts confidence and kind of put me in shock. Paris is being harder on me than last time. If there is a silver lining, it's that I'm not so caught up in all that garbage--albeit fun garbage-- that you're convinced you need at your fingertips at all times: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email, etc. Now that I'm relegated to having the technological marvel that is the Blackberry Curve, I look at my phone only when I get a text. It's actually a little refreshing.
Instead of playing on my phone on the métro, I've been doing a lot of reading. Right now I'm working on A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. I read it sometime in college before I did my Paris semester and it didn't really mean much to me, but I knew it should've. At that point, I'd only spent four days in Paris in my entire life, so references to the rue Mouffetard and the Brasserie Lipp meant nothing at all to me. Yesterday I was reading on line 12 and happened to be reading about Hemingway and his wife Hadley's apartment. I then got off at my stop, Notre-Dame-des-Champs, walked down the street of the same name to find their apartment at number 113, which to my disappointment, looks like has been replaced by a new building. I had been reading about how he'd walk down the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to have a drink at La Closerie des Lilas, so I followed his path, hitting the boulevard Montparnasse. He also wrote about walking through "the little Luxembourg," which is the park below my apartment. It's weird how much time he spent in my neighborhood. I wonder who was living in my apartment at that time and if they ever saw him outside my window walking to Gertrude Stein's at 27 rue de Fleurus. His writing is so modern and relatable that sometimes I forget how long ago he was in Paris. But then he mentions cattle in the streets and Paris being affordable and it's obviously quite a while ago.
Sometimes I pass tourists and I miss being one of them. They get to live in a wonderful dream, that fantasy that everyone has of Paris. They're immune to reality--I'm definitely guilty of this in other cities--and spend their time contenting themselves with overpaying for water at restaurants, blocking locals on the sidewalks by walking five people across and eating on the street without feeling the shame of eating on the go that you feel if you actually live here. I would love to spend a week in a hotel here just for the maid service and elevator and the possibility of a complimentary breakfast and I would love to stare unjaded at every building. I know there are far, far worse things in life than living in a chambre de bonne, but sometimes I get really tired of ants invading my Nutella jar, stubbing my toes on everything, carrying groceries up seven flights of stairs, being hungry all the time and dealing with water issues (My second water-related issue thus far is that right now I have no hot water so I've been taking ice-cold showers). But I live in Paris, so I can't complain. I've sacrificed a lot to be here, over 4,000 miles from home, because this is my dream. My surprisingly mosquito-infested dream (Yes, the Minnesota state bird thrives in my apartment via the Jardin du Luxembourg).

Below is my October video that I prefer on Vimeo for no particular reason and pictures from the past few weeks.

Love,
Rachel