It’s sometimes hard for me to distinguish between memory and fantasy. Between a linear reality and a self-preservation tactic. I find memories like pennies on the ground. Tails-up, unlucky, not worth much until you have a pile of them. I leave it alone. I leave it there for somebody else. It might grow a patina and smell like a bloody lip, but I leave it alone all the same.
This trip was different. I remember every detail of Paris. How many cups of espresso we drank one morning and how many magazines we flipped through at night. I remember the roads there better than in my own hometown. It was magnified, every sense heightened to take it all in. We walked a lot, got blisters, fell asleep at three in the afternoon. We ate eggs every morning and stuttered our way through the menu, nodding in agreement with the waiter when words fumbled. The discounted shoes, knock-offs in the flea market alleys. The bright blue sky and the long shadows the buildings casted at sunset. How quiet it all was an hour before midnight, sometimes our cravings for the best of us and we went out for ice cream. It was all real, all lying before us in a vast cityscape of garbled conjugations and silent consonants. We only explored those things we knew from the internet, the whole rest of the world was in hiding, secrets we discovered together.
I will go back to Paris; I have to now. I want to celebrate another birthday sitting on a picnic blanket by the Eiffel Tower. There are still over 20 restaurants I want to try. I want to buy antiques and reclaim them as heirlooms. I want to spend a day reading, a day sleeping, and a day walking. But there’s never enough time and I am back to work now. Butfive days in Paris were perfect. I am sure these memories won’t escape me so soon.
Fig+Bleu's Guide to Paris!
Stay.
We stayed in the Marais, which was such a relaxed neighborhood. This was our AirBnB.
Eat.
- Merci
- Epicure
- Bistrot De Boucher
- Le Procope
- Buvette
- Le Eclair de Genie
- Chez Denise
- Mi-Va-Mi (Lily had recommended L'As Du Fallafel but they were closed for Rosh Hashanah!)
- Paris Picnic
Do.
- Have a picnic near the Eiffel Tower
- Spend 4 hours in the Louvre
- Faceswap with Picassos
- Buy Kinder bars at one in the morning at the local shop
- Buy some antiques at the flea market
- Spend $200 on linens at Merci's shop
- And $60 on kitchen wares at E. Dehillerin