Ernest Hemingway once said, "There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: in our home and Paris."
There is certainly no place like home. But clicking my heels back to Paris will require some forgiveness after a summer French fling ended rather abruptly.
It started with a bumpy flight into Charles De Gaulle and a wild cab ride to my hotel.
The cabbie smelled like a heap of chopped onions, drove fast and furious over potholes, and then he ran the meter (a common taxi scam) pretending to get lost in the third arrondissement of Paris. From the backseat, I watched a man swipe a wallet from a tourist. And a homeless man sprawled out on a concrete bed against the backdrop of the old world charm in Le Marais.
Fortunately, the hotel Villa Marazin was a safe refuge to brace jet lag. The following day, I longed for a strong cafe au lait, which led me down to the basement where I indulged in a lustful flirtation of orgasmic butter croissants, hard baguettes, and tongue pleasing sugar-dusted pastries.
The air was dry and steamy under the salon's hot lights, a stark white cave that looked as if it once served as a bomb shelter in past wars. My hotel room on the third floor made up for the lack of amenities (no bar, gym, or room service). The room was charming, styled in romantic, Napoleonic-themed furniture. The bed was comfortable, and the bathroom sparkled like a commercial for a household cleaning product.
On a platter next to a small bouquet of pink roses, macaroons of assorted bright colors rested on a table near a window that offered a Parisian peep show of the streets below. The hotel room was air-conditioned, a luxury weathering a hot summer in Europe. But who wants to stay boxed in a hotel, when there are far more romantic intercourse to explore in the City of Light?
Perhaps I should have stayed pinned under the cotton sheets in the bed.
My first full day in Paris, I was accosted by a band of women, gypsies at the Eiffel Tower, and later in Montmartre, a touristy village in the city's highest point.
"Do you speak English?" a woman with dark, bushy eyebrows asked.
She held a clipboard close to her chest that had alleged petition papers for "deaf children" as she launched a stern demand for a cash donation.
"No, thank you," I said, trying to shuffle away from her.
A dagger, a black pen thrust toward me. Fortunately, I escaped unharmed, rebuking her curses like the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live.
Later, I was chased by a French man who thought he could please two hens (me and my travel partner) after rescuing us from a haggard woman (another gypsy). She handed us a shiny, gold band, pretending to find the ring on the floor.
Whatever you do, don't fall for that trick. And, beware of any man who wants to show you the rooms inside the hotel, where he works. I'm almost sure he was looking for a different housing arrangement:
a ménage à trois.
Walking back to the hotel, I dodged billowing fumes from cigarettes that circled above the sidewalk cafes. The wave of secondhand smoke was as suffocating as the gypsies and mendicants who peddled trinkets and nappy flowers. The entire trip, I kept one hand on my wallet and stayed clear of predators who stalked the united nations of tourists.
In Paris, I translated Roman numerals on street corners, memorized cross streets, and texted myself the hotel's address, if I were to take a long walk, which usually ended in a cab, returning to base.
My hotel became the only safe place to romp at night (again, not an ideal place to run up your vacation meter).
On my last night in Paris, I craved for one more Parisian adventure. I peeked outside the window of my hotel room and watched the neon lights flashing like fire above a red and white striped canopy at a bustling cafe on the corner, Cafe la Comete.
Perhaps, I should venture there; I thought, just footsteps away from the hotel. Maybe the people at the cafe would not snicker at me like the gypsies, cab drivers, or those impatient waiters dressed like sailors on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
I found a seat at a bistro table on the sidewalk and magically turned invisible in a moveable French feast up to the challenge. I thought of Hemingway and Sartre for they famously wrote in Parisian cafes. Toasting the great masters, I reached for a writing pad inside my Louis Vuitton messenger bag and sketched a romantic scene that played in front of my eyes...
Under a pale crescent moon, smoke rings from the cigarettes' tips danced in the wind through the clinking of cheers at Cafe la Comete. Across the street, a large clock on a Baroque building silently struck midnight. A red flash from a neon sign spotlighted the faces of two men, seated at a small table on the sidewalk, locked in frozen gaze as though they were the only late-night revelers on the Rue des Archives. Lost in a train of seductive thoughts, there was no temptation to watch a procession of well-dressed handsome men walking past the cafe. A Bangladeshi man brandished flowers and walked toward the bistro tables. He held a rose in between the couple, hoping to sell the flower. Without hesitation, one of the men reached in his pocket, bought the red rose, and handed it to his lover. Smiling, the other man said, "Merci, mon cheri amour." The lovers leaned in for a long kiss. After the bill was settled, they sprang from their seats, locked at the elbows as they walked on a dim lit, narrow cobbled street. The two men vanished from sight in the dark shadows to steal a private moment, away from the patrons' stares at the bustling cafe...
Wait, maybe there is a softer, welcoming side of Paris after all. The innocence of voyeurism invited me to partake in the scene at a gay (male) cafe. At Cafe la Comete, there were no stares or lame pick-up lines thrown at me, a woman drinking wine alone. Of course, I would later find an extensive collection in Rome and Manhattan. But that was later.
"Un autre vin s'il vous plaît." Another wine, please, I beg the French waiter dressed in a white dinner jacket and a black bow tie.
Scribbling on a yellow Post-it Note: Please give Paris a second chance! With a click of my heels, I shall soon return to Paris.
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