This is a love letter, written by a friend to one of the world’s great cities. I shall place him squarely on the spot and say that what follows is but the first of many regular contributions that you’ll be reading from the author, who, having spent the summer hopping between Washington and Chicago and just returning from a week on the Mediterranean, is, as I write this, touching down in Jackson Hole. His is a charmed life… here’s a peek (unfiltered and unabridged). But first, push play...
“I think about Paris when I’m high on red wine; I wish I could jump on a plane.” – Jimmy Buffett from Changes in Attitude, Changes in Latitude
Regardless of how you feel about the “artistic merits” of the music, books, and other endeavors of the ageless pirate, there’s no denying that Jimmy can induce nostalgia and wanderlust at the drop of a wide-brimmed, straw hat. The Buffett daydream factory is usually churning out visions of the delicious, fictitious Margaritaville. With apologies to all the Parrotheads for whom a life of blown out flip-flops and lost salt shakers is as close to heaven as this world gets, if I ever have the chance to sip cocktails with Jimmy, I hope we’ll find ourselves in one of two real world cities that have also fed his imagination over the years: New Orleans or Paris.
While New Orleans deserves (and shall soon receive) its own special note of adoration on this esteemed literary outlet, today my thoughts belong to the Crescent City’s grand, graceful ancestor.
I recently had the good fortune to end a week of overseas travel with a single night in Paris. The group I was traveling with had spent five days in the hot August sun of Mediterranean beach towns. We limped into Paris tired and sun burnt. Knowing exactly what we needed, the Travel Gods suddenly turned the temperature down to a wonderfully crisp fifty-five degrees. With jackets donned, we gathered at the Arc de Triomphe and began the universally-known hike up the Champs Elysees. As the sun faded, the lights of the city’s cafes and restaurants began to glow. Any fears I had at being desensitized at all to the scene because prints like Van Gogh’s “The Café Terrace at Night” can be found in half the dorm rooms in this country were immediately laid to rest; the real life subject of the painting is nothing less than sublime.
We walked through the otherworldly Jardin des Tuileries, where one group member pointed out the exact spot where he had proposed to his wife, and passed through the grounds of the Louvre. We then crossed the Seine on the Pont des Arts and ventured into the raucous Latin Quarter. We continued walking along the river and passed countless landmarks, one of my personal favorites being the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore, known for decades as a home, both literally and creatively, to aspiring writers.
We turned off the main thoroughfare and followed the twists and turns of smaller side streets that were so Parisian in appearance that I almost didn’t believe they were real, as if I weren’t actually walking through the city itself, but rather a movie version of Paris. At this point, the long walk, cool weather, and nighttime cityscape induced a craving for red wine that went beyond visceral almost to primal. We finally reached our destination, a small restaurant that I could never find in a million years. After three hours of devouring red meat, drinking an ocean’s worth of wine, and making every toast known to man, our group of 23 joyously staggered back out into the picturesque street.
While Paris is a town perfect for wandering around in a beauty and history-induced daze, it’s also a great town for just having a damn good time. Our group stumbled into a bar two doors down from the restaurant, where our hilarious, drunken, and doomed attempts to talk with the locals were fueled by more wine and were met with reputation-defying friendliness and laughter. We also discovered that Parisians, at least those that we met, get immense joy from being unwilling to take a picture of just our group. Each time we singled out a Parisian from a group of, say, four and requested that he/she take a picture of our group of, say, five, the other three Parisians would immediately jump to our side to be included in the photo. This turned each picture into a wildly comical event. Later in the evening, a picture would actually be taken that features nine members of our group and no less than twenty-five Parisians who rushed to be in the photo as if the fate of every grape in France depended on it.
Once the bar closed, our good spirits carried us to an underground nightclub that was housed in a former wine cellar. We did our best to adjust to the European techno beats of the deejay. The astounding people-watching was highlighted by witnessing the club’s bouncers smash in the bathroom door to collect the unconscious body of an overdosed teenaged guy.
When we were finally ready for the evening to end, we hailed cabs that zoomed around the empty nighttime streets and gave us one last beautifully blurry montage of The City of Lights.
I had only been to Paris once before and I have no idea when I will be back. Obviously, one could spend a lifetime exploring the city and its endless cultural offerings. However, I would advise any fellow travelers to not ignore Paris because you’re waiting until you have the chance “to do it right.” Any night, even just one, is the right time to do Paris. Once you have, you can join me and Jimmy for a bottle of red and tell us all about it.
