A "newish" resident plays tourist: romantic Paris and Eureka love

Forget Oxford's "Bridge" of Sighs; check out those crossing the Seine in "gay Paris!"

[Teaser: lots of pics of Paris, below!] As my loyal reader knows, as I prepared to leave for Oxford University last month I got a case of Eureka's locally infamous "crud." (Folks aren't sure if it's bacterial or viral, but almost all agree on 2 points:  it afflicts most new residents to the area, which is true of me; and, that it lasts from 4 weeks to 2 months before it slowly dissipates no matter what you do [or don't]).

Anyway, a local new true friend came to my sick house, bringing me herbal "tea and sympathy." Uncharacteristically, I began to "follow my heart" in spite of what my head "knew" (especially "She already has a boyfriend you moron!"), and began FALLING (why do YOU think that we use THAT word?) in love with someone who I thought could never reciprocate in the ways a smitten person like me yearns for. Now, just shy of a month on, I am learning that even grizzled veterans of "the school of hard knocks" (as dear old Dad used to refer to his own unhappy upbringing) can still hope for and sometimes get the improbable! But, wait a minute: didn't I say that she already has a boyfriend?!? Have I joined the Cheating Heart (the original Hank Williams Sr version!) choir?

Beginning with this post, I explore what I have gone through during recent weeks, beginning with my last days in Europe. Travel does (or at least CAN) expand the mind (and heart)! At the end of a series of 4 posts, this "newish" Eurekan will explain how he is dealing with unexpected, ambivalent, and amazing personal developments in his life, still in progress as of this post. The general tendency indicates an evolution in the way that I see, think, and feel about life in general, and in Eureka...

My heart is trying out its long-retired wings, and I have flown psychologically as well as physically between Europe and Eureka with my heart lodged in my throat and threatening to stop beating entirely at the whim of one woman!

[With apologies, a one paragraph digression from the pressing topics at hand: The biggest lost opportunity of my long illness was not my diminished ability to write and speak about my lifelong research on Mexican migration, but the lower level of personal participation in the local variant of the still mushrooming worldwide Occupy Wall Street movement. Now this new post takes us away from the socioeconomic struggle of that movement and into the personal angsts of little old me. But, I want to gently remind my loyal reader that "la lucha sigue" (that is, the fight continues) for a better future for the 99% of the people on this planet (as well as for the health of the planet and its nonhuman species)! The above links allow my reader to continue to obtain the latest information about the Occupy cause -- locally and globally -- and I hope you continue to follow and support it!]

Anyway, after the Oxford Workshop on International Migration -- an amazing experience in its own right -- still sick with both the crud and a seemingly unrequitable passion I had caught in Eureka, I left London in the midst of a record-setting October heatwave and took the sleek Eurostar to "gay Paris" (as the old musicals used to refer to the capital of France). What better place to avert an ill-fated and one-sided "love affair" than a few daze (pills and syrups coursing through my crud-ridden body!) in THE city of romance?!?

A smooth choo-choo! Less than 2 and half hours from London to Paris through the countrysides and under the English Channel...

My common-law bro-in-law had said a month earlier, tongue in cheek, that I needed to check out Pigalle, France's famous red-light district... I guess he thinks I could use some "love," even if it's only the kind that you have to pay for by the act and/or the hour! (Yet I've never even been interested in entering a strip club.) Little did I imagine then that I would wind up booking a Paris hotel room from my temporary Oxford digs just blocks from the Pigalle Metro station... Between that Metro stop and the Tristan Plaza hotel (quite lovely, but about as pricey as "love" by the hour!) it seemed that half the storefronts have the English word "love" in them, like an infamous 3-story sex department store called (in English) "Love Shop"! Clearly, some French entrepreneurs equate the English word "love" with money (but only in Euros, please!)... After all, ALL is Full of Love (the official Bjork version!), oui?!?

The view of a Pigalle side-street from my first Paris hotel room's walk-out balcony.

Pigalle is located a bit to the north-east of the vast area known as "central" (that is, tourist) Paris. This hotel is at a great location from which to explore on foot everything between the bombastic Arc de Triomphe in the north of central Paris to the massive Louvre near the historic center of Paris on two islands in the Seine River. The journey between the Arc and the Louvre is made easy via the broad and renown Champs Elysées. (The Rough Guide to Paris was invaluable, and a 2002 edition is one of the 50-odd books I had purchased at the Eureka Library's "buck-a-bag" book sale in August!)

My $250 (US) room in Pigalle; it was as "big" as it looks, but had great light, and was clean, comfortable, and quiet.

Pigalle is also adjacent to the famous historical artist colony on the Butte of Montmartre... At 130 meters, this hill is the highest point in the city ("Rough Guide to Paris," p. 185), providing some stunning vistas when you least expect them, just around THAT corner. While the demography has gentrified since the days of the Bohemian artists that used to call it home, the buildings have remained all but untouched because ancient underground quarries make the surface too unstable for much new development. I spent my first full day and several of my few precious evenings wandering this butte, which has seen the likes of Renoir, Dufy, Valadon, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The Moulin Rouge remains in its historic location at the bottom of the Butte, near Pigalle, while the Sacré-Coeur Basilica dominates the heights. In between are many great and intimate sights to behold...

The Montmartre Carousel, next to an historic art deco entry to the neighborhood's Metro station.

One of a number of tiny hidden community gardens in Montmartre. Here a local toddler was attracted to an odd water pump, which I noted is widespread in central Paris; it has a crank handle on the top, and water spurts out the side of the pipe. A jogger used it to splash water on his legs and hands...

Only a very successful artist could afford to live in Montmartre today, but the place is rife with French yuppies feasting on locally produced artisan foods at the many bistros and cafes, and tourists like me scouring the "galleries" (mainly "poster art" of the great works of the last few centuries). I bought a machine-woven tapestry replica of a medieval town scene in a store run by a French-Korean family for about $55 (US), which I have since mounted on bamboo (kudos to Dammas for the inspiration for that installation!) and put it up in my kitchen nook. A brocade Renaissance fair with my morning cup!

Brunching al fresco in Montmartre...

An award-winning bakery packs them in...

...and the baguettes and croissants look like they've been dusted in gold!

This was a SUNday afternoon crowd; doesn't it look a bit like Disneyland? (But, it's a REAL neighborhood, not a recreation!)

One of a score of poster art "galleries" in the area...

...with a typical sidewalk display.

The Ugly American, with decaf cappuccino and Crème Brulé for dessert; bon appétit!

Does this cafe's name play on the disdainful attitude the French are said to have toward Americans?

How to spend less than $300 a day in Paris? Piggyback on other tourists' guided tours instead of booking your own!

Approaching the Arc!

Why do old French monuments look so beautiful? The government spends kings' ransoms to restore them,  using...

..."cheap" immigrant labor, mainly from Francophone (former French colonial) Africa!

The nannies in this park made for the babies of the bourgeoisie were all African immigrants too.  They yelled disapprovingly at me when I snapped a pic, which made me wonder if they were worried about their "illegal" status, or if they maintain animist fears about the dangers of losing your soul to the picture box...

 I didn't know that you cross the vast traffic circle around the Arc via an underground sidewalk, so I sprinted across a dozen lanes of speeding traffic, dodging a half dozen honking vehicles, and sealing my well-earned rep as the stupidest American in Paris!

As near as I can tell, Napoleon's Arc surpasses any American efforts to deify imperialistic patriotism...

A floral monument at the Arc, honoring millennia of French cannon-fodder...

Arc detail, One...

Arc detail, Two...

Another way to spend less than $300 a day in Paris? Don't buy tickets to go in or up anything!

That includes the Louvre! No Mona Lisa viewing in my short 5 day visit...

Instead, I strolled the beautiful parks along the Champs-Élysées on 80 degree October afternoons. 

Can you make out the beautiful modern sculptures amidst the trees?

"The Two Towers": the Egyptian Obélisque Luxor and the Eiffel Tower.

In Part 2, based on my anthropological insights I ponder why Parisian women are so beautiful and the city's dogs appear so pathetic even as we continue strolling in the Jardin des Tuileries and across a pedestrian bridge completely covered with tourists' padlocks... In Part 3, the two islands of oldest Paris are described, featuring an ancient bridge built over a thousand years ago yet called "The New Bridge" by the city's denizens today, and marvel at both the external soaring beauty of the Notre-Dame and it's dismally dreary interior. Finally, in Part 4, an overly long journey back to "The States" is chronicled (including how a much delayed but still action-packed "E-ticket" plane ride into a wind-driven storm scares even the seasoned Eurekan natives on board), and the emergence of an "impossible" love startles, scares, and amazes this newish resident glowing behind the Redwood Curtain.