Paris in the Springtime

Yvonne and David are going to Paris next week. He for a business meeting she because she lucked out on the dates of Spring vacation and was "added on". Poor child I have been bombarding her with ancient tips and information probably none of it age appropriate for that matter century appropriate.

When Marianna and I rented the apartment in the fifth arondissement several years ago we glimpsed the lights of the Eiffel tower from the restaurant we ate in the first night of our stay. It was reminiscent of the first time we had seen the lights from our balcony when we came to Paris as green teenagers to spend our junior year.

We lived in the eighteenth in a very residential pre-World War II building. The elevator was to be used to go up. Walk down the five flights please. The hall lights were on a timer and one raced from floor to floor to push the button to illuminate the stairwell to descend further.

We lived with the family Mullander: Madame, Monsieur, Grand Pere, the daughter and son-in-law just returned from North Africa and Bruno who was four years old. If anyone spoke English they kept it to themselves. Our major communication difficulty was with Bruno as we had no vocabulary suitable for dealing with a four year old. Although we did exclaim at dinner on the wonderful carrion we had just eaten. Most of our vocabulary came from Verlaine and Beaudelaire. Grandpere had traveled in the States at the turn of the century and had carried a gun with him for fear of the redskins and the gangsters. He always asked us about our war, the Korean war, as if we were in control, or even knowledgeable.

Madame was a wonderful cook. I sent home recipes for the exotic lunches she made for us. My mother resented this thoroughly. Madame opened each spice tin in turn so we could smell and learn the French name. We had wine with every meal Bruno also had wine watered by more than half. Monsieur Mullander was an insomniac given to painting things like the toilet seat in the middle of the night. Each morning we went off to school at 4 rue de Chatreuse for lessons in grammar and reading and writing proper French. We translated Churchill into French, De Gaulle into English. We returned after lunch for culture lectures. As soon as the light went off for the slides I fell asleep so I missed much of the culture.

On days when there were no lectures we had a map and instructions on exploring Paris century by century starting on the Ile de la Cite an expanding each week into a larger concentric circle. These adventures are for another day.