From the archives...Published in The Northern Echo Tuesday 12th February 2008. View clip here
As I come to pack up my belongings to return to England I am beginning to feel that I have acquired too much baggage – in more than one sense of the word. Primarily, I have accumulated a rather large amount of gifts (naturally, most of them are for me). In working as an intern for Chic Shopping Paris I have frequented many a Parisian boutique, and the purchases are piling up high.
I am also carrying emotional baggage with
regards to my departure from this wonderful city. I truly do not want to leave.
As I write, it is my penultimate evening in the City of Light. To relieve my
angst, today I treated myself to a facial at the Annick Goutal beauty boutique.
For only thirty euros I was covered in a cosy pink blanket, cleansed, steamed
and massaged with delicious rose-scented products.
Later on in the afternoon I went to the Place
des Vosges, a quintessentially Parisian square with perfectly pruned trees and
superb symmetry. As I sat looking up at the windows of the house in which
Victor Hugo lived and penned Les Miserables, a violinist began playing in the
arcades lining the square. It was a moment simultaneously beautiful and
terribly poignant, for I know that it is going to be hard to say au revoir.
However,
there are certain things that I cannot wait for, things that just aren’t the
same here in Paris. It’s true that the culinary choice here is fantastic, but I
can’t help but desire a plate of my mum’s home-cooked Sunday dinner. Just
around the corner from my apartment is Mariage Frères, a tea shop/salon/museum hybrid
established in 1834 boasting over 300 variations of tea - but I would kill for
a cup of Tetley.
Despite these homely desires, though, I have
learned that Paris is the place for me. I have visited many museums, art
galleries and exhibitions, consumed more than my own body weight in top-notch
patisserie, peeked in many of the world’s finest designer boutiques, whiled
away many afternoons in cafes and have made sure that I have seen as much of
the city as possible on foot; fortunately I have just about reached equilibrium on the calories consumed/miles
walked scale. But what of my language? Well, I am constantly complimented on my
accent, which I have perfected through watching French television and
eavesdropping in cafes and restaurants. But the actual grammaticality of what I
say, well, it’s not exactly perfect.
I am still a philistine when it comes to wine;
my favourite variety has been the 1.79 euro-a- bottle stuff from the
supermarket. I’m still not convinced by cheese and I’m never going to take up
smoking just to fit in, but still, I want to be here.
For
the past two months I have been intoxicated by the City of Light. Intoxicated
not only by the numerous cocktails and bottles of champagne, but by the sound
of the bells of Notre Dame waking me up every morning, by the dulcet tweets of
the birds in the Jardins de St. Eustache, by the accordion players on the Metro
and by the city itself, throbbing with passion for food, love and culture.
One Sunday morning I arrived at Café des Phares
overlooking the Bastille column for a philosophy discussion, an event which is
practised each Sunday at 11am. I arrived a little late so I took my place at
the bar with a café crème. All of the tables were taken up by eager students
with spectacles perched on the ends of their noses and pens poised over blank
notepads; waiting to hear a philosophical dictum that might become their motto
for life. The topic was “reality versus truth”. Questions flew back and forth -
an elderly woman in a sparkly beret sternly presented her opinion. A woman in a
YSL scarf nodded profusely; others waved their arms in the air, desperate to
contest.
“Is truth reality? Is reality the truth? What
is real?” The Parisians sure are deep thinkers.
The French actress Catherine Deneuve recently
said of her beloved city: “There really is a heart to Paris that is absolutely
marvellous.” Although the City of Light is renowned for the Eiffel Tower and
clichéd scenes of beret-clad lovers, there is a plethora of cobbled side
streets and secret parks, wonderful architecture and a cornucopia of
dressing-up box boutiques to be discovered.
I’ll be back.
