What Would Amelie Do?

 

Getting Ready to Cruise the Canals

Saturday is supposed to be about snoozing a little later than normal, right? Not in my neighborhood. At least not this Saturday. I was awakend by the sound of male voices talking outside my windows. (My cute little apartment is on street level, and I can hear what is happening out there at all times.) I looked at the clock. 6:30 AM.

 In my drowsiness I wondered if “Jacques the Rapper” and his buddies were finishing an  all-night gig and had somehow landed on my street.

I dozed a little longer and then there were more voices, male and female. It was 7:30 by then. I peeked outside and saw well-dressed people collected there doing something. Coffee? Wine Tasting? I don’t know. I didn’t want them to see me spying so I tried to go back to sleep for just a little longer.

A woman started singing a song I remember from childhood: “Those Were the Days, my friend. We thought they’d never end. ..” She was singing it in french, but that tune is unmistakable. My 6th grade teacher used to make us sing that song, along with some of his others favorites like “The Ballad of the Green Beret” (“Fearless men who jump and die” was my favorite line of that one.) Imagine a teacher today leading his class of 11-year-olds in a rousing round of “Once upon a time there was a tavern where we used to raise a glass or two.” Parents or MADD would be calling. Anyway, I digress.

That song got me thinking, though. I thought I had better make today- and every day from now on - one of those days I look back on and say ”Those were the days.” Othewise I might end up the lonely old woman not recognizing her reflection in the tavern glass. Or like that cat in Cats,“.. all alone with the memory, of my days in the sun…” So I got up.

 According to one of my favorite little guidebooks there are these amazing canals running through Paris. You may remember them from the movie Amelie.  I had never taken a boat ride down the canals, so Saturday was the day. It was beautiful out again, perfect weather for a whimsical boat ride through and under tunnels, locks, swing bridges, charming foot bridges and ending at Parc de La Villete. More on this in PLAY.

Swinging Gates and Foot Bridge in a Foot Bridge

EAT - I arrived at the boarding place, near the Bastille, a little too late to have lunch. And let me tell you, people were eating some amazing lunches at the restaurant there. Shell fish and other stuff that looked excellent. All I had time to do was wander in the area and hope to find something for a quick snack. I found a place called Mona Lisa Fast Food. I didn’t really want to try what I saw in there, so I settled for a little snack size Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Toffee crunch, complete with it’s own wooden spoon. This is the second time I’ve had ice cream for lunch, but who’s counting?

Later in the evening after the whole canal adventure, I did have a proper meal. I went back to the rue St. Dominique near Invalides to a cafe I have walked by many times. Cafe Recruitement… or something like that.  I was craving a beer for some reason. I ordered a Stella Artois, small size draft. The waitress brought me the jumbo size. About halfway through that I lost all resolve to go home and cook dinner. There were some coquilles Saint-Jacques on the menu. (That’s scallops.) It was saturday night and I was not being bothered by any  Jacques in this neighborhood, so I figured why not eat some scallops named Jacques. I did. They were deilicious! I haven’t been eating too many meals out as I’ve been patiently awaiting the arrival of my good friend Debra. She’s coming on monday. Dining out is so much better with two… or more!

PLAY - The canal ride started out feeling like a Disney ride. The boat went through a long tunnel, and as we rode along they projected a hisorical movie on the walls of the tunnel. It was all about the history of the tunnel. I kept waiting to hear some pirates singing “Yo Ho, Yo Ho!

When we came out the tunnel the boat stopped at a series of locks where the water would raise us up a number of feet until we could pass through. This was fascinating the first couple of times. Water came tumbling out of a wall while the boat rose and water would spray all over us in the front of the boat. It was definitely a slow process, and we spent more time waiting for the boat to rise, and for gates to swing open, then we actually spent moving. But when we did move it was enchantinng. We passed under a series of high, arched foot bridges. Each time we passed through or under something people were watching on the side or up on the bridges waving and cheering us on. It looked like it was probably as much fun to walk along the canal as it was to ride on it. I decided I would walk back when the ride was over.

But first, the Parc de la Villette. This is the largest park in Paris, and it is a doozy! It is the first really modern looking space I’ve experienced here. It is long and flat and sits on either side of the canal. There all all sorts of interesting sculptures, stuff built for the World’s Fair, a cinema shaped like a disco ball and every kind of play contraption for kids that you can imagine in one place. There was an old fashioned merry-go-round with a Jules Verne theme, a shoot- rubber-duckies-in-a-barrel game, cotton candy stands, big slides and other kinds of play-on contraptions I’ve never seen before. For adults there was drumming going on several spots and a number of restaurants. There were also these really groovy chairs. They spin around 360 degrees so you can sit all by yourself and gaze at anything you please.

Groovy Spinning Chair

From the posters I saw, I gather there are some excellent outdoor concerts there, too.  Here’s a montage of my journey, from boarding to my foot journey back.

I spent some time wandering around the park and taking it all in. I thought, when I was a kid I would have been begging to come here every weekend. Just as I had that thought, a felt a drop of something wet hit my nose. I looked up. Blue sky as far as the eye could see. I realized in horror that I had been hit by an errant particle of bird dropping! “Ewww!” Followed by reflexive gagging. Thank god it was only a tiny bit. I dug out a Purell wipe from my purse, thankful that even though I’ve been entertaining the idea of traveling around without them, I had restocked. THIS is what they are made for. 

In all my experience of being a bird target, I’ve never taken it in the face. I took it as an omen. Either the “Friends of Monsieur Hemingway” had followed me from the Luxembourg Gardens with a stern warning to stop making  jokes about their late relatives, or it was time to head back before it started to get dark.

SHOP -I began my walk along the canal, tensing up every time I saw the shadow of a bird flying overhead. Eventually I relaxed and got to thinking about the fact that I had not shopped at all that day. That got me thinking about what the act of shopping means to me, really. You know, on a spiritual sort of level! I came up with some interesting thoughts, which I’ll include in a future blog post. For now I’ll just say that I was surprised to discover that my desire to shop may not be as shallow as I thought it was. Phew!

And of course, just as I had that epiphany, what should appear on my right but a candy-licious row of shops all with the same name. One yellow, one green and one pink. What have we here? It definitely looked like a place where Amelie might shop. It was called Antoine et Lili, and I was instantly smitten!

Antoine et Lili

One shop was gift and decorative items, the next was for kids, and the third one (which I almost missed) was the grown-up girl clothes. What  amazing collections of vibrant merchandise! Full of character and imagination, these stores were maybe the favorite ones I’ve seen yet. The colors made my mouth water. The creative choices and the way they were displayed made a kaleidescope of possibility. It really hit me that the special something that invites you into a store, and keeps you in there once you enter, is a complete mystery to me. All I know is I pick up on it like some sort of sonar. I remember seeing these from the water when I was going the other way. To create a place that shoppers can’t resist is it’s own art form, and I stood in awe of the creators.  

After that nice little retail rest stop, I continued my way toward my dinner.

Later in the night, as I settled in for a good night’s sleep at about 11:30, I became aware that the neighborhood was in full swing with some sort of celebration. There was throbbing dance music, groups of voicing chanting something, and all sorts of raucous raving that told me something really important happened that day. I could not tell where the party was, or what it was for. All I can tell you is it raged on until the wee hours. And that meant only one thing. Sunday was for sleeping in. And sure enough, all was peaceful on my street well into the morning that day.

My Amelie experience on Saturday reminded me that even those of us who can  entertain ourselves for hours solo, and who find whimsy and possibility everywhere, still crave the company of others sometimes. I spent Sunday getting ready for the arrival of my first visitor – my friend Debra. And I felt very ready for some company.

I’ll be reporting in as much as I can during her visit, but I’m guessing it might be a few days. I can’t even imagine what sort of trouble two of us can get into!

Here are Saturday and Sunday’s special music selections:

Those were the days, from One-Hit-Wonder Mary Hopkin

 

La Valse D’Amelie

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