Au Revoir

Originally posted May 11, 2004

There are many ways to say goodbye in French: ciao, salut, à plus tard, à tout à l’heure, au revoir, bon voyage, bonne vacance, à ce soir, adieu, just to name a few. Obviously, I have a lot to pick from, but I can’t seem to find the right one. I guess the reason it’s so hard is because I don’t want to. I miss everything back home of course, but there’s so much I feel hasn’t been done, so much left that I haven’t discovered on this continent alone that I just accept bringing it to a close. My host mom, seeing my slight melancholy at the prospect of my definitive departure from Europe, keeps telling me “you’ll come back, you’ll come back” in a slightly dismissive way as if saying “what are you moping about? It’s not the end of the world.” No, it’s not the end of the world, but it is definitely the end of something. It’s the end of this crazy, no-holds-barred year where studying didn’t run my life, where I had the entire world right at my fingertips, where I could come and go as I pleased, where I didn’t have a lot of responsibility and even less class to attend, where I didn’t see the same people everyday and got only thumbprint impressions of so many, this year where I started to grow up and start facing the life that waits for me when I return.

Renee's daughter Lucie, et moi. 

Some BU friends at Renee Pontbriand's house in the countryside outside Paris. 

That life seems a little foreign now. I’m sure I’ll fall right back into the old pattern, same running trails, Truro Church, Bailiwick, baking chocolate chip cookies once a week for little bro, and it will feel good. I cannot wait to see my family and get to know little Katie, my newest first-cousin-once-removed, go to Sunset Beach the last week in July, and take a drive on 495 in rush hour traffic… well, maybe there are some things that can wait.

My older brother arrived on Saturday night and I met him and his friend Claudius for church the next morning, and then brunch afterwards. I felt like when Ben got here it would be the beginning of the end. But it started a little before that. Namely when Madame Arnal took me out to her favorite café in Paris in the 14th called La Coupole. It is in Montparnasse where all the artists used to hang out and talk and paint and sip espresso together at the turn of the century. They were all poor so to pay for their coffee they painted the columns of the café and to this day each one bears the mark of a different artist: Monet, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and Cezanne among others. For some reason, I felt like I was in Casablanca in Rick’s American Café and “As Time Goes By” would start playing at any moment. People were all dressed up, there was hilarity and reveling just beginning to get going at 11pm, big band music, and waiters in white tuxedo coats running around feverishly trying to cater to the needs of the upscale clientele.

There are treasures like this all over Paris and all over the world; in the jazz clubs in Prague, the coffee houses in Amsterdam, the little canal ways in Venice, the Ha’Penny bridge in Dublin, the mountain-lined Isère river in Grenoble, the lavender fields of Provence, the sweeping and exotic boulevards of Barcelona, and the quaint streets of Strasbourg. I was walking through the lively, neon-lit sidewalks of the quarter with my worldly and stylish host mom and remembered the quiet suburban neighborhood of Surrey Square where it is acceptable to go to the store in sweat pants. They are separate universes, but I like each one so well. Why do I have to choose?

Ben being here helps me appreciate everything even more. When we walked through the Louvre together before the awesomeness of it had hit him, he was just kind of ho-hum about Paris. It wasn’t real to him yet. Then about an hour later, after touring the antiquities sections and casually passing by rooms filled with the subjects of entire art-major dissertations, he sort of stopped and goes “wow”. And I knew that Paris had dealt her deadly blow, deep into the heart of another innocent victim. Each night I have met up with him after work, he walks bravely on beside me though he is feeling, and I quote, “slurggy” and his legs may turn to jell-o at any moment, having passed the entire day walking through museums, gardens, and the streets of Paris. I gave him an insurmountable list of things to do and see while I am tied up at the Chamber, with no rest in site for when I completed my academic obligations. I have been saving my “going out to eat” money and am taking him to all the restaurants I’ve wanted to try in Paris. Once again, an itinerary designed around eating. The first day we went to “Le Pain Quotidien” for brunch which he enjoyed, then that night we went to Indian food in this tiny little passageway between two buildings in the 10th that is nothing but Indian restaurants and has the best Paris can offer. After that we took the Bateaux Mouches and I showed Ben Paris at night. This was followed by dessert at an overpriced café but I had some fantastic ice-cream and Ben’s chocolate fondant cake was pretty good too.

Ben and some of the BU crew on the Bateaux Mouche

The next night I met up with Ben after work and I took him to Shakespeare and Co. for their Monday night poetry reading. It is right across the street from Notre Dame on the Seine, and is cramped and musty but the floor to ceiling books, from rare antiquities to well-known bestsellers, completely insulate you from Parisian sirens and hustle and bustle. Going there you can hide away in the upstairs library on a couch and stay until it closes at midnight. It’s an English bookstore run by this ancient man with wild hair sprouting in every direction. He wears a paisley smoking jacket and striped pants in autumnal colors, and bedroom slippers, all the time. He popped his head in to the reading a few times and it was made clear that he was the owner, but you could see he didn’t have much of his mind left. His assistant and the leader of the poetry reading session, also an elderly man but still quite competent, seemed rather anxious that the main reader hadn’t shown up yet, and then, a few minutes later, this old man with backpackers’ clothes, overflowing eyebrows and a sun burnt face came in and set down a large stack of papers in no particular order. This, we soon learned, was the entire body of his work. He had some very political things to say and I didn’t like his poetry or essays very much. He made us well aware of the fact that he had dropped acid and was a magazine publisher during the Summer of Love, and he also cried a whole lot while he was reading. He shared his material for about an hour and a half, then, after two interpretations of a Walt Whitman poem, one in German and one in English, a Young British fellow was asked to read. Sab Will was his name. He had a sharp wit and kept us amused with his articles about Paris and his poem about the very place in which we were sitting. I really enjoyed him and envied his romantic lifestyle as a young writer, just come back to Paris to find his muse after a short-lived marriage in Greece. He was a mission to walk every street in the city, photograph and journal his adventures, then post it all online. After Shakespeare and Co. Ben and I had a late dinner of fondue at a touristy place in the Latin Quarter. It was good but nothing spectacular.

Notre Dame - mandatory tourist shot.

Tuesday night Ben met me for my little going-away party at the internship, and then we went to an amazing Thai restaurant in the 20th which is far from everything but had some of the best food I’ve had in Paris. We had a shrimp spring roll and shrimp and lemon zest soup for appetizers, both of which were so full of flavor (sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and minty all at once) that my palette didn’t really know how to react other than “yum”. All the ingredients were fresh and crunchy and well-prepared. We were so happy and it was just the appetizer! I got a vegetable stir-fry next and Ben got lacquered duck. Again, complex flavor combinations and sauces made for a wonderful main course. After that I took Ben to the Bar Sans Nom where I always go and he liked it too, validating it in a way for me. We had a drink and then split up for the night.

La Tour Eiffel - mandatory tourist shot.

May 5th, Ben’s 24th birthday, Ben met me at school after my oral defense of the internship and the report I wrote, and I gave him his birthday pastry, then I realized I had forgotten something at the Chamber so we went back to get it and a freakish hail and rain deluge began while we were walking there from the metro. We stopped in for a little while so dry off, have a coffee to warm up and let the weather pass. It has been so bizarre this past week; one minute sunny and warm, the next frigid and downpour. After we had recovered a little, we decided tonight would be a good night for traditional French food, as he hadn’t sampled any yet. I took him to the Polidor, a spot Madame Arnal recommended, and we savored bite after bite of perfect food. I told Ben what he had to get. He started with foie gras, I with escargots à la bourguignon and both were served exactly how they should be.

The Pantheon in the Latin Quarter

The foie gras texture was much smoother and much richer than many I have tasted, and the escargots were hot and served in the shell with a butter-based garlic and parsley sauce. We got a fantastic Pinot Noir from Tours which perfectly complemented our entrées and then Ben’s boeuf bourguignon with Dijon mustard just topped everything off. We couldn’t even do dessert we were so full.

After that fantastic dinner, I surprised Ben with a trip to the Lapin Agile. He loved the intimate atmosphere, and really connected with the performers. So much so that as we were leaving, I was telling them it was his birthday and they gave him a free poster because they saw how much he liked the show. He was on cloud nine. He said as we separated for the night and the metro doors were closing on him, “Best….day….ever”. I felt like a good tour guide, very satisfied and happy that he was so happy and seeing this city as the amazing place that it is.

The next day was my first day free of the internship. We took the opportunity to get out of Paris and I led big bro to Giverny to visit the gardens of Monet which were beautiful and in full bloom. There were separations of warm and cool colors, pansies with three and four colors within them, thousands of tulips, and the famous iris and wisteria that drapes over and around the Japanese bridge. My brother liked seeing the real flowers better, but I just liked seeing how Monet’s paintings were inspired. I think the paintings with their softness and light are more beautiful. Ben analyzed that as my aversion to the harshness of the real world. I guess that’s true in a way. One of my favorite things there were the kitchen and dining room in the actual house where Monet lived. The kitchen was entirely blue with yellow accents here and there and copper pans hanging on the wall, and the dining room was sunshine yellow and I have never been in a room that felt so warm and inviting. I bought pictures of them because you’re not allowed to take them yourself and have resolved to transform my first personal living space into replicas of these two gorgeous rooms.

We lucked out because it threatened to rain all day but never did and we actually had a lot of sunshine. When we arrived Ben suggested we rent bikes and ride out to the gardens which are about 7 kilometers from the city where you take the train to. There is a bus but it was sunny and the rain clouds didn’t look too terrible, so we decided to risk it. There was a choice of a few and I picked one because I liked the color, thinking they were all the same. Well this bike soon earned the name the "Death Bike” because after five minutes on it, my butt was in perhaps the greatest pain of its life. It was like a Medieval torture device and I almost couldn’t finish the ride out to the gardens. It’s too bad too because it was a beautiful day and we were biking through the French countryside and Ben was really enjoying himself. I was cursing the horrible bike and wanted to get off of it as soon as possible. We got to the gardens and for the rest of the day, and two days afterwards, I couldn’t sit down without sharp pain. When we got back to the bikes at the end of the day, I was cracking up.  The horrific thought of a few more miles on that bike were at once the worst and the most hilarious thing I could think of. Ben was kind enough to switch bikes with me and suffer through mine on the ride home. I was so disabled that I had to stand up the entire way home and couldn’t sit down even on the more normal seat of his bike. I found my predicament pretty hilarious and caused myself even more trouble with riding the bike because I was laughing so hard.

Death bike claims another victim. 

Death Bike

Madame Arnal had a birthday dinner for Ben that night. She made asparagus, salmon, and crème caramel for dessert. My brother was in heaven and I was proud to introduce him to Monique. He really liked her and his high school French got a work out. We had a great evening and we even had cakes with candles. I stayed up until 1am packing that night and Ben went back to his hostel after dinner.

The next morning, Ben and I met up around lunch time and then we went to Montmartre to see the Sacre Coeur and visit the quintessential Marché des Tissus at St. Pierre. It’s very old, very famous and very unique: three floors of nothing but any fabric imaginable and some very interesting characters to help you pick it out. After that I introduced Ben and George to Berthillon ice cream and they were as impressed with it as I had hoped they would be. I had peach sorbet with ground mint leaves in it that was out of this world - it's impossible to go wrong there.

Montmartre with George

Sacre Coeur

After Berthillon, I took Ben to a theater to see a play he had picked out, dropped him off, then went to go put my baggage away at my host mom’s boyfriend’s apartment. It’s not the easiest solution but we were running out of time and he was kind enough to offer, so we took him up on it. I dropped off the enormous duffle bags then went to go get Ben after the play. I then took him back to the apartment and made him dinner. Then we went out to a bar so I could say some goodbyes to people leaving the next day, and then I went home to bed. Not an extremely eventful day but still a nice way to end the trip.

I can tell that Ben had a great time here, and not just for the fantastic food we ate - for the city itself. I feel really lucky to have been able to share it with him, especially my last week. This city has taught me a lot; provided a refuge in some ways, and thrown me out into real life in others. I think I have grown up a little. I am looking forward to life again in the States, but it won’t be the same one I led when I left. Maybe it wasn’t specifically France that caused the reaction, maybe it’s not a direct result of all the traveling and eye-opening experiences, but I think that everything that happened this year contributed in a way to who I am now. I’m not a completely new person, but I’m not the same as I was. It’s like when they reintroduced the Honda Accord. It’s the same old car you’re used to, just with some minor, yet noticeable changes. So I have reached the end of my year abroad, but it’s also the beginning of my real adult life. I am saying goodbye to France in a way, but “au revoir” is more appropriate because I will definitely be back, hopefully each time with a new perspective and a fresh fervor, but still the same appreciation for everything that happened while I was here and the memories, good and bad, of my junior year abroad. Come to think of it, “au revoir” implies a long and unsure amount of time passing between the next encounter, so I should say, most correctly, “à bientôt”. See you soon.