Paris, again

Good morning!

Yawn... Wake up! This is the last day where I am seeing Paris a bit through the eyes of others. My friends are returning to Warsaw early tomorrow. What to do, what to do... I hit on a brilliant plan: provide some choices and let them pick. In this way if they feel they missed something, I wont feel it's my doing.

As I write up the possibilities in a text, I munch on my hotel breakfast once again. Going out to eat elsewhere takes time. I need to keep on schedule. I know, I know. This was to be a trip without a schedule! I am adjusting my mindset.

My friends choose option number 1: walk the Ile Saint-Louis followed by the Marais and Place des Vosges. The trick here is to walk the quieter route. To look keenly beyond the facade and to study the rhythm of each neighborhood. There will be wonderful lunch choices here as well: the best falafel, right in this neighborhood, Or in the alternative, there are several lovely cafes on secret side streets. My head spins with the possibilities!

We set off toward the river. These are my favorite postcard views of Paris. Photographed a million times, I know. You've seen it here over and over again. But each day is different. Each view is unique.

This island is the home of the Berthillion ice cream -- arguably the best in the city. We pause for some. (Praline and honey for me.)

And there are plenty of shop windows to admire. And colorful stores in which to poke around.

(trying on scarves)

And now we go off the island.

We plunge into the Marais with its quiet, narrow streets. The goal is the Place des Vosges. Normally this would be a very noble goal but the little park is all torn up for re-pavement. Just one corner is open to the public. 

That's okay. We linger for a little while, knowing darn well it's really time for lunch. The sun, initially hazy and reluctant, has by now warmed up the soul of everyone here. And stirred up our appetites.

We sit outside at the lovely Le Petit Italian (it's so close but so well hidden that it took decades of travel here for me to discover it) and it's one of those meals that could go on forever, because it feels so very perfect to be here on this bright and beautiful day.

Eventually though we force ourselves to get up and get moving again. We separate here: Piotr and Gosia become the tourists, filling their last hours with one famous Parisian site, perhaps another. Me, I just want to do what I always do in this city: walk, observe, think.

Too, I have "shopping lite" to accomplish (but then, at the end of it, why does my bag feel so heavy??) but nothing that is an imperative, nothing that sends me running. Plates, kids stuff, creams, a spoon. Big deal, right?

(At a store with creams, I check out my well matched eye: I'm wearing purple and yellow and those are exactly the colors of my eye.)

And in the evening we meet up for dinner at Georgette. Sure, I ate here just yesterday. But that tells me that the food will be good. It will be very French. We will, for sure, enjoy it. I want them to enjoy their last meal in Paris.

(My fish was great, but there isn't a doubt that it is the desserts that will stand out for us for a long time. Piotr's Ile Flottant, and our Pavlovas.)

This is the night when we also can talk about, well, the whole of our lives. I provoke it by asking where our friendship goes from here, given that I no longer come to Poland with any sort of regularity and they are not ones who take to keeping in touch through regular writing. Some people are good at it while others -- well, it's just not their focus.

There is no upshot to this kind of conversation. You don't solve anything and no plans are made about future encounters. Yet. But we float around ideas. And it takes so long to weave our future and our past together like this, that we see the restaurant is closing. We are the only ones at the outside tables. 

We walk over to Les Editeurs -- the catch-all place for me. For breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and now for late night drinks too.

It's midnight before we move on. 

Back to our hotels, back to the lives we live when we aren't traveling together. Back, but with all the ideas and richness of having gone through this time in Paris together.

With so much love...