31.10.2007

Impression: Sunrise Paris.

Taken from: A Starbucks^TM window on the Cour du Rome, next to the Gare St. Lazare.

6:20 am. Turned out of Didot toward the Alésia stop. There’s a lady walking her dog, crazy people, the sun isn’t due for an hour.

The bakery on the way is closed. Damn it, it’s early. He’s usually open by now. Oh well.

6:37 am. Chatelêt is unusually empty, wow, that’s a first. This is the busiest station, now it feels like a backwater, somewhere on the Ronkonkoma LIRR. People in Paris don’t get up this early.

Indeed, most of the passengers are asleep, tipsy, or travelers.

6:50 am. We’re at Gare de Lyon. I bid Ben a farewell on his trip to Marseille and we plan to see each other in Prague. Strangely, we see each other much less during a typical fall semester. In Europe it’ll have been 3 by the end of our sojourns.

Lots of people are taking the TGV to Marseille and Montpelier, as far as I can tell, this is because of Toussaint—All Saint’s Day what have you, so the French take another vacation.

7:15 am. I’m at St. Lazare and I see the rays of sun barely coming up from behind the Haussmann-era buildings around the plaza.

It’s Halloween today, anniversary of the 1991 blizzard if you will, and I don’t care. It’s great or maybe not, but I just don’t care.

Tomorrow is vacation and that’s what matters anyway.

My first Starbucks, actually only my second American fast food experience in France. The first was Subway across from the Notre Dame de Paris, it was not great, but I got what I expected – like German efficiency.

In France, a ‘tall’ is actually a ‘moyen’ – meaning medium or average. I guess I assumed it was medium, because I wouldn’t want an ‘average’ coffee. (I sound a little like Cherney in this sentence, that makes me happy somehow). Also, the baristas say ‘have a nice day’ and they add ‘bon degustation’, literally translating to ‘have a good tasting’.

I like that. I thought, why yes, I will have a good tasting indeed. The cappuccino was as expected, ‘average’.

Smooth jazz in the background, cool wind in my hair…

A faint smell of urine, coming up through the air…

Up ahead in the distance, I saw the shimmering light…(it is, after all, the sun rising in Paris)

I started writing my reflections, but I didn’t know what to write…

I think the Eagles did it better.

On another topic, I would like to thank Mr. Michael X Cherney for his thoughts on life as shared through various, though mainly the written, media. I would further wish him well as he starts his new tour of duty in yet another American backwater, Myrtle Beach, SC. At least he can play golf here. And there’s no Rust Belt tradition, or Virginia Slims for that matter.