Paris on a stick

The first time I ever visited Paris was in 1995 as part of a couple of smudged and tatty pages of the Big Book of Pinochiette in Europe. Before arriving my head was a-mess with half-formed expectations for which I was mainly
indebted to Polanski’s Frantic (with my usual problems distinguishing between reality and fiction): yes, in Paris there would be intrigue and leather clad women slipping around on the roof tops. I’d also tucked my head in to protect myself from the derisory blows I was to expect from waiters as outlined in National Lampoons European Vacation.

In the end I’m not sure what Paris was really like because I tucked my head so far into
my book that I couldn’t get it out again, but it did seem that the waiters were talking
about boring things like café and soufflé and not the size of my nose or about me being a big-breasted and clumsy anglo saxon.

One night I was rushed to a hospital with a fit of homesickness. At the hospital I was accosted by one of the many drunks that the French police, out on a law enforcement binge, had slapped around with remnants of the napoleonic code and rounded up for blood testing. On learning that I was Australian he got down on his knees and apologised on behalf of the government of France, and in particular Jacques Chirac, for the bombs: "Oh Australienne we are very very sorry about the bombs". Lets not forget that this was 1995 during the period when France was conducting nuclear tests at Moruroa atoll in the pacific ocean and Australians were penning all kinds of catchy ditties against the French Government's actions.

The second time I visited Paris was in 2001 and this trip was directed by French, who was responsible for both the production and lighting. This was just a week after I met him and therefore a weekend which was pregnant with the possibility of being lip-bashingly romantic.

Once on the eurostar I was satisfied when I looked at our reflection in the window to see what a winningly handsome couple we made, but without skipping a beat French produced an eye mask and earplugs. At first I giggled politely at what I saw as French’s outlandish humour but soon realised he was for real and that he was planning on sleeping for the three hour journey. Once more I was going to find myself speeding in to Paris with my head in a book.

We stayed in the apartment of one of his friends, with sweeping views across the cemetery of Montmarte. French gave it his best shot to steer me from "wow" to "wow" in a 24 hour tour of Paris and I felt a bit like Jenny in that advertisement they show at the cinema where our representative anglo opens her eyes a notch wider at every suggestion from her romantic frenchman who tells her all the wonders he is going to show her in Paris, including fairyfloss in the shape of the Tour Eiffel (proof that advertising is wasted on me in that while I can remember the ad having seen it a billion times I have no idea what product they are advertising).

I was a bit worried about the party we were going to “make” that night with his French friends. I was expecting all the girls to be dressed in tight red dresses and look like Natasha Kinski and I was simultaneously relieved and alarmed to see I’d fallen in to the hole of what seemed to be the football jersey crowd who favoured looking like you are leaving rather than arriving.

After making the usual polite conversation about kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee I was pleased to see that, rather than sipping daintily on shandies, everyone got completely wrecked on properly proofed alcohol and danced all night. It was when we stumbled out into the pink in the wee small hours of the morning that I had my first feelings of genuine affection towards Paris. In Nabakov’s autobiography Speak, Memory he talks about how he associates places with colours. This is something I’ve always done too. While Sydney is a definite mustard yellow and London is as grey as old socks, Paris is for me the sugary pink of fairy floss or the equally poetic French way of saying it: la barbe à papa.