My hearts desire was that someway, somehow I would go to Paris one day. It was more than a mere 4150 miles away from my little Cape Cod house in Tinley Park, Illinois - it was a different world, a different way of life. I watched rapturously as Audrey Hepburn explained the magic of seeing the Bois de Boulogne in the rain to Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina. As a lark I would occasionally call Air France and book a flight to Paris, knowing it would cancel 24 hours prior to flight time without payment. But somehow just knowing there was a flight booked to Paris in my name, for however short a period of time, was intoxicating and heady.
One of my favorite Christmas gifts, the book My Paris, by Maurice Chevalier, became dog eared and worn from constant use. I continued taking French in school every year through my first year of college... 9 years in all. I'd like to say it's because I was determined to visit Paris someday no matter what, but truthfully, in my heart of hearts, it seemed like a pipe dream. I hoped it would happen, but I didn't really expect it to.
But then I met Mike, we fell in love and decided to get married. As we began to discuss where to go on our honeymoon, my old dream returned front and center, and miracle of miracles, Mike was completely on board! The mere idea that we would be honeymooning in Paris had surpassed even my wildest dreams. I bought guidebook after guidebook and read endless reviews of small, intimate hotels in Frommer's. Rive gauche or Rive droite? Should we have a planned itinerary or let the spirit of the City of Light guide us through our days? I spent hours culling my wardrobe for the trip, discarding anything that painted us as American tourists. In those days, we were told that the French disliked Americans with their crass behavior and loud voices. Most likely, we were advised, the French would treat us rudely and with absolute disdain. We decided to opt for adventure, avoid taxis and use the Metro exclusively - even from the airport.
After much consideration we chose Hotel St. Roch at 25 rue St. Roch just off of rue de Rivoli in the 1st arrondissement and kept our fingers crossed that the guidebook descriptions would prove to be accurate. Our dollars were exchanged for francs (this was before the existence of euros), our bags were packed and the evening to leave had finally arrived.
Our Air France flight from Chicago was a dream. Lovely, uniformed flight attendants saw to our every need and served us delicious (really!) French food on china plates. It was a spacious aircraft with an upstairs lounge, so we never felt cramped and I fell asleep happily, my head nestled into Mike's shoulder, nearly overcome with joy and a bit of celebratory champagne.
In the morning we were there! Bags in hand (no rolling suitcases yet), we made our way onto a bus which would in turn, take us to a central Metro station so we could catch the Metro to the closest stop to our hotel. Once at the Metro station we found a light up route board, so we set our bags down and studied it, watching the stops on the board light up indicating the correct route. There were other travelers and commuters darting all around us, everyone in hurry to get where they were going. Suddenly, we both felt a bit overwhelmed. Chicago's north side and Tinley Park never seemed so far away. We were waiting our turn to use the board when suddenly, out of nowhere, a French woman appeared by our side, smiling and asking us in English if we needed help. She was a retired English teacher, she told us, and loved having the opportunity to use her English whenever she could. Gratefully, we told her our destination and she deftly pressed the button to illuminate our route. We learned that her name was Claire Plonquet and before we even had a chance to respond, she took one of our bags and insisted that she would accompany us to our hotel to make sure the check in went without a hitch.
Hotel St. Roch was indeed a small, intimate place. When we arrived, the clerk said he didn't speak any English and while I realized my high school French was woefully inadequate, Claire got us checked in and helped carry our bags up to our third floor room. She didn't want to intrude on our honeymoon, she said, but if we'd like, she would be happy to show us around the Left Bank in a day or two and we eagerly accepted.
Meanwhile, we filled our days drinking in Paris as if it were the last drops of water on a parched desert. The history; the excitement of a city that never sleeps; the food that surpassed expectations even when found on a cafeteria line - it was everything and more than I had ever imagined. Mike and I went to the Bois de Boulogne, not realizing it was a hangout for drug addicts, but still finding the inherent beauty there while managing to get nearly lost right before park closing. How could it possibly get any better?
When we met up with Claire again, she took us on a guided tour of the Left Bank, pointing out sights and telling us stories we never saw in any guidebook. Over lunch, she casually mentioned that she was having a small dinner party the next day and invited us to come if we'd like. Her home was in Glaciere, the 13th arrondissement, and could easily be accessed by the Metro. We didn't think twice before accepting, marveling at how fortunate we were to have met such a kind, generous woman.
The next evening we made our way to Glaciere and to Claire's apartment. There were about four dinner guests besides ourselves and not one spoke English. One gentleman was a Count from Spain, and although Claire was multilingual and spoke Spanish as well, they conversed in French out of deference to the other guests. Little by little, my school French had been coming back into use and I found I was able to converse with them and even think in French as I was doing so. I'm sure to them, my limited French, complete with an appalling American accent was laughable, but they were all so gracious and treated us as if we were visiting royalty. At the end of the evening, Claire presented us with a book on Paris and warm hugs from herself and all of her guests. Mike and I were quite overcome. We had not been treated as annoying, crass Americans one time. We had, in fact, been treated like dear friends and were shown kindnesses at every turn.
That was 37 years ago. We've been back to Paris, but sadly, Claire was gone. Over the years we have visited many other cities and have warm, rich memories of each one. Somehow, though, nothing will ever come close to comparing to that first trip to Paris and my childhood dream fulfilled.
