From The Desk Of The Baroness

Almost 20 years ago I dreamed that I would live in Paris with a charming man, visit exquisite museums, eat at legendary restaurants, have an expresso in the sunshine at a famous cafe, read an international newspaper everyday and feel like a woman of the world. As I went along the way through life I did find a charming man who had a similar fantasy.

After retirement, a few surgeries, and the early death of a dear friend we adopted a new outlook. Under our new “if not now, when?” philosophy, 2006 was picked as the year for our adventure. We were finally going to live in Paris, not just visit Paris, but live in Paris. Little did I know what that really meant! One of the obstacles that existed was that neither Jim nor I spoke French. But timing is everything and a new class of beginning French was starting at our local Senior Center.

Jim reluctantly went into the “Vintage House” for the first time for our classes.; as it turned out we were the youngest students in the group! After 8 months of weekly classes we can report that we still do not speak French other than to say good morning, good evening, I don’t know, please, and thank you. I must confess these phrases actually go a long way in being polite to the French.

The first apartment we rented was in the 2nd arrondissement; it was sandwiched between a street lined with restaurants and food vendors and another street with gritty tattoo parlors and piercing salons. After 3 weeks, with relief and as planned, we moved to another apartment which was a half block from Luxembourg Gardens in the much more toney 6th arrondissement.

It didn’t take long after our arrival in Paris before our first serious problem popped up. We needed an electrician because the power in our apartment had gone out. To get help we had to contact the building manager by phone but that was no easy task because we didn’t understand their phone system. We ended up going down the block to an English pub where the English speaking Indian bartender called the property manager and explained in French what our problem was. It felt like a UN conference on how to solve the world’s problems.

Two months later, in our next apartment, Jim woke up to find water coming out of the light fixture in the kitchen. The apartment manager didn’t want to be bothered with a plumbing problem on a Saturday. Worse, we knew by then that it is impossible to get any help on a Sunday because almost everyone is at home with their family. Fortunately, our neighbor from down the hall speaks many languages and jumped in to help us. We don’t even know his name but he saved us more than once. Oh, the joys of actually living in a foreign city!

My French never improved during the three months so I would just fake it with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. There were other little gems of information that we picked up over time that helped. A friend explained that waiters who appear to speak English often know only “restaurant English” but beyond that they are helpless carrying on a conversation in English. That piece of news made me feel much better about my own language skills. Another little tidbit I learned was that if you want to indicate the number “one” you use your thumb (the first finger on your hand). If you use your index finger you are just as likely to get two items because you are using the second finger on your hand. Make sense?

Since I have been back I have been asked frequently what I miss the most. I miss the bread and croissants from the bakery just below our apartment. When I got up at 4 in the morning to go to the bathroom I could smell the bread baking. Fortunately for our waistlines, our daily intake of pomme frites, crème brulee, and almond croissants has come to a screeching halt now that we are home.

I miss reading the International Herald Tribune everyday. It was not infrequently that you could read the first 4 or 5 pages of the paper before you came to an article about the United States. Their articles helped to expand my view of the events in Europe and elsewhere around the world.

I really miss our afternoon “café sits” where I would get a glass of wine, Jim a Perrier and we would settle in for serious people watching. The passing sights were wonderful theater! And I miss the walks through Luxemburg Gardens where the seasons turned from summer to late fall within a blink of an eye. It was our routine to watch the retirees place their bets on their Petanque game, then we would sit on a park bench with a sandwich for lunch before moving on to the tennis courts to view a full range of tennis skills, and wrap it up by the fountain where the little children floated their small sailboats when a whiff of wind came up.

Anyone who travels outside the United States asks themselves from time to time what they would do if they got seriously ill in a foreign country. In my case I ended up spending two nights at the American Hospital in Paris and continued to have contact with the medical community for the rest of the journey. What that did was force me, with my terrible French language skills, to move past the superficial level of visiting this city.

We had no choice but to interact with everyday Parisians constantly. By the time we were to leave Paris the café owner from downstairs would wave at us from across the street, our neighbor down the hall always stopped to chat, the technicians at the lab where they tested my blood greeted me with a smile, and the American proprietor of the Swan Jazz Bar made some type of pre-election political wisecrack to us every time we came in. I cannot tell you how consistently generous and gracious the French were throughout our trip.

Jim and I have always thought an adventure upon retirement is an important thing to do as a transition. For us it was the dream of living in Paris. Obviously we had trials and tribulations that happened along the way and times of frustration over daily living problems. Of course our fantasy did not play out as we had imagined in our mind’s eye but then that was part of the adventure.

Would I do it again? You bet! In a flash!