My host brother is singing dangerously loud in his room across the hall from me.
I’ve picked up a new read for the daily Metro commute, a gift sent from my sister for my birthday (receiving this package could be its own blog post).
English lit major in Paris meets Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. !!! The book is a quasi-memoir of Hemingway’s 5 years in Paris during his early twenties. The man was consumed by the draw of the city. On every page there’s a reference to a bar or a street or a neighborhood that’s familiar to me. It is surreal to read about Hemingway’s café crème on Boulevard St. Germain only to walk down that rue to class the next morning.
Hemingway is big on truth. As a writer in search of inspiration, he starts by writing a sentence that he knows to be true. Write the truest sentence that you know, he says. It’s been about a week now since I started reflecting on this.
Behind the glamour of St. Germain shop windows and the prestige of Haussmann architecture is a Paris rooted in deep history and culture. This week I walked down Rue de la Butte aux Cailles in the 13th arrondissement with a few friends and we grabbed a coffee in a local shop. It is tucked away amidst an otherwise hoppin’ Paris arrondissement and its architecture is sunken in and cobblestoned, which doesn’t quite resemble the rest of Paris. The little neighborhood was at one time a fenced in village outside the city limits of Paris before Paris expanded. We walked around for a bit and then grabbed coffee at a shop where a group of older women were talking calm french.
Butte aux Cailles is riddled with dope street art
Places like these are dotted all over the city. In these places you can breathe easier. Your head is clearer too when you’re not surrounded by traffic and city sights. The grandiose of Paris is what makes it the hottest place in the world but sometimes you find spots like Butte aux Cailles and you realize Paris isn’t there just for the aesthetic. Something that I love is that all around the city they have these plaques that are put up right next to a building or a monument. The Histoire de Paris plaques give a brief history of each site and place the monument in its cultural context. It’s so cool to read them! I run across the street when I see one just to read it and usually bring it up to my host fam that night at dinner. Discovering the city this way to me is just as cool as museum hopping. Proof that Paris isn’t here for the tourists at all. It’s just another way of seeing through the flashing lights and getting to the real city. The true city. Hemingway would be proud.
Until next time friends- Bonne journée!
Henry
Written on November 20th.