France in 17 Pictures, Part 5: Now! With Improved Pictures!
On the 28th, I took a Bikram yoga class in Paris!
I don't know why this is so ridiculously pleasing to me. I think, being unadventurous, I like to find things familiar in strange places. Also, because I had been working on reconstituting my high school French with the CDs that Eustace gave me, I wanted to do the class in French (a safe bet because I know the script by heart and could do it narrated in Esperanto or Medieval Portuguese, if necessary ). I was a little nervous, but everything was the same, including the weird funky smell of Bikram studios, the exhortations ("Contractez!") and the set up, with towels over sticky mats. The studio was so close that we walked from the apartment.
Toby went off by himself for two hours while I was in class. It turned out that he was shopping, unsuccessfully, at a department store called BHV (for "Basement of Hotel de Ville") but as soon as he picked me up, he saw a jacket he liked in the window of a tiny men's clothing shop, nipped in and bought it. The thing is, he needs me to say, Yes, it looks good, you should buy it. We also had a nice conversation (in English) with the clerk, about health care in the US, social welfare in France and French attitudes in general. He said that the French care more about being with friends and family and enjoying themselves, than about getting ahead or getting more money. For example, he said, in his previous job, if one worked on Sunday one could choose to be paid triple time or to have an extra two days off. He always chose the days off rather than the money, and by the time he left, he had nine weeks a year of vacation.
"You should spend time with your family and friends," he said. "You won't live forever."
The jacket was a sort of casual, rumpled style in a tan herringbone. I wondered aloud about the crumpled vent and the curling lapels, and the clerk said, "You can fix it, but that is the style. It is supposed to look lousy." We thought that was funny.
We made another circuit through the department store to look at a sweater Toby liked, and to buy more tights for Honor. He bought a different sweater, which makes a most unusual two-garment day for him, because he usually hates to spend money on clothes.
We had lunch in a cafe and went home for a long rest - I read lots of books in France! - ate some scrambled eggs, then went out to try for the Eiffel Tower again, since the guidebook said that one could do much better with the long wait just before closing. Was this ever true! We walked right in at about 9:45, no line, and took the two elevators to the top. You have to get off at the second floor, where there is a restaurant, and change to another car to go higher.
The elevators reminded me mostly of those fancy glass ones that give you vertigo in tall hotels. Here I am, looking out over nighttime Paris. It was a bit chilly up there. Toby, of course, started identifying the places we'd been by looking in the four directions, while I made general comments about blankets of stars and so on. A large group of teenagers asked us to take their picture; they were Norwegian. While we were leaning on the rail, a young man in a wheelchair came up, propped his legs out, stood himself up next to us, and complimented Toby's hat. We had a pleasant conversation with him; he turned out to be Canadian and on his way from somewhere else in France to Florida. Then on the way down, we chatted with an Australian family who were making a Grand Tour.
We got home after midnight. It's great not to have to go to work!
