Notes from the first visit

I went to Paris for the first time last summer during the last week of June and first week of July to do a little preliminary research. Here are some of the things that struck me from that visit:

- The heat. Paris was in the midst of a heat wave of sorts while I was there, and what surprised me was how dry it was with an intense sun, like along the Mediterranean. Call me naive, but I guess I just wasn't expecting to find that sort of weather that far "north."

- The energy. People had told me that in Paris, one always seems to be running. I can believe it: after two weeks, I was exhausted. The metro and streets almost always seemed to be busy, and the built-up cityscape of 5-storey buildings, while wonderfully-scaled, still made for a density that added a feeling of confinement to the bustle.

- The fashion. The Parisians I saw were consistently well-dressed---so consistently, that I realized it didn't fit what I was expecting from the Capital of Fashion. It was noticeably different from Montreal where you certainly see a fair share of merely functional clothing and/or kitsch, but also a lot of creativity and North American individualism. In Paris, there seems to be more expectation to conform to a (nonetheless elegant) standard. That being said, there were certainly exceptions: I think of the older woman I saw on the Left Bank wearing a fabulous little brown-silk dress covered on the front with golden "coins" that looked like she'd had it since the 60s; and of course the many African women who appear to wrap themselves in yards of brightly-coloured material (see below).

- The stress. Many of those elegantly-dressed people also appeared distracted with private worries, and I saw a number of pale faces with bags under their eyes, stress pimples, etc. Again, it's a big and busy city. But it also made me think of the French people I've met in Montreal who often praise how "relaxed" they found Montreal compared to France, and I've heard that life in France isn't always so easy, even for the French.

- The civility. I was advised to be very polite in Paris, and it generally worked fine. I found Parisians more civil than I was expecting (certainly people on the Paris metro were more considerate than in Montreal!), and often quite friendly and helpful. (I also wonder if some of the stress I saw was exacerbated by the effort to be so considerate with so many people.) I still encountered a bit of the arrogance and rudeness the city's notorious for, but even then I found it pretty funny, so perfectly did it fit the pompous stereotype.

Most memorable image:
I was on the RER, the local train network that passes under the central city in tunnels even deeper than the metro, passing by very bleak and ugly stations. At one station, an African woman got on board and sat in a seat facing my direction, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was probably Muslim, wearing a brightly-patterned headscarf along with a large shawl of a very different colour and pattern over her torso, from under which fell a skirt of yet another different colour and pattern. Against all these fabulous colours was her perfectly round black face sporting fascinating, symmetrical scarification patterns: three vertical lines at each of her temples, four diagonal lines on each cheek under the eyes, and a single line starting at the tip of her nose and continuing up her forehead until disappearing in her headscarf. What country did she come from? Did these patterns have any meaning, mark any milestones in her life...? There I was on a train passing by ugly stations (which you don't expect to find in the World's Most Beautiful City), staring at this apparition from the other side of the Sahara (which is still not what many people associate with Paris, as diverse as it's become). My most surprising moment in Paris, which is probably why it sticks with me.

P.S. Oh, and the food over there is, indeed, VERY good!