La rentrée

The end of August is when most French people return from their vacations; they crowd airports and clog highways in an attempt to get back at the last minute, their month-long break from real life not long enough. It’s called la rentrée, or “the return.” In a similar fashion, I got to Charles de Gaulle on the last day of official summer vacation, making it my sixth? seventh? time here. I hit the ground running.

I’ll be here for almost four months studying and doing an internship, but I couldn’t chill on my first day. Mom and Dad came with to “drop me off” and managed to squeeze in a few extra days here and then two more in London. They are so self-sacrificing.

We actually started our mini Tour de Europe in Frankfurt. Dad used his frequent flier miles to upgrade us to a business class flight (SO rockstar) and to stretch a few hours’ layover in Germany to a full day and night.

I drank excellent beer, ate excellent sausage, and had a really good time. I was unofficially designated the language person, so I did a bit of ordering and taxi-manuvering in German. Bitte! Danke! And I even used numbers. Of course, most Germans speak more than perfect English, so it wasn’t really necessary.

It was my first time in Germany, and even though Frankfurt is slightly working class (not as many restaurants, and fewer “pretty” areas than other European cities I’ve seen), I thought it was a cool place.

Good thing I’m going back, to Munich, in a few weeks. Ja!

We got to Paris this morning and I immediately sunk into a terrible mood. I truly hate CDG airport with a fiery passion. For one, the luggage was late. Then it took us about 15 minutes of wheeling heavy, cumbersome luggage in circles before we found a taxi.

Once we were in the city, my parents were being annoying. Everything was “look at this!” or “check that out!”, but it started to be kind of cute and then kind of fine, and then I started smiling again.

We’re staying in a teeny hotel on the Ile St. Louis, which is a small island right next to Notre Dame. The cobblestone streets are miniscule and lined with dubiously parked cars, and the buildings are typical Parisian and just gorgeous.

Berthillon, a very well-known ice cream parlor, is about 2 minutes away, making me an extremely happy and full person. My favorite flavor from there is probably pear, but there’s a slew of other unusual flavors like cassis (black current), and just “nuts.”

After we settled our luggage for a bit, I walked to Notre Dame with Mom so we could make it to Le Bon Marché, an enormous and very high-end department store on the Left Bank. The sun was shining, the river was beautiful, and an accordian player had set up shop on one of the bridges—it was hard not to roll my eyes, since scenes like that don’t usually occur in nature. It was very silly, but I smiled like an idiot anyways.

Paris!

We went to the Marais for lunch, which was hysterical for Dad. It’s the fashionable gay quarter, and the place we ate was called Open Bar. I had a delicious croque monsieur and my first Orangina-grenadine (un indien) of the semester.

In BHV Homme a bit later, I swear I saw one of the Dsquared designers going down the escalator. He was wearing a Dsquared sweater, and was just too tan and coiffed to be a normal guy. He caught me staring as he went down, and I saw him duck his head and speed up. I count it as my first celebrity sighting.

Later, Mom and I walked all the way to Le Bon Marché and I bought my first European-outlet hairdryer. I’m sort of ashamed to say it’s pink and sparkly, in addition to being foldable and outfitted with a diffuser, but suck it. We wandered around le Grand Epicerie, which is a beautiful food hall on the first floor. I love the insanely bright macrons, but I’m saving my money for the official Laudrée ones.

Afterwards, we checked out Zara (I got some great flat black leather boots) and Mom needed an Hermès stop, so we took the Metro to the Madeleine. She busied herself with getting the new Kelly perfume, and I tried my best not to stare. There were a few Middle Eastern families inside, stocking up: Hermès, it is not cheap.

I needed a nap after that, and we finished the night with dinner in a small bistro on the Ile. I organized more Berthillon for dessert (mandarin flavored), and then we walked around Notre Dame again in a big circle.

As we crossed the main bridge, two guys skidded their Velib’ bikes to a stop and shouted down to some friends hanging out by the Seine. The friends didn’t hear, so they tried to get their attention again; as they put their hands around their mouths to yell, a huge bateau mouche passed by with everyone on board screeching and clapping at something stupid. A few people waved back from the bridge, the street performers banged some drums, and one of the Velib’ guys dropped his head and muttered, “Oh là là, Paris.”

Oui oui, dude.