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However, there are ways to experience the world in brief glimpses, to roll your sleeves up and see first hand what it’s like to wake each day not to a vacation but to those binding first moments of normalcy that compose routine of living versus touring. All you need is a little time and the right space. I say right, because it is possible to travel and find accommodation in the wrong places, those that are cramped and drab; merely dwellings for exhausted sleep, not bastions for immersion and discovery. For we often forget that internal discovery is equally important external experience when we travel. So, what is it to merely visit Paris versus the experience of living there and how does anyone ever hope to find out without picking up and moving? The answer is easier than you may think. You can live in Paris during a vacation by abandoning the usual notion of staying in a hotel, resort or guest suite and finding a home or an apartment to rent for your stay. I recently took this plunge for the first time on a hunch that it would be superior to my past experiences. In my several previous visits, I hadn’t been able to take full advantage of the produce markets, the famous patisseries and charcuteries in the second, seventh and eighth arrondissements, the deals on the cases of wine picked up during the weekend jaunts to Champagne and Burgundy. Cooking, eating and drinking are never as intimate as when they become products of intimate creation and while Paris is not without its endless bistros, cafes and fine dining restaurants, which should be patronized to the fullest, I felt cheated by the lack of intricacy in my tourist life. Those around me were wandering the markets with bags in hand, cooking with fresh ingredients and taking up the great French national sport of sitting on le terrace, with a cup of fresh brewed coffee, a warm croissant and a freshly printed Le Monde while watching the grand procession of Parisian foot traffic. This cannot be recreated in a hotel room, no matter the number of stars associated with the establishment. It comes from lingering where life exists, in homes, in dwellings, in building and neighbourhoods where those who are not on vacation live. Two colleagues and I were conscious of this when we first began looking into staying in Paris for a two-week journalism seminar. Hotel prices in late autumn were affordable but when we factored in that we’d be eating out every meal and that we’d have no way to wash clothes or store all the cheese we wanted to buy, or cook bitter garlicky endive gratins to eat over crusty fresh baguettes and chilled bottles of Rose for Sunday lunch, the cost of beds and proximity alone seemed prohibitive. In Paris, temporary
housing is endless and the prices fluctuate wildly in neighbourhoods throughout
the city. It can be difficult to know where to start and disconcerting,
often booking a continent away, to be comfortable regarding where you end
up. Luckily we stumbled upon an advertisement for a house swap, placed
by Erica Berman, an American living in Paris for the past twelve years.
While none among us had homes with which to use as currency, we discovered
that Ms. Berman operates a business that provides apartment living, from
bohemian to belle époque, for extended stays in Paris. The prices
were reasonable, the accoutrements of home casually integrated into each
property, and the chance to live in Paris as Parisians do, enticingly possible.
Ms. Berman was a model of professionalism, treating us as personal guests
rather than clients. We were made instantly at home and provided with a
local’s of glimpse of the best bistros, markets and shops to patronize
during our stay. In our first day, we felt as though we’d integrated into
the city, far from hotels and postcards, distant from the uncomfortable
notion of tourists. It was possible, I know now, due to the nature of our
accommodation.
The first day in the apartment, I woke to a cool breeze and the sounds of church bells ringing in a Parisian Sunday morning high above Montmartre. I rose quickly in order to beat the morning rush to the patisserie, Au Levain D'antan, at the top of the street, where the best baguettes and pain au chocolate in Paris are still warm from the oven during the early hours of the day. The weather was changing, and the wind picking up, blowing the last gasps of the summer from the city and I clung tightly to my warm baked goods and stopped at the market for fresh orange juice, a bit of goat cheese and freshly ground coffee before rushing back to the flat to watch the sun rise fully over the city. The rays shimmered off the golden dome of Les Invalides in the distance, and the fresh herbs from the balcony garden swayed in the warming wind. I knew then we’d made the right decision for our stay. All of Paris; the cafes, the food shops, the bistros, and the creperies winding through the historic city suddenly came alive as cities do when you sacrifice yourself to the intimate initiations of slowness. Wandering through the endless espaces vertes and magical arrondissements, pressure to be or to do anything loosened, language came easier, and my cadences slowed toward a home that didn’t feel temporary. Two weeks felt like a year and as the leaves indeed began to fall on late September and the nights grew noticeably chilly, I thought of my friend Roget and realized I was seeing a true glimpse of one piece of the expatriate puzzle. For once you’ve lived abroad for a time and learned to fall in love with foreign lands, the sensation never fades and you consciously and unconsciously seek it in every alley and avenue, of every destination. I’m still intoxicated by Autumn in Paris, the narrow streets, the clatter of activity, men in suits and scarves with shopping bags in one hand and baguettes and purple endive in the other; models, smoking at cafes in the fifth; beautiful women, students of the esteemed university Sciences Po stopping into a store around the corner from the school’s entrance to try on lingerie during a lunch break; the caramel coloured leaves on green grass; and the smell of fresh roasted coffee wafting above the cobblestones streets of Les Halles. The French do not say, I miss you, they say, Tu ma manqué, which means you are missing to me. Thus, it is essence of nostalgia perfected in language. For I rarely miss Paris, but it is, and always will be, missing to me. Yet now that I’ve accessed it from a new perspective, that love and longing have grown deeper. Like those pieces of the heart that you leave behind when you’ve been in love, the empty spaces where memories were created and linger within a spirit as fresh and clean as fountain spray in le jardin du Luxembourg on a crisp autumn day, Paris is the heart of the quixotic wanderer’s soul. I’ve left a piece of myself in the City of Light. I plan to return to it as often as I’m able. For more information regarding rental housing in Paris, contact Erica Berman at www.haveninparis.com The following are the previous articles that Will wrote for the magazine:
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Pub Culture Into The Graveyard Of Ambition ~ 