Hemingway’s Paris

January 30, 2013
Plugging along and getting into a rhythm. It will be interesting when school ends in 3 weeks. We might have too much free time. I’ve been keeping a mental note of observations in cultural differences or just life in Paris. Here are a few:

Observation 1: If Europe is 10 years ahead of us in fashion, buy stock in sweatpants for children.
Observation 2: Having only one toilet which is separate from sinks/showers must have seemed genius in the 19th century. I guess they didn’t have the Norovirus then.
Observation 3: Picard, where have you been with your tasty cheap frozen foods all my life? This place may be worth buying a microwave for your next hotel stay in Paris.
Observation 4: Paris is not keen on gluten free.(Poor Joan).
Observation 5: Don’t ask if the tip is included. They lie. The tip is always included.
Observation 6: The Montparnasse Tower is ugly.

I tried to do a Hemingway tour of my own today, stopping in to have a glass of wine (Happy Hour!) at Le Select which is at the same intersection where La Coupole, La Rotonde and Le Dome are located and just about a half mile from our house. Hemingway himself started to detest these places as “too Americain” which I kind of get. If you are in a foreign city, it is always more fun if you FEEL like you are in a foreign city. At Le Select, where I sipped on my glass of Bordeaux and listened to Adele on my earbuds, today’s scene was a bunch of older men drinking what looked to be tea and reading newspapers. Hardly the Happy Hour we know in America. I stumbled upon a lovely garden when I was trying to find Hemingway’s apartment in the 6th arrondissement. It turns out it was an extension of Luxembourg Gardens which, sadly, closed just as I was arriving.