Paris, the first two days

It was our own fault. I spotted our bags in the midst of a chaos of baggage, the woman pushing the wheelchair heaved them onto the cart and we were on our way. The walker was in a special oversize section somewhere else. It never entered our minds.

Art and book booths along the Left Bank

We’d been fourteen sleepless hours on planes when we were challenged by getting a wheelchair at Charles de Gaulle. They’d told us to wait until everyone else was off the plane, then we waited some more for a special people-mover for us and the two others in need of chairs. One heavy American woman walked laboriously with a claw-footed cane. As the conveyance arrived, the Frenchman in charge indicated that the big woman’s companion and I could not board it. Regular deplaning was done. How could we get to the terminal? How would I find my husband when I did?

The big woman became loudly indignant in French, and after heated exchanges I didn’t understand, the man waved us through. She said smugly, “they think I can’t speak French and they can get away with something.” At the terminal, we sat for more long minutes before doors opened on a small waiting area with one wheelchair. The quiet woman was rolled away. Big woman renewed her harangue with the Frenchman, turned to her friend and said, “he just told me he’s not my servant.”

A Parisian we used to know said no one does indignation like the French. I feared we’d never get help when two more wheelchairs arrived. Big woman was taken away, her claw-footed cane left behind. I showed it to one of the men. He offered to stow it under Phil’s wheelchair. No, I said and pointed down the hall. He looked puzzled, then puffed out his cheeks and made a large circle with his arms, as if demonstrating the size of a beach ball. Yes, I nodded and he ran to return the woman’s cane. Who needs language?

We remembered the walker at the hotel. If you’re an amputee, once you remove your prosthesis, you need a walker to get to the bathroom. Access to the bathroom is vital to enjoyment of the vacation. Airport to hotel is almost an hour, a $55 Euro taxi each way. It was noon. We had a date at a bookstore today, museum tickets tomorrow, did not want to waste precious Paris time traveling to and from the airport.

Requesting one in advance matters not—when you arrive, there will be no shower stool. This has been true for all our travels, domestic and otherwise. I went to the concierge for a shower stool, and he suggested the pharmacy at the mall across the street could deliver a walker that evening.

I asked Françoise the Viking rep if a driver could retrieve our walker. Viking makes multiple trips a day. Maybe, said Francoise, or maybe American Airlines could send it. Would she like my baggage claim ticket? No, not necessary.

It was after two when we first rode a route we’d repeat twice more without tiring of it: wide tree-lined boulevards, endless blocks of handsome old buildings, sidewalk cafés, no skyscrapers. Paris is one of the few cities in the world to have kept skyscrapers out of historic downtown, to set rules about maintaining old buildings, keeping it a city of golden light. From the hotel, to the Champs-Elysees, the Pont de la Concorde or the Pont Alexandre III over the Seine: I did not tire of that trip.

Our cab delivered us to the Left Bank and Jim Carroll’s San Francisco Book Company, an English language antiquarian shop like many in the U.S., narrow aisles stacked, but here clerk and clientele speak English and French. Jim has lived in Paris for years. He and our friend Kathleen Cain were Nebraska classmates. A woman came in looking for Auden, bought one of several on the shelves. Phil bought two books. Walking us to a comics shop Phil wanted to see, Jim turned tour guide: over here, the Roman baths, there the original Shakespeare & Company location, a tiny, now unnoticed storefront where Sylvia Beach published Ulysses in 1922, and to our right, steep stairs where the original city wall stood. The cloudy morning had given way to blue skies. Everyone told us how lucky we were.

Françoise was checking in a long line of people, had no news. I tried to call American Airlines without success, went to the mall to get the walker. It had no wheels, did not fold up, would not travel, but we had to have something tonight. I hoisted it on my shoulder and walked back to the hotel.

War leapfrogs over religion, with religion’s help

From our 4^th floor rear window rain speckled puddles on the paved alley the next morning. Buses pulled in to unload hundreds of bags. A laundry truck delivered bales of white linens. A good day for Musee d’Orsay. I love art museums with Phil Normand: he knows everything. I showed him a bronze I found delightful. “Gustave Doré,” he said.

The museum crowd and rain both thinned two blocks away and we ate at a busy but no waiting pizza place—ham, artichokes, mushrooms, thin crust, side arugula salad. Phil was delighted with the coffee, its flavor, how it’s served, a delight reinforced every day thereafter, spoiling him forever for American coffee.

At Café Mucha on Boulevard Saint-Germain, we had dessert and conversation with the couple next to us, who had been drinking a while. I said something about them being Brits and the woman sternly corrected me: she was Welch. He was English. They’ve lived in Paris 13 years, would not like to return, but Brexit may force them to do so. She held her head in her hands, wondered how anyone could vote for Trump. Her husband said, “Boris Johnson is just as bad.”

Françoise listened to my garbled American Airlines phone message—she couldn’t decipher it  either—took a cell photo of the baggage claim stub. They wouldn’t let the driver pick it up. Maybe having the claim stub would help. I must have looked frustrated because she said don’t worry, we have two more days.

Phil at Le Sud

Worries vanished that evening while having one of the best meals of the trip at Le Sud, half a block from the hotel. A Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence wine, salmon in beurre blanc, with spinach and mushrooms, the best pistachio ice cream I’ve ever tasted, a leisurely pace, quiet, and more amazing coffee service for Phil to rave about.