Walk 1

It’s mid afternoon and I decide to to use the time for walking around the Latin Quarter for class. It’s Sunday so not as much is open and there are less places to eat, a bummer for a hungry young man who has the metabolism of a hummingbird. On my way to the small ally ways of the Latin Quarter, I pass by and look at the Notre Dame Cathedral. I don’t stop to marvel at it because walking by taking a stare at it and moving on my way is all I need to appreciate it. It was interesting though to walk by and see the people, aka tourists taking pictures. It seems almost that people care more about getting a picture at the Notre Dame Cathedral then just going. Continuing my walk I just thought about how proof of being somewhere is more important then just having had a memory to some people, a lot of people these days to be honest. Moving on, I start to enter the small ally ways I wanted to walk through. These streets are attractive to me. They have a personality that I feel more comfortable with then say the Opera. It is the type of place I could live, would want to live while in Paris, similar to the way I like Bastille. I found a cafe, don’t recall the name of it because it’s like recalling a deli you quickly ate at in Manhattan. That allowed me to get into a mellow, lazy, people watching mode. I got a coffee and watched people walk by. Even though it was a Sunday, there were still a decent amount of people walking about. As I sat there drinking my coffee I took in the area, the people, and the smell. About 45 minutes passed by and my coffee was gone. I started to feel kind of restless in a way, the kind of restless you adopt from New York City. I did not know what to think of this feeling. Was it the coffee? No, because coffee doesn't do much to me. I decided that to counter act the high-strung feeling I would switch to beer. People watching became more entertaining. After a few of those and the light started to dim in the city, I paid and left. I walked around only enjoying the infrastructure because once again it was Sunday and there was not much open. I passed by where the original Shakespeare and Co was, passed the Stein residence, and passed where Hemingway lived for a little, all now just part of modern day paris, store fronts, homes, etc. I regret not having gone to the Luxembourg Gardens because that seemed later like quintessential Latin Quarter thing to do, so I unfortunately cannot write about that. I got on the train and went back home to realize once again, and the last time, that it was Sunday and I had no food, so I had to settle for some Chinese food that was not to good nearby by dorm. 

Getting back and reading Orwell, I found that his views of Paris were quite anachronistic. Orwell writes  Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933. It makes sense he writes about poverty because 1933 was prime Great Depression time. The characters he writes about don’t exist here anymore. You only see happy social youth or older well dressed folk in Paris, maybe a view homeless people but not very much. For instance a kid who cobbles shoes to pay his way through college. Paying your way through college making shoes is not a possibility today. Orwell also talks about the incredible poor state of his hotel. A bad hotel like that could not exist in such a high class demanding city like Paris anymore. “It was now that my experiences of poverty began—for six francs a day, if not actual poverty, is on the fringe of it. Six francs is a shilling, and you can live on a shilling a day in Paris if you know how.” (17) SIX FRANCS? He is saying you can live on that if you know how in a day. My coffee was like around five bucks, maybe a little more, and my beer was like nine if not more. You can’t live on six francs in today’s Paris, not just because francs aren't a thing anymore in France, but because that would be like living on less than 6 dollars in New York City today. HA. Orwell talks of not just a poor time in Paris but the world. The streets I walked and sat down by were cool, young, attractive, they look like happy places with happy people, where fun can happen. Sure there are still hard working people in Paris, and they are not the ones with the nice suits and fancy coats, their the Henri’s (minus the stabbing part) of today’s Paris. I feel lucky I can walk the streets of Paris as a student and not worry like Henri about money, not about having to work hard all day to make ends meet, not worry about a girl like his spending a lot of it, I hope, not going down that road again. I’m lucky is what I feel when I get to sit at a cafe in the Latin Quarter and drink a beer in an amazing city like Paris because thats not something everyone can do.