Fezzik In Paris

It’s tourist season.

Wide-eyed, badly-dressed, rolling two massive suitcases apiece, wearing baseball caps, schlubby shorts, and high white socks; these are the people that are seriously fucking up the commute in the morning. From the statistics that I saw, almost 10% of France’s GDP comes from tourism, but man, you can see the natives seething as they have to divert around another herd of loud, lost Americans (or Russians, Brits, or Chinese; you know it’s an American before they even open their mouth, though (alternate case: you hear ’em before you can even see ’em)).

It’s not necessarily all wine, cheese, and rays though; I saw a couple this morning sporting mouse ears and the most tired, shell-shocked expressions I have yet seen in the metro. Evidently, French Mickey Mouse bites.

Through the window

If you can’t get up the stairs or on the elevator…

Our run along the Seine yesterday turned into an extended run/hike/run after we decided that we were far enough along and that it was early enough in the morning to make it to the Marché aux Oiseaux (open-air bird market on the Île de la Cité [the island in the Seine upon which Notre Dame sits]).

Exiting the broken-glass-strewn (the Fête de la Musique is evidently considerably rowdier in this district) path/quai along the river, we found ourselves on the sidewalk adjacent to Pont Neuf.

At the intersection was a very nice Audi, driven by a very sharply-dressed man in his 30s, who was remarkable only because he couldn’t drive a stick to save his life. We first noted that something was amiss when the white A4, with a long line of traffic behind it, wasn’t going anywhere, even well after the light became green. Then, as he erratically attempted to move himself into a turn lane, I noted to the Purrito that he couldn’t drive a manual transmission. The raised eyebrow she gave me became a knowing giggle as the nice man in the sports car that he couldn’t drive gunned the engine and proceeded to murder second gear, which shrieked in protest. We laughed again, turned away, and continued on our way as the Audi lurched and howled as its driver apparently gave up and decided that first gear and a bit of clutch slippage were all he needed.

While we’re eligible for a French driver’s license by virtue of holding a Texas license (assuming we’re willing to surrender our licenses at the préfecture), I’m inclined to pass; I’d be fine, transmission-wise, but navigating a city whose streets were set up for horse and foot traffic is another matter entirely.

As it turns out, the washing machine in our nice little apartment, itself located on a nice little street in a nice little neighborhood, sucks; aside from an unholy funk that has proven resistant to industrial-grade washing machine cleaner, it is incapable of handling more than a token amount of clothes at a given time, lest it begin to walk into and then pound away at the nearest wall.

Thus I’m sitting at a laundromat.

Washing machines are apparently incredibly uncommon in Parisian apartments, so I find myself wondering how or where the people at work wash their clothes; does everybody use a laundry service, or is there a designated sit-at-the-laundromat-with-wine-and-maybe-a-non-stinky-cheese day? Are there secret laundry clubs and services that I, as an outsider, are not party to, as the only people that have wandered in are two guys in their late 40s or early 50s and a 20-something dudebro type.

Whatever the case, I’m (still) sitting here, with the Purrito, watching clothes spin.

I will note that I’ve been amused at the older guys; they’re both washing too many clothes at the same time and mixing items that shouldn’t be mixed; bachelor laundry, it seems, is a cross-cultural constant.