Parc des Buttes-Chaumont

un espace vert, 17h15

26 January 2010

". . . . . . . . . Désireux de donner aux Parisiens de vastes espaces verts, Napoléon III décide d'adjoindre aux bois de Boulogne (ouest) et de Vincennes (est), les parcs Montsouris (sud) et des Buttes-Chaumont (nord). Les travaux commencent en novembre 1863 sous la direction de l'ingénieur Alphand et du jardiner Barillet-Deschamps, sur une zone de 27 hectares dévastée par les carrières d'extraction de gypse, tandis que l'architecte Davioud édifie maisons de gardiens et chalets-restaurants. L'inauguration du parc, le 1er avril 1867, coincide avec celle de l'Exposition universelle. Plus que toute autre réalisation monumentale du Second Empire, les Buttes-Chaumont incarnent l'âme baroque de cette époque... . . . . . . . . . . . . "

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I was considering translating this passage for a hot-second but then these things are always painfully dull. In short, Napoleon decided that Paris should be surrounded by parks on all sides and created Buttes-Chaumont for the northern part of the city. It's rather some high quality craftsmanship too. While walking through the park the first time, I was racking my brain trying to remember if I've ever been anywhere more beautiful than this 27 hectares of sheer heaven. (It would appear that, no, I have not). My plans for blogging this week included writing something about the quartier, but when I set out to take photos of the neighborhood I ended spending the entire afternoon (the equivalent of 2AA battery life-spans) in the Parc alone.

What's so amazing about this place to me is that I'd never been here before, nor heard anything of it in my au-pair year. In tourist plagued sections of the city there are no postcards of the park or commemorative books about its construction (as there are for others like the Jardin de Luxembourg). A Google image search doesn't even return particularly sexy photos of this "incarnation of the baroque spirit."The fact that it lacks the notarity of Paris' larger parcs et bois adds to its seductive charm. I very quickly found myself emotionally and almost spiritually attached to this space -- it has a very eerie and bewitching timeless beauty to it. At the right time of day, you can touch an instant of eternity and know the essence of its weightlessness and its burden. It's beauty is so moving that you feel the presence of a past you've never seen and a future you'll never meet. Like looking at the world before the genesis and after the apocalypse and seeing where beginning and end disappear into each other, occupying the same space in the great cycle of the universe.

I know all the quasi-spiritual stuff is must seem rather intense par rapport to the fact that it's just a park -- but I felt these things so strongly there. I wish I was better equipped for explaining why. The feeling of euphoria could have been a side effect of hypothermia (with it reaching a balmy 4°C today, which, even when compared to recent negative temps the gray city's been feeling, is not the best time for spending hours in the outdoors taking photos) or even having something to do with the initative of self-reflection I've taken since the start of my new journey.

Or maybe I'm just not meant to explain it because it's rather something you need to experience for yourself.

Part of my love affair with this space excludes me from imagining it looking any more beautiful than it does already (leafless under a cold, gray sky). My (part-time) park-walk companion, however, assured me that in the spring, when the park turns green and people come out to play music and picnic on the grass, it is truely in its glory. Though he didn't necessarily employ those exact words. Actually, it's more accurate to say that he was just some asshole trying to pick me up rather than making it seem I had an invited tour guide. It kinda added to the whole experience, though, being able to maintain a state of bliss through my surroundings even in light of the supremely irritating (and suprizingly verbose) presence.

Though I did shake him when my camera batteries died, keeping him from accompanying me to the store where "we could buy enough batteries so that after the park I can take you to a museum and maybe we can find a place to buy you a bike if you like bikes and I know good places for riding I'd be more than happy to show you [etc., etc...]"

[ further tangent -- It's always my favorite part about meeting French people when after a sentance or two they say, "Et vous venez d'où ? J'entends un petit accent. " Yeh, thanks for pointing it out asshole -- nice of you to use your petit euphamism for my major grammatical error... ]

[ Further tangential writing (because whythehellnot? I've got a ton of space to fill in between my ninteen thousand photos and I'm already tired of my quasi-spiritual pontifications on the breathless wonder that is this park) -- My petit accent (and its reason for being) has been getting me into a bit of trouble with bar patrons at work, mainly because it's a French bar in France and it would seem that the bartender a) has the intelligence of a pickled cucumber or b) just doesn't speak French (however most people are inclined to assume that if a is true if b is true and are pretty much ready to jump on option b at my first "pardon?"). Granted, I ask a lot of people to repeat themselves, but I only ask each person to it once. Why, then, do they immediately get frustrated at having to switch into English ? Search me -- I never asked em to speak anything but French in the first place ....

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I am regretting my change over from talking about inner peace and a connectedness* with time and nature to petty complaints about work as much as I regret eating half of a 7 oz. chocolate bar for lunch

yesterday (or as much as I regret eating the other half just now). With all these photos of an open, public space dedicated to the appreciation of nature and beauty, couldn't one think of something more appropriate to write about ? Firstly, no. And secondly, I pretty much assumed that no one would actually read this far anyway (why should you when it's so much easier (and prettier !) to just skim through all the lovely photos ?). In fact, I've rather assumed the same thinking insofar as to say that if I invest enough time into taking purdy pictures I'm pretty much burned out by the time it comes to writing about them. Any with these pics, really, anything I could say about them would just detract from what they already stand to present on their own.

So, then, to continue before straying too, too far from the topic -- A note on French bar tastes. There seems to exist in this country an underdeveloped appreciation for cocktail culture -- a latency period, if you will, in which the Jager-bomb is something exotic and most "mixed drinks" are composed Stella Artois and some less than appetizing sirop-du-jour (i.e. grenadine, Sprite and Stella or lemon syrup and Stella). As you may be able to imagine, I am against this on a number of levels: First and foremost being that it would WAY more practical to just get good tasting beer in this country. (They have, on the other hand, done rather well with pervation of quality scotch.)

There was a rather charmingly displaced group of Anglophones at the bar Sunday night who seemed almost overwhelmed with relief when they found out I was one of "their kind." Cute, too -- three students from the American Business school. One guy from Hawaii (I've never been but I can't -- for the life of me -- figure out why you people ever want to leave that island), one from Cincinnati (I think -- he wasn't a big talker), and one from New Zealand (winner of the 2009 Prince Harry look-a-like contest). I asked him if his country was really the way they make it seem in Flight of the Conchords (this part "skillful" chit-chat, part I actually really want to know the answer to this question). He admitted to only having watched one episode (boo).

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My fellow bartender and trainer's name is Marianne and I'd also be inclined to call her charming, except that she's really anything but. She second guesses everything that I do and assumes that because I'm not familliar with how things work at this specific French bar, that I must not know the first thing about bartending (or even walking upright). She's loud and insincere and has made a real pastime of finding things to get out of shape over. Maritza (my poor roommate) has gotten two earfulls of how much this chick gets under my skin (one dose for each shift I spent with her). But really, what would a restaurant/bar experience be without one psychotic collegue ? Ask me any place I've ever worked and I will give you the name of that girl in each establishment.

I am lucky though, to be bringing in a little cash, especially considering how quickly I'm still burning through it. (The strangest things are ridiculously expensive in France -- hairspray goes for 7€50 and up, sunscreen starts at 15€, drying laundry costs 1€ for every 10 mins. That anyone could be lucky enough to call New York expensive ....) It's good, too, to have the time to sleep in after each shift and spend the day actively doing just about nothing until 8 or 9PM. Sunday afternoon, Maritza and I went walking through the Marais, my (I guess former) favorite quartier. The Marais is perfect for Sunday afternoons because it's the Jewish district of the city, so while everything is closed and asleep the Marais is buzzing with energy and life. My reasons for loving it fall simply into three categories. 1) The architecture (it is one of the most beautiful and quirky and well composed sections of Paris/France/Europe), 2) the Marais has hands-down some of the best places to shop in the city (between the range of boutiques and the vintages shops which are *le gasp* actually affordable), and 3) (perhaps most importantly) la rue des Rosiers has absolutely the best falafel I have ever had (or perhaps will ever have) in my life.**
*It is a word.***

** The only draw back is that I can no longer take supreme joy in all falafel, now knowing what the true food of the God's tastes like.

***In Samese if nothing else.