Down and out in Paris

Angeliou oh angeliou
Oh oh angeliou angeliou
Oh angeliou oh angeliou oh my angeliou

In the month of may
In the month of may
In the city of paris
In the month of may
In the month of may
In the city of paris
And I heard the bells ringing, and I heard the bells ringing
In the month of may
In the city of paris and I called out your name

I have to begin this post with a disclaimer or a well established alibi.
I love Olivia, she's awesome, she's gorgeous, sexy, vibrant, caring, compassionate, bewitching, witty and smart. I could go on and on forever extolling her many attributes, talents and virtues. I know when she reads this, she's going to want more than what I've just listed but that's all she gets right now.
The truth of the matter is there were others before her. Obviously, they all paled in comparison and none of them count any more. But, yes there were others.
In order to establish my alibi - this post is more about Paris, but its integral that it includes Tracey, and these events took place back in in 1992 - six years before Liv (Side note from Liv: I was only 14 turning 15 at this point)  and I even met.

Tracey of the long red tresses.
Tracey of the full lips.
Tracey of the sparking green eyes.
Tracey of the I'm a stewardess and get cheap flights.

There is no getting around it, Tracey was beautiful - hot, clever and witty with a sharp tongue.  She had fashion sense, an incredible ability to drink, she was also six years older than I was. Seriously,
to this day I have no idea why she became taken with me. Well, enough of that. If I extol anymore of Tracey's virtues I'm going to be in even more trouble.

Tracey and I met inadvertently. She was the older sister of a friends girlfriend. That's one relationship difference away from being 'I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate'. And one night over good food and drink we were introduced, a spark happened and as it turns out both of us asked after the other the next day. We didn't get to see each other again for a few weeks, but something smoldered and kindled over that time. Surprisingly, one afternoon I got a phone call, saying pack a weekend bag, grab your passport and be at the international terminal in an hour.
Who was I to argue?
Tracey had a regular flight run. Paris, New York, Toronto, Ottawa,  Montreal or something along those lines. And whenever there were empty seats - I was able to get on the flight for free or next to nothing. The two of us made spectacular use of this in our short time together, in retrospect maybe that's why her airline went under.

This was before my spiritual quests and really it was the start of my travelling. I was just becoming the person I am. I certainly wasn't down and out at all, but I was living pay to pay, I was a starving student, my priorities were: wine, alcohol, wine, cigarettes, women, books, food, conversation fit in there somewhere, school and then rent. Anything else was incidental. I was studying politics and Russian literature - it was impossible for me not to become part of a Marxist existential intelligentsia. Throw Orwell's Down and Out and Somerset Maugham's Razors Edge into the mix and I was in heaven living this life.

It turned out that Tracey shared an apartment with five other stewardess in the Latin quarter. A small apartment on the Rue du Pot de Fer at Mouffetard avenue. This is right in historic Paris, this is where Orwell lived when he wrote Down and Out in Paris and London, Hemingway lived just a few blocks away with his first wife, Samuel Beckett lived around here as well. This was all back in the 1920's when the area was having a decade long party.
We saw it as our duty to revive it.
The streets are paved now, the walls no longer paper thin, the toilets are no longer shared, the bugs do still run rampant and the rats don't run from the cats in the street. The street was narrow, pedestrianised, crowded with sidewalk cafes of all descriptions, Russian, Moroccan, French. Wine and tobacco abounded, mixed with smell of garlic, the holy trinity of carrot, celery and onion filling the entire world.
I was in heaven.

The noises from the street of laughter, conversation mostly French but in various dialects the Algerians standing out prominently,  music, glass and cutlery clinking rose up to the tiny apartment. All of it just seemed to add to the merriment that filled me. In Down and out, Orwell wrote of this place being miserable - I just don't see it. I could have lived and died in this one street, never wanting to leave it. It truly was a microcosm.

Of course, I was excited to be in Paris, I wanted to see the Louvre, the Tower, the Seine all of the historic icons.
Tracey said no.
No?
No. She simply wouldn't budge, this weekend was all about her Paris.
Red wine, cigarettes, coffee and decadent simple food.
Breakfast was coffee, bacon and eggs scrambled with pesto from the cafe at the entrance to the building.
Hot Chocolate to drink which was actual chocolate melted in thick cream and served with bread to dip in it.
Lunch was a bottle of red ordinaire, cured garlic and pork sausages, room temperature brie that ran almost liquid when it was cut into and a baguette that was baked fresh that morning.
Dinner - steak et frite with Cafe de Paris butter.
My first taste of a Gauloises
It's amazing, its twenty years on and I can still taste and smell everything. I have no clue what Tracey and I talked about, but I can still recall the conflicting aromas of the street, the food, the perfumes of the stewardesses, the smell of the mess they left around the apartment.
It was only 48 hours, but my taste and love of Paris was lit.
I had to go back, and back I did, whenever I could, but more on that another time.

Wherever you are now Tracey, thank you and nostalgic love and reminiscence to you.