Flirtatious Customs Officers and Enormous Scarves: Welcome Back to France!

Bleary-eyed, vaguely frazzled, and feeling the kind of dirty that only 10 hours on a plane can create (it's a combination of the stale, recycled air and repeatedly dribbling "Honey Roasted Pretzel Mix" crumbs onto my lap), I stumble through Charles de Gaulle toward the baggage claim.  My giant, new, white wool scarf--I thought I had really outdone myself with its voluptuous enormity, but I was swiftly upstaged by a French woman in a scarf so big she couldn't turn her head--had decided to fuzz all over my black pants and black sweater.  I sort of resembled a very jet-lagged yeti (the fur lining my hood didn't help).

And yet, I knew for sure I was back in France when the passport control officer shamelessly flirted with me--and was apparently so distracted by my furry-ways that he almost forgot to ask for my residency card.  I gave him my passport and bent down to pick up a paper I had dropped.  When I straightened, he stared at me and demanded to see my passport.  "But I just gave it to you," I argued, surprised that my mouth was speaking French even though my brain wasn't properly working.

"Where's your passport?  I don't have it."

"Mais si!  I just--"

"Hey," said the officer, pulling out my passport from under his desk and cracking a smile, "I'm just messing with you!"  Since when do passport control officers "just mess with you"?  He proceeded to ask what I was studying, and made some remark about liking Sartre.  Exhausted as I was, I had to laugh at the ridiculosity of the situation.  I could have been smuggling illegal plant specimens, drugs, or killer beetles...but as long as I giggled and swept my curls aside coquettishly, pas de souci (no worries)!

Soon enough (or, more accurately, within two hours), I was bouncing through the glittering Parisian streets on the AirFrance bus.  My use of "glittering" is not meant to romanticize the scene: Paris may have beautiful architecture, a sedately flowing river and immaculate gardens, but its color is overwhelmingly gray.  On most days, particularly in winter, the sky is so gray it seems without depth: no clouds mark the difference between down here and up there.  Don't stare too hard into its bottomless (topless?) gray, you'll become swiftly disoriented.  This gray sky is punctuated only by the Paris rooftops, standing stiff and stately, in varying shades of gray--which, being a shade itself, makes for infinite gradations of gray; the city becomes a patchwork of grays.  But yesterday morning, the gray had been overtaken by glittering flakes of snow.  A thin white dusting covered the sidewalks, and the stone goddesses atop the Gare de Lyon wore shawls of immaculate snow.

Was it the snow, or had I never realized how beautiful Paris is?  I know it's hailed as the most beautiful city in the world, and tourists constantly drop in to "ooh" and ahh" at the sights, but I think it takes a familiar gaze to really appreciate the beauty of Paris.  I appreciated Paris more the second time I visited, and each time I return--even from a short trip--I'm temporarily awestruck by the city's charm.  The beauty is not éblouissant (dazzling); rather, what's delightful is the remarkable lack of ugliness.  It's like a set of silverware with no missing pieces: everything fits, very few elements look out-of-place, and the lines are familiar, repeated, and aesthetically pleasing.  Of course, my delight faded as soon as I had to lug my 60-pound bag up more than a few set of stairs in the metro.  But I regained my good humor after a long nap, and a dinner of French onion soup and some divine dessert called tarte citron meringue shared with my pals.

I would like to recount some tales of my culture shock upon returning to the U.S., but I'm a bit drained.  Plus, I only really have one good story which involves me pulling out euros to pay for a drink at Starbucks, almost saying merci, and practically choking on their version of a "café au lait" (there are quotation marks for a reason...I feel I have become almost as snobby as the French vis-à-vis American coffee).  I did have the urge to scream, "Merci!  Au revoir!!" as I left every shop and restaurant, but I successfully restrained myself.

Gros bisous,

Alice