Back to Paris!

Great sign - or greatest sign EVER? 

Not an exciting post, but I need to catch up.  The ride back to Paris had me pretty nervous.  I was worried that we’d end up in standing traffic and then get lost and make wrong turns in Paris itself.  Actually, it couldn’t have been smoother.  As we drove north, the weather finally broke and the new weather pattern would mean we’d be comfortable for the rest of the week.  We were newly confidant in our navigation and communication abilities, and after dropping off the rental car, we got our Paris Visite passes and got ready for Versaillies on Sunday.  

 This is the Paris I have been waiting for!

I hesitate to tell this story because I couldn’t document it with photos, and I am pretty sure it’s not as funny in the re-telling.  But I am going to write it down for posterity anyway, because we LOVED it.  Here goes.

So we’re back in Paris.  We go to a place for dinner, sitting two by two (all of us with our backs to the restaurant and facing the sidewalk) Ken, then Aidan then me, then Riley, outside a local brasserie.  It’s Saturday night and just a little early for dinner – around 7 pm.  Warm.  The sun is giving light for another 2-3 hours.

image:zazzle.ca

As we dine, these two adorable older ladies sit on the far side of Ken just like us, side by side.  They are late 70s, maybe early 80s.  They are both wearing flowered dresses and cute shoes, and if I had better French and better courage, I would have asked them to pose for a picture, they were just that perfect.  Then, to make them even more adorable, they both ordered Stella Artois with their meals.  Little French gran-meres, drinking Stellas!  I keep trying to watch them on the sly, and I don’t think they knew that we were fascinated with them. 

image: labellecuisine.com

The next time I look over, they have ordered dessert.  The waiter brings them each a perfectly presented white porcelain bowl of summer berries.  Silver spoons.  Tall sugar dispenser filled to the spout with crystals.  Picture it the size of ½ liter.
  

I am in love with these ladies.  I wish they could be my grandmas.  They would have been little girls during WWII and I would love to hear some stories.

I keep watching them as they take the bottle and begin to pour the sugar onto the fruit.  Except, granny number one keeps pouring.  I mean she keeps pouring past the teaspoon amount, past the tablespoon amount, she pours an entire third of the bottle onto the fruit.  The crystals are heaped upon their fruit, and even now I am charmed...  The simplicity of fruit and sugar makes them happy and satisfies their sweet tooth. 

Then things take a slight turn.  They keep eating the sugar.  I mean, as the fruit is consumed, it is replaced by more sugar.  The next time I dare to look, as the whole family is now practically gawking, they are eating tiny spoonfuls of berry-juice-stained, pink-colored sugar.  Then, they up-end the sugar bottle again!  The bottle is now 2/3 empty and the ladies stir, and stir.  The pink fades and the mounds in their spoons are pale white, the color of barely dissolved crystals.  It was hilarious.  

Just then, another little old lady walks by the first two as she goes past on the sidewalk.  I like to imagine that they know each other, and I lean over to Riley and whisper the likely scenario.  

…You just know that as soon as lady number three passes, lady number one leans into lady number two and goes, “Marie is such a bitch.  Did you see how she walked by and pretended not to see us?” And then lady number two whispers back, “Oui, I never did like her.”