The pictures here are some I took in Paris in December 2002, but the text is about my first trip to Paris, more than 50 years ago, when I signed up for a study abroad program in Aix-en-Provence.
Right now I'm just enjoying memories. I don't know how many times I've walked these streets. It all started in December 1969, and here we are in 2023. The first time I saw Paris, it was pretty cool. The man who was the director of the study abroad program I had enrolled in was a Belgian professor of French at Vanderbilt University. He took us to a restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where we were spending the night before flying down to Provence where we would spend 6 months. Monsieur Leblon ordered a roast suckling pig for all of us to share. I don't remember what restaurant it was, but I remember how delicious it was after we got over the shock of seeing a piglet cooked that way, with the apple in its mouth and everything.
There must have been 25 or 30 of us on the program. We flew individually to JFK airport in New York and met up. It was the first time I had ever flown in a plane. Then we flew on a chartered jet to Paris. It was snowing when we took off. We landed at le Bourget and a bus took us into the middle of the city. We shared rooms in a hotel on the rue Monge. We inspected the room and wondered what the tiny, funny-looking little bathtub in the bathroom was. Maybe a urinal, we thought. Or a fixture in which you could wash your feet. (It was what is called a bidet). The fun was just beginning. I went back to Paris in March 1970, alone, for spring break, and spent two weeks in a hotel. I had turned 21 a week or two before that. Most of the other students went traveling in Spain, Switzerland, Greece, or Scandinavia. Not me; I had only Paris on my mind.
Watching French real estate shows, lately (like Chasseurs d’appart) I notice that younger folks in France laugh at the existence of a bidet in the bathroom now, and say they will remove it when they re-do the bathroom. I was surprised.
ReplyDeleteJudy
I think everybody takes showers now. Hot water is scene less as a luxury but as a necessity. We have a bidet in our house here in Saint-Aignan.
DeleteYou straddle that appliance as you would a bidet, a small now extinct horse.
ReplyDeletewe could have passed each other on the streets of Paris during that time (my jr year in college)
ReplyDeleteThat was my junior year too.
DeleteI never had M Leblon at Vandy. The French classes were held in an old house and the Profs were tough and good. I think the suckling pig was a neat idea for your first meal together! Lewis and I were in Paris the summer of 69- the year of mini skirts and pant suits for women. My first plane ride was to Gatwick followed by the ferry across the channel. We washed clothes in our bidet in '61- my first trip to Paris. I can't imagine not knowing Paris in my youth.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about Paris. Rouen, where I spent a school year, was also a great experience.
DeleteGreat pictures of Paris. How interesting that the bidet is going the way of the dodo!
ReplyDeleteIntimate hygiene goes the way of the bidet (small extinct horse) too!
Deletechm- what is the "other appliance" besides a bidet that you were referring to?
ReplyDelete