Tour de Paris

The title of this blog might well be: what was I thinking.  At least that’s what my feet are telling me. I got it into my head that I had to do three things on my one day off in Paris.  I wanted to master the metro, rent a bike and ride it up and down the River Seine and visit Notre Dame.  Maybe that’s four.

Clearly, I have the brains of an American.

This is not to say that I wasn’t successful, aside from my feet screaming at me, I think I did pretty good and this when I possess the innate navigational sense of blind, one winged bird.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say I’m map challenged and seriously directionally impaired.

However, when you’ve fought cancer, you pretty much have those moments when you think you can do anything.  I beat cancer, worked through chemo…surely a bit of a walk/bike about in the City of Lights wasn’t going to thwart me.  Surely.

Meanwhile, I took off, clutching my map and my stubborn pride.  I can do this, I told myself over and over.

The metro turned out to be easy, chiefly because my hotel was situated on the right line.  My first stop was Le Bon Marché, which must be coded French for Incredibly Expensive.  I bought Baby CJ the most expensive outfit of her tiny life, pondered how a 13 month old was going to master the minimalist art of chic French accessorizing and got out of there in a hurry.  I need to retire someday after all.

The bike rental took a lot more effort than spending money, most things do.  I needed the assistance of an American bike tour guide, two Frenchmen and a curious English couple to navigate the mysteries of bike rental machines in France and this with English as an option.  To say that the directions were obtuse would be to put it mildly but once I got my bike I was off.

It has, I admit, been years since I’d been properly cycling.  A little thing called cancer got in my way of sports.  The old saying about remembering how to ride a bike is crap by the way.  My balance is fine, my stamina fair to middling but riding while steering clear of several hundred thousand Frenchmen who drive, text, chat on the phone and smoke like maniacs is another thing entirely. 

Translation: You take your life in your hands when you ride a bike in Paris.

Yes, even when you cheat and ride on the sidewalks, bridges and up and down the quays which are teeming with yes, even more French people. Then I got lost and this when Norte Dame Cathedral is impossible to miss but miss it I did.  It wasn’t until I collapsed into the stiff-backed chair of some forgettable sidewalk café that I figured out where I was (a block shy and I would have totally gone in the wrong direction).  I even needed the help of a waiter.  It was impossibility warm in Paris and the ride was hot and sweaty.  I might as well have been in the Mohave Desert for how hot it was.  Sweat pouring from every pore, I had not been this physically challenged in a very long time, fighting cancer had seen to that.  

Finally, there was Norte Dame and the chance to queue up and go inside.  I visit every time I go to Paris.  I light candles and say a few prayers for those who have gone before me.  None to cancer ironically enough.  Afterwards I buy silly trinkets for everyone back home and have a light meal at a nearby café, always surprisingly good.   

Getting back to the hotel proved to be physically daunting.  I refused to take a taxi and ended up (after wearily returning the rented bike to one of many rental check turnstiles around the city) walking all the way back up the boulevard to my metro stop.  Even after that it was another fifteen minutes walk to the hotel.  I calculated that I must have ridden 10 miles and walked another ten.  At least that’s how it sure felt. 

Back at the hotel I walked into a tepid shower, trying to scrub all the grime of the city and the exertion of my day off in a hot, soapy lather.  It worked but I knew my feet were going to punish me for sometime to come.

The accomplishment, aside from the screaming paws, was still there.  I knew after that there was so much more I could accomplish physically, something I had not been sure of before that day.  

To Be Continued….