Paris is un petit trauma

20 January 1977 - Thursday

Up at 5:00 AM this morning and breakfast at 6:00. Another man in the spacious dining room reminded us that today was Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. He said he hoped Carter wouldn’t sell the West out to the Communists.

We got a cab after checking out and got to the station without much time to spare. We found our train though and got on. At this writing about noon or 1½ hours out of Paris, Alice is studying our Paris material.

There was a lot of snow out from Bern toward France. But as we got into the lower elevations there was no more snow. The striking thing is how green everything is. There is almost a lushness about it, especially today, because of the fog and mist. (Much of the trip today was through very thick fog, but we are in the sun now.)

(Writing continued Friday night): We arrived in Paris at the Gare de Lyon, the most rundown rail station we’ve run into yet. When we got off the train, we didn’t know which way to turn, so we wheeled the station cart with our luggage back and forth in front until finally we found the part that the money exchange and the telephones.

The Exchange wouldn’t take coins, of which we had (and have) quite a few Swiss. At the telephone, which Alice figured out after a while, I called the Hotel Maragnan listed in Europe on $10 a Day as a good deal. They had a room they would hold for us. We got a taxi and got here.

Alice was not particularly happy with the place (but at $15 a day for three of us we shouldn’t expect much). We were obliged to pay in advance for three nights. After being here for awhile we discussed moving out and forfeiting the rest of the money (rooms not clean, baths difficult and not clean, WC bad, etc). But this morning we decided to stay.

The first thing after settling in was to take a walk[1]. We are only three or four blocks from the Cathedral of Notre Dame and we went there. This is the first cathedral we’ve seen that has really impressive stained glass. Both inside and out, it is an impressive structure.

Then we walked around looking for a place to eat. Paris, so far, has given us the most difficulty in finding a good restaurant. We didn’t even seek out the famous places, but every other building in this district (near the Sorbonne, on the Left Bank), is a “cafe”, with a very limited menu (beer, wine, coffee), and usually a pinball machine.

Most have sidewalk potential, but in January they are sealed in with glass fronts. People sit in them in rows facing the street. But the in-between places have not been easy to find. This night we settled on a place called Zero de Conduite and had a very good meal, quite cheap. It was located on the edge of Luxembourg Park across from MacDonald’s; but more later on that.

After Susanna’s bath we got to bed early.

[1] I omitted the laundry experience or blocked it out. We found a laundromat in the next block. For 42 Francs the woman did the laundry. When we picked up at about 7:00 we discovered she had not folded the shirts, pants, or dresses, but had piled them into the laundry bag. Most of our clothes are quite wrinkled now.

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20 January 2022 - Thursday

No pictures are tied to this day, and that's probably for the best. I still have nightmares about Hotel Maragnan. It's one of the strongest sense memories I have from my childhood. Most of my memories are inextricably connected to the photographs that my Dad took. In my parent's home there is a large custom bookcase that holds (approximately 2" thick, roughly 16x20 inches a sheet) photo albums that Dad faithfully produced from about 1978 through around 1994/5.

I am probably one of the most documented non-famous people in history, at least until the advent of the camera phone.

I don't know what parts of my memory are actual memory, or memories of photographs.

But I remember Hotel Maragnan.

I believe it may have been the first time I smelled marijuana. It was certainly the first time I smelled marijuana layered with decades of dirt, body odor, moldy upholstery, and despair.

I didn't love it.

I remember being afraid of the bathtub. Mom tried to scrub it before she put me in there, but it was stained black, grey, and brown. No amount of elbow grease was going to fix it. I remember the bathroom had a window that wouldn't completely close. It was cold, but I was glad for a little air to keep the funk at bay.

I only felt safe in the room with my parents with me. It was dirty, but there was a door. There were unfamiliar noises that I now recognize as a metropolis. I'd had little experience with a city of that size at that point in my life.

Occasionally, I'll catch a scent that brings me right back there, and it's uncomfortable and sad.

I suppose I should embrace it as the experience it was, and leave the trauma behind. After all, nothing happened. It was just scary and unknown.

Or maybe it was always a dream.