The Pursuit of Jim Morrison’s Ghost

Paris, France
Saturday—Tuesday 2–5 July 2011

A year ago, my brother and I were nine time zones apart—he was in Los Angeles working for Boeing, and I was in France, working as an au pair. My brother had the good fortune to find an apartment in a house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, where Jim Morrison had once lived. Meanwhile, I was exploring the cemeteries of Paris, paying my respects to the famous dead: Edgar Degas, Eugène Delacroix, Molière, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, and of course, Jim Morrison. At the time, I joked to my brother that we were following Morrison’s ghost from coast to coast—or perhaps he was following us. This summer, my brother and I are both in the same time zone and on the same continent—a significant improvement over years past. It was only appropriate, though, that our hotel in Paris should be located in the 20th arrondissement, a mere 10-minute walk from Cimetière Père Lachaise, the final resting place of our dearest Jim Morrison. The Doors just won’t leave us be.

Ben’s arrival in Paris on Sunday morning was much less eventful than my own. Back in the Alps, an error on my part caused me to nearly miss the only bus from La Mure to Grenoble on Saturday morning, where I had to then catch a bus up to Paris. Perhaps quick goodbyes are easier than long ones. As I climbed into Benoit’s car, breathless and panicked, I remarked that he was listening to the Beatles’ White Album. He says he always listens to the Beatles when he is sad. Happiness is a warm gun.

After getting stuck behind a tractor toting hay bales up the steep, narrow, winding road to La Mure, we luckily zoomed up behind the bus to Grenoble just as it was pulling into the bus stop. Chance was kind to me. I got to Grenoble, and later Paris, without any more transportation complications, but a heavy heart.

My couchsurfing host, Amina, met me at the Gare d’Austerlitz in Paris. It was both of our first experiences with couchsurfing, and I must say, I couldn’t have asked for a better host. Amina (26) moved to Paris from Algeria two years ago to continue her studies in material science engineering, with a specialization in ceramics. She was a fascinating and friendly host, and our conversations ranged from relationships to foreign relations, educational institutions to television shows. Her brother had just returned from a three-week business trip to Texas, where he was working with subterranean cartography for an oil country, and all three of us stayed in his apartment, in the 13th arrondissement near the Gare d’Austerlitz. After conversation, gin, and pizza, we joined two of Amina and Tarik (her brother)’s friends and went out to a super swanky nigh club in le Palais des Congrès, in the 17th arrondissement, a hair northwest of les Champs-Elysées and l’Arc de Triomphe. Stay classy, Paris.

Even though we arrived there at about midnight, the club was still empty; the real crowds didn’t start showing up until around one in the morning. I admit to being somewhat intimidated. Beautiful Parisians travel together, and they all showed up at the club with their heels and hair and high class. But music and sweat and dancing cure all (except sleazy French boys—those never quite go away, like shadows or chronic STDs). When we left the club at about 4:30am, with worn out feet and flat hair, the dancing showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Paris before dawn is an empty, neon world.

After a much too short sleep, I slipped out of Amina and Tarik’s apartment to take the metro up to the airport to pick up my brother. I successfully found him at the arrival gate, alive and limping. Ben’s potentially broken (or at least sprained) foot and/or toe did not stop our Parisian adventures. We picked up my lunch and had lunch/breakfast at Amina’s, found our hotel (Mary’s Hotel—a quiet, quaint, clean, and cheap hotel with a huge bathroom, fresh towels, and a balcony), took a quick nap, and then embarked upon the city.

It was only natural to start our Parisian adventures in the heart of the city—la Concorde, the central location between the 1st and 8th arrondissements. We wandered east from la Concorde, strolled through le Jardin des Tuileries towards le Louvre. This was my sixth time in Paris (technically), but I have never been in the city when it was quite so sunny and alive. The beautiful weather and the fact that all Parisian museums are free on the first Sunday of the month produced incredible crowds. After admiring le Louvre, we turned north to search for le Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum and an architectural wonder realized by Georges Pompidou. Our path went slightly out of the way, but took us through a bustling district just off la Seine, filled with clothing shops, brasseries, bars, restaurants, and a crowd of fashionable Parisians. We doubled back at le Centre Pompidou towards la Seine to complete the last stop of our tourist circuit—Notre Dame. The past three times I have been in Paris, I have had the chance to admire the cathedral in what I like to call “magic light”—the hour of the evening when the setting sun casts the white stones of Paris in liquid hues of bronze and gold. We paused in the garden behind Notre Dame to figure out where were should go to satisfy our stomachs. We decided on l’As du Falafel, recommended by my WWOOFing friend Emilie as “the best falafel in the world.” She was absolutely right. Our walk took us through a hip, bohemian neighborhood in the Jewish district just north of la Seine in the 4th arrondissement. We took our falafel and Heineken to go, and went to la Place des Vosges (one of Louis XIII’s private bourgeois estates and gardens) to watch runners and pigeons. Amina had proposed an outing to the bars with Tarik, but at the end of the day we were too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Like Sunday, our Monday involved much walking (probably too much for Ben’s poor, swollen foot). After a lunch of tartines at the brasserie le Houblon du Vin-ième, we went to la Gare du Nord to figure out just how we were going to get to Grenoble. Our trip to la Gare du Nord taught us two things: first of all, do not wait until the last minute to buy Eurail tickets. Absolutely all of the direct trains from Paris to Grenoble (about a 3hr trip) were full for Eurail holders (my brother’s European train pass), so we had to settle for a ~7hr trip with a stop in Dijon. Second of all: never walk from la Gare du Nord up Montmartre to get to Sacre Coeur. The neighborhood is terribly dirty and clogged with beggars and poor immigrants clustered under bridges and along streets selling trash. Paris is more than lights and gold.

After the piss and pigeon encrusted neighborhoods of Montmartre, les Champs-Elysées were quite a shock. Our metro spit us out right under l’Arc de Triomphe, with an impressive view not only of les Champs-Elysées, but of les grands boulevards that stretch away from l’Arc de Triomphe in a giant, urban star. We took a cross-street to cross la Seine and get to le Champ de Mars and la Tour Eiffel on the other side. I had a brief moment of French pride: a French woman hailed us for help, then noticed that we were speaking English and apologized and continued on her way. I caught up to her, told her that I could speak French, and proceeded to help give her direction to drive from le Pont de l’Alma to l’Opéra. Impressed and grateful, she went on her way, and I felt satisfied that my years of French study were able to help out a lost Frenchwoman.

At la Tour Eiffel and le Champs de Mars, however, French is perhaps spoken less than English, Italian, Spanish, German, and an assortment of other languages that I couldn’t quite place. The crowds were phenomenal, and we ended up having to wait an hour on the second floor to be able to gain access to the third and highest level. Even though I already climbed to the very top la Tour Eiffel two years ago when I first came to France in the spring of 2009, I decided to accompany my brother anyhow. It was a perfectly clear evening, and although the crowds were stifling at the summit, the golden view of Paris was worth it. And the 670 steps that I climbed for the third in order to satisfy my brother’s insatiable obsession with architectural heights.

By the time we got down from la Tour Eiffel and walked by l’Ecole Militaire, l’Hôtel des Invalides, and le Musée Rodin, it was nearly 10:00pm, and we had not yet eaten. Emilie recommended that we eat and go out for drinks in the 5th arrondissement, the student district, near la Sorbonne. A giant sign for Guinness attracted us to the first bar/restaurant we saw on a side street outside of our metro stop. It was an extremely intelligent, though completely uninformed, chance decision. Ben decided on an omelet filled with meat (of course), and I had huge salad with hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, and thin slices of salmon on miniature, buttered tartines with a mustard sauce. Our English attracted the attention of an American student, Dan, who was studying Thomian philosophy (an obscure 20th century philosophical movement that stems from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas) at la Sorbonne. Our conversation started out like most conversations—with pleasant small talk and introductions over a round of delicious house-brewed beer: Delirium Tremens. Our quickly conversation gained weight; Dan admitted that he had never known someone that was NOT philosophy student at the graduate level who could correctly reference and discuss Heideggerean “Thingliness” in conversation. I was flattered. We soon turned to current events: the drug wars in Mexico, the so-called Arab spring, the suppression of revolutionary sympathizers in Algeria, the banning of the burqa in France, and the economic motivations of many civilizing neocolonial missions. A fleeting sidenote about the legalization of gay marriage in New York led us into one of the most philosophically profound conversations about the role of marriage in society that I have ever had. I have never heard someone give such a well-articulated and rational argument against gay marriage. I still don’t agree with his conclusion, but I completely respect his argument. Around 1:00am, we decided that we should wrap up our conversation to make sure we could catch the last train before the metro closed. We got into the station without a problem, but once we got down to the tracks, a homeless woman informed us that last train had just passed, and that we should hurry out of the station before they closed the gates. We climbed back over the gate only to find the exit completely barred off. We ran around the station, only to find all the possible exits similarly locked. In such situations, my brain involuntarily begins concocting various solutions to the pressing issue at hand. The most plausible, it seemed at the time, was spending the night in the metro station. After my night of homelessness at the beginning of this summer’s European adventure, it only seemed appropriate. Thankfully, we found a worker sweeping up, who informed us that there is an emergency button just on the inside of the exit gates that will let trapped travelers get out. We ended up having to give in and take a taxi home. One night of homelessness per trip is certainly enough.

After checking out of the hotel in the morning, we thought about going up to the park at Butte-Chaumont (highly recommended for its stupendous view of the city and its salmon-colored quarry rocks landscaping), but we decided that we wouldn’t have enough time for lunch and the park before our train left Paris at 1:40pm. We stopped on la Rue des Pyrénées at a corner café that appeared to be rather promising. Both Ben and I were pleased by our meals and coffee, but were surprised to note that it was already 1:00pm. For the second time in less than a week, transportation panic ensued. To make a long story short, we missed our train and ended up having to exchange our ticket for a later but equally long trip to Grenoble, again with a stop in Dijon. We are about three-quarters of the way there now. Tomorrow, we have planned for mountain climbing (if Ben’s injured appendages cooperate) and Grenoble exploring. By the end of the week, I’ll be back in the south, far away from Jim Morrison’s ghost, and back with my beloved Mediterranean.