williamwataru

16:14

I’m on a train right now headed for Nice in Southern France. The train feels quite old and the ventilation isn’t great. The train car currently smells like sweat and body odor. We purchased a second-class ticket, so I suppose maybe that’s why it was cheaper. We had a few bumps in the road today that we had to figure out to get to this moment, but I’m happy we made it.

To start the morning, we were informed that our overnight train to Nice had been unexpectedly canceled due to thunderstorm warnings. I didn’t even know that was a possibility. We were counting on that ticket as both our transportation and accommodation for the night, so suddenly we needed to figure out what to do next. After some research, we decided to book a ticket for earlier in the day and one additional night at a hostel near the Nice city center. Crisis averted, but now our time in Paris was shortened.

We decided to go to a famous sandwich shop called B.B.T. The shop was recommended by a local on YouTube and they specialize in Parisian sandwiches, typically some combination of baguette, butter, cheese, and ham. We ordered the traditional Parisian as well as the “MamaMia,” a sandwich with stracciatella cheese (the creamy filling inside of burrata), traditional ham, truffle olive oil, and a balsamic cream sauce.

There was nowhere for us to sit and eat near the shop, so we looked around for a park. We walked a few minutes east and found a beautiful garden with many people doing the same thing we were planning to do. The garden was called Square d’Estienne d’Orves, which sits beside a church and dates back to the 19th century, when much of Paris was being redesigned. I was mainly just thankful to find it because I really wanted to eat these good-looking sandwiches.

The sandwiches were delicious. I thought they would be hard and dry because of my experiences with baguettes in America, but they weren’t. The bread has a crisp exterior but was easy to bite into with a soft interior. The butter served to moisten the sandwich and add a creamy texture, while the Cantal cheese (never heard of it) and ham created all the flavor the sandwich needed.

While enjoying the nice moment, a bird pooped on my foot. My lucky day.

We realized pretty quickly that there were many birds above us waiting for leftover crumbs and decided we should probably leave before they pooped somewhere that was more difficult to clean.

After eating our sandwiches, we took a detour and ended up in a place called Passage des Panoramas. Passage des Panoramas is a narrow covered passage filled with small shops and restaurants, almost like an early version of a modern shopping arcade. It was now lunchtime and the alleyway was crowded with people on their lunch break, enjoying a meal with colleagues or friends.

The Passage reminded me of two places I had been before: Omoide Yokocho in Tokyo, a historic alleyway full of izakaya bars, and the Castle Arcade in Cardiff, a similar covered passageway full of shops. The main difference was that this passage had a much larger diversity of shops and restaurants, and it seemed like no two restaurants served the same kind of food.

The Parisian lunch culture also made the space feel different. Walking past people crammed into the alleyway, excitedly speaking with friends while having their daily lunch, made me feel like I was getting a glimpse of something sacred. Not sacred in the literal sense, but in the way ordinary routines can feel special when you’re seeing them from the outside. For everyone eating there, this was probably just Thursday lunch. For me, it was something I wanted to stop and watch.

There was something else on my mind while walking back to our hotel to grab our bags. Since arriving in Paris, I have seen many Asian restaurants with “ravioli” somewhere on the menu or in the name. At first, I thought this was referring specifically to Italian ravioli, but I eventually realized that French speakers seem to use ravioli much more broadly for certain kinds of filled dumplings. Restaurants advertise things like raviolis chinois for what I would probably just call Chinese dumplings.

I guess I just thought it was funny, and it made me think about how language shapes the way we categorize things. For me, I can see wontons, gyoza, siu mai, and xiao long bao and think, “those are all dumplings,” even though each one is obviously its own thing. A French speaker might draw those categories slightly differently.

It must be similar to how Americans can lump patisseries and boulangeries together as just “bakeries,” while the French distinguish between them much more clearly. The categories that feel obvious to us aren’t necessarily universal. 

Anyway, all that analysis just to say the next time I see an Asian dumpling I’m going to call it a ravioli.

We wanted to kill some time before we grabbed our bags and headed for the train station, so we went to the Jardin du Palais Royal, and it ended up being my favorite third space so far.

We walked through a dark hallway to get to the entrance of the garden, and upon entering, we were greeted by the garden’s quiet beauty. I immediately realized that this place was special, and that many of the people there seemed to feel the same way. The garden was essentially a large outdoor living room enclosed by beautiful architecture.

The left side of the garden contained rows and rows of beautiful columns with people sitting against them, some alone, some with friends, all of them contributing to making the atmosphere enjoyable for one another. It was lunch hour, so I imagine a lot of them were workers from the surrounding area who had come outside to eat. What surprised me was that the large amount of people didn’t feel like an inconvenience, like they did at the Louvre, or like crowds often feel to me in places like New York or LA. I’ve been trying to understand why.

I think maybe it has something to do with the fact that in many crowded public spaces, everyone is trying to accomplish something. At the Louvre, people are trying to see a particular painting, take a picture, or move through a gallery. On a busy street, people are trying to get somewhere. In those situations, everyone around you can start to feel like an obstacle between you and whatever it is you’re trying to do.

Here, there didn’t seem to be anything to accomplish. Sitting in the garden was the activity.

People were eating lunch, talking with friends, reading, looking at their phones, or just sitting alone beneath the trees. Their presence didn’t prevent anyone else from doing the same thing. If anything, it made the space feel more alive.

None of these people came to the garden intending to create an enjoyable atmosphere for strangers, but simply by being there comfortably alongside one another, that is exactly what they were doing. Without the people, I think it would have felt similar to other gardens I’ve been to, like the Japanese Garden in Portland or the Rose Garden. These spaces are both exceptionally beautiful, but people don’t necessarily come to stay there for a while. They come to see the beauty and pass through it.

I think the architecture of the space itself contributes to how people interact with it. In Portland, both the Japanese Garden and the Rose Garden do not have many areas where people can sit and have lunch or read a book. In the Jardin du Palais Royal, there were benches and chairs that could be moved to wherever you wanted them to be, and if those were taken, you could just sit on the ground against the columns on the left side of the garden and it would be no big deal.

The garden didn’t just give people something beautiful to look at. It gave them permission to stay.

Okay, we get it, Paris has a lot of great public spaces.

Our train was scheduled to depart at 4pm and arrive in Nice at 10pm. I knew we would need to get some food beforehand or risk being hungry on the train. Our budget had taken a hit due to the unexpected cancellation, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to try French McDonald’s to save some money, but also because we just like trying foreign McDonald’s.

The top menu item was something called “Le Chicago Classic,” a limited-time release in France. I had never heard of Chicago being famous for a classic burger, but it seemed like the thing to get here. We also ordered fries with “pommes frites” sauce, which turned out to be a mayo-based fry sauce.

I will be honest, the burger was good. The bun was much higher quality than the American version and the ingredients seemed fresher. The burger came with cheddar cheese, red onion, Batavia lettuce, pickles, tomato, and the mysterious “Chicago” sauce, which I honestly have no idea what was inside of, but it was tasty.

Overall, a pretty solid McDonald’s. Better than India but not as good as Guatemala, my current #1 McDonald’s (am I a Mcdonald’s snob?). 

Finally, we made it to the train on time for boarding just to find out the departure would be delayed by 20 minutes. Yay. But that’s what you have to expect with traveling. 

I think about an hour and a half has passed since I started writing this blog post, and my nose has finally gone numb to the body odor stench. We have 4.5 hours to go, and I’m going to try to sleep so I can stop smelling this smell! 

Nice, here we come.