Royal Tea Company

• Musings #1

When most people think of Paris, they think of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, glittering lights, arm-length baguettes, cheese, and a lot of wine.

The reality is that it’s far from that on any given day.

This July, it was hot. I mean really hot. Temperatures reached 105 degrees while I was there.

But Paris showed up for me in ways I couldn’t have dreamed.

I have been to Paris many times. I have a rhythm when I arrive. Coffee. Shopping. A few groceries. A nice dinner.

I did none of that.

I arrived, went straight to my hotel, and went straight into the work of the day. I didn’t have my coffee until after 1 p.m. But it was with an incredible pistachio-filled croissant, so perhaps Paris knew what she was doing.

Finding the fabric I wanted was the only thing I had planned. I also planned to walk from my hotel to the shops. It wasn’t more than two miles, but it was hot, and Paris in the heat is also…smelly.

Every shop does its part to keep the sidewalks clean, but the reality is that many men still seem to feel it’s perfectly acceptable to urinate on buildings. And alas…the smell.

Just like New York.

The Metro wasn’t an option for getting to the shops, so on foot in the heat I went. I felt the need to wear pants. Parisians are not particularly fond of casual or athletic clothing, and I was there for business. I needed connections, not judgment.

I found what I needed. I had a coffee. And I left for the barely-there AC of my hotel.

This is the part of Paris you don’t see in the postcards.

Paris is beautiful. She is also dirty. She is elegant. She is sometimes rude. She is romantic. She can smell like a public restroom in July.

And somehow, all of those things can be true at the same time.

The hotel I was staying at for the first night was actually a day earlier than planned. The French had planned a strike for the day I was originally arriving, and many flights were expected to be canceled.

The hotel had an amazing rooftop.

My live only lasted a few minutes. I wanted to show everyone the city on a cloudless, incredibly hot day. The bar was just opening at 5 p.m. while I was sitting there, and my phone overheated in the direct sunlight.

The waiter very curtly told me to move so another party could have my spot.

That is something, no matter where I am, that I don’t like.

The directness is fine. There was simply a tone that I wouldn’t tolerate.

You have to understand that wait staff in Europe are generally paid a living wage unlike in the United States, and some of the social niceties we have become accustomed to in America simply aren’t part of the equation.

But there is still a way.

The hotel manager sent up madeleines and a split of champagne.

That was plenty for me for the evening.

I popped down to the marché next to the hotel. I entered through the wrong door and was immediately turned around and directed toward the correct one.

The things we learn when we are abroad.

The store had plenty of fresh, in-season fruit, cheese, bread, and pâté. I didn’t feel like having a meal out as I normally would. I felt like staying in and simply figuring out what the next few days could bring.

That, too, was Paris.

Shopping in Paris isn’t for the faint of heart.

There are luxury shops where you can buy bags for five figures. There are thrift stores, vintage shops, antiques, and everyday stores.

Plan them out.

Then plan your route.

My mission was a bag I had been wanting for years. The style was already decided. The colors were what I wanted to see in person.

Sabatier 1947 is a clever shop and one you should stop in if you want something reasonable for everyday use. I picked up one of the Atelier fabric-only limited-edition bags.

Next time will be leather. I promise.

I also wanted to head to a few of the thrift stores since the rest of my time would be spent at the flea markets.

The thrifts were much like those in the United States. They were very picked over. Given the heat and limited staff, most of the shops were keeping inventory in rotation and couldn’t process much more.

They weren’t even rolling out racks for the Americans and their Hulken bags to fight over.

And yes, we Americans have apparently become known for our Hulken bags.

I had no need to see the sights.

I’ve seen them.

They are always there. Always reliable.

Just like a glass of Bordeaux, she’s there when you want her.

I moved to my next hotel, which was in the north of the city near the convention center. Again, I had no real need to be down among the sights. I needed to be somewhere that would allow me to get safely to Saint-Ouen.

I had planned a live and a lot of sourcing.

Alas, both happened—but not without their hang-ups.

Many of the dealers decided to stay home. The few who did come tried their best, once again, to put their wares out for the loud Americans and those damn Hulken bags.

The heat was no match for my phone or the live.

It lasted 30 minutes.

There was no escaping the heat, so I retreated to my hotel.

Where the AC went out.

I tried very hard to push through it, but eventually I had to ask the hotel to do something.

They found me another room.

And I was thankful.

The Saturday markets were much more fruitful.

My bags were full.

The Metro was hot.

The hawkers at the Metro station tried to intimidate me. The best thing to do is keep your eyes forward and keep walking.

Another hot day.

Another trip to the marché.

This time, I noticed a man with deep-pocketed cargo pants on. He was stuffing them full of candy.

Now, normally I wouldn’t intervene because, in the United States, that could mean absolutely anything.

But this is France.

The worst he could do is have a knife.

And that still gave me pause.

Until he tried to scan an item at my self-checkout.

As a side note, they have essentially the same checkout software as Kroger.

And it was the heat that undid my tongue.

My already-loud American voice said, “Why didn’t you just steal it like the rest of the stuff?”

Needless to say, I quickly made my exit while the security staff handled him.

Sometimes travel puts you into situations you never expected to be in.

My room wasn’t cold.

It was cool.

That was all I could hope for.

While sorting the wares and contemplating whether I wanted to go live from inside the room or attempt another live from a market, I realized I had forgotten a piece.

There isn’t much you can do in that moment except hope it’s still there and try again the next day.

Which I did.

It was still there.

And I found many more things the next day, too.

It started at a different market, one that was really more for the locals, but I found a few items.

The stall owner and I couldn’t understand each other until I realized he was from Brittany and spoke Breton, a Celtic language.

Suddenly, my French didn’t seem quite so bad.

In the end, he shook my hand and we had a deal.

It’s not always about understanding the actual words.

Sometimes it’s about finding the common ground.

Finding my way to the next market was going to be an unexpected challenge.

Music Fest was happening that day, and the buses were running shortened routes. It was interesting to hear the bus driver announce the end of the line and then listen to the obligatory grumbles from the French passengers.

There was a moment when, in my surprise, I—the clunky American—found myself explaining in my broken French that we had to walk.

As I was walking, a lovely lady waiting at a stop a few stops down looked worried.

I stopped.

I told her the bus wouldn’t be coming because of the Music Fest.

She lit up, said, “Merci,” and started toward the next stop.

I yelled the stop to her.

She waved.

Another “Merci.”

Many times, we are challenged even when we have no idea what to do.

But the humanity of life takes over, and instinctively we know there is something we can do.

Sometimes, that is all Paris needs from you.

The next live was just as bad as the first.

It was even hotter.

My phone didn’t like it, even though it was in the shade.

It lasted 25 minutes, and I eventually grabbed a taxi back to the hotel with two bags of brass.

The taxi had no AC.

But alas, neither does the Metro.

At that point, it became a choice between sitting in a taxi for an hour or fighting hundreds of other people for a seat on the Metro.

There was even a special reduced fare that day to encourage people to use public transportation because of the air quality.

I used it a lot.

I was just incredibly tired at this point.

Saint-Ouen, to this point, had been a huge miss.

None of the vendors I had anticipated were there.

No smalls.

No jewelry.

Nothing.

I had picked up maybe six items from the entire market, and I was rather depressed.

Then I smelled onions cooking.

It was cooler that day, but still over 90 degrees, and I hadn’t smelled those onions the previous times I was there.

I had been told the outside market was mostly knockoffs and junk.

I had avoided it for that reason.

But what did I have to lose at this point?

And the onions smelled good.

I found the source.

It wasn’t something I wanted. It looked like a heavy sausage with onions and peppers—very German.

But I started walking.

And I started noticing.

There were a lot of vendors with mid-range pieces. Things that weren’t necessarily the high-end antiques Saint-Ouen is known for, but things that were interesting, usable, and worth taking a second look at.

Then I found the costume jewelry guy.

He told me he hadn’t set up over the weekend because of the heat.

As I started picking through the piles, he asked if I was looking for something.

I told him what I wanted.

He pulled a case out from underneath the table.

It was full of silver.

The very thing I had flown all that way for.

I knew I didn’t have the cash to do anything meaningful. The ATMs were all out of cash, again, reportedly because of the heat.

But we found a common banking app, and I was able to make a decent purchase from him.

That is the thing about sourcing.

You can plan every minute.

You can make lists.

You can map your route.

You can decide exactly what you want to find.

And then Paris laughs at you.

The vendor doesn’t show up.

The Metro is unbearably hot.

Your phone overheats.

The market is disappointing.

You forget something.

The AC breaks.

And then, somewhere you almost didn’t bother looking, a man reaches underneath a table and pulls out exactly what you came to Paris to find.

That is sourcing.

That is travel.

And, honestly, that is life.

My final day in Paris turned into a fruitful one.

My last stop at the marché provided fresh cherries, a baguette, a soft, tangy cheese, and a large bottle of bubbly water.

All was forgiven.

Paris provided.

As she always does.

Most people would have felt that this trip was the absolute worst.

And in hindsight, it probably was.

But I accomplished everything I wanted to.

I learned a lot.

I found a lot.

I made connections.

I think I even made a few people’s days better.

I also learned that the Paris I love isn’t necessarily the Paris people imagine.

She isn’t always pretty.

She isn’t always polite.

She certainly isn’t always comfortable.

But she is alive.

And when you stop expecting her to perform for you, you begin to experience her.

Sometimes the best travel memories aren’t the perfect dinner, the beautiful hotel, or the photograph in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Sometimes they are the overheated phone.

The forgotten box that was still waiting for you.

The vendor you couldn’t understand.

The woman who needed to know where the bus had gone.

The sausage you didn’t want.

The silver you never expected to find.

The stranger who shook your hand because, somehow, you had managed to understand each other without speaking the same language.

Paris is what you make it.

She isn’t just the City of Lights.

She is the city of what you need, when you need it.

You simply have to be willing to look for it.