This was the grocery store, around the corner from where I stayed on my first trip. Shopping for food in Paris was very different from typical shopping in the states. At least back then it was. In the afternoon, you saw people walking around with fresh baguettes under their arms. Both men and women with cloth bags they used to pick up food at various small stores. In other words, the idea of walking into Walmarts or some super-market hadn’t hit Paris. Maybe it has now, I don’t know. McDonalds was there already, though it there were protests.  But food shopping was a daily activity, where you went from baker, to butcher to cheese store. In the morning, after the streets were cleaned, there was the smell of fresh butter and bread wafted along the streets.

The cafes were filled, even on work days, with people having their coffee and of course their cigarettes. Being a New Yorker, I walked around wondering how in the world anything ever got done. I couldn’t understand how the outdoor cafes could be filled at nine in the morning.

New York has it’s night life, where bars and restaurants are filled. But the idea of sitting down with a fresh piece of crusty bread and butter, and some very good coffee, and sitting at an outdoor cafe before going to work – it was wonderful – and extremely foreign. It took me all of two days to get used to it.  I remember arriving back in New York, and from the moment I stepped from the plane, it seemed as if everything was running in fast motion.

To this day, every once in a while, when I’m out around dawn, and the air is clean and sweet, I get this sense of being back in Paris.