by Oliver Gee
“I’m sorry I was such a louse in Nice, telling you that you shouldn’t get a scooter,” she said. “It’s just that I’d already started the process of buying this one and I had to get you off the scent.”
What a woman, I thought again.
I locked the bike, took Lina in my arms, and kissed her on the lips. A proper kiss though, not the accidental Lyon version.
“What a wonderful present, I can’t believe you did all that,” I said, as we turned and headed back to our friends.
One thing had just been made very clear, very quickly. That vehicle was about to add a whole new dimension to our life in Paris. And far beyond. Indeed, it would be this little scooter, the Red Beast, that would take us 4,000 kilometres around the entirety of France for our honeymoon. We didn’t know this at the time, of course. Why, we weren’t even engaged yet. But the arrival of the red scooter was about to change our lives, and there was an unmistakable tingle of excitement in the Paris air.
4.2 A car red
While the red scooter quickly became a major character in my Paris life, it was actually a red car that got me interested in learning French. I was 11 years old, living in a small town on the east coast of Australia, and my older brother Tom was telling me about his first lesson in French.
He explained to me that in France they don’t say “a red car”, they say “a car red”. In other words, they put the adjective after the noun, rather than the other way around, as we do in English. I suppose I’d heard French words and maybe even learned a few of them before this conversation with my brother. But the concept that grammar could be so fundamentally different in other languages exploded my 11-year-old mind. I was fascinated.
Now, I had long been a fan of the English language. A huge fan, even. I can clearly remember surprising my teacher when I was about six years old during a lesson on apostrophes. The teacher wrote “it’s” on the chalkboard then explained it was short for “it is” and then moved on. But what? She didn’t add the obvious, that it was also short for “it has”, as in, “it’s been a long time”. I made sure to tell her, and she looked at me strangely as if to say “What kind of 6-year-old cares about this stuff?” Then she frowned and added “it has” to the board. She probably thought I was an annoying little ragamuffin, but that was just how my mind worked.
Anyway, the point is that still to this day, I am a word nerd. Language is probably my favourite topic. I love that there is a word for the little dot on top of the letter i (it’s called a tittle). I wonder if the dot on the letter j is also called a tittle. Writing this now, I wonder if the word tittle could be a verb too, so just as you can say “Don’t forget to dot your is and cross your ts”, can you say “Be sure to tittle your i’s”? The sad shame is that most people don’t care about the oddities of language more than about a minute’s worth at a time. In fact, I’m probably dangerously close to losing you right now...
In any case, back when I was working at the news site in Sweden, I developed a reputation for writing columns about the Swedish language. And I was happy to write similar stories about French when I joined the team in Paris. For example, I wrote a whole article about the superbly versatile swear word putain. Another about the importance of the word bonjour. I wrote about curious phrases, expressions, idioms, and sounds. And I was delighted to learn that some French people, especially women, would take a sharp inward breath when saying yes, almost exactly like they did in northern Sweden.
But my favourite language curiosity of all time is the untranslatable word. And before we go any further, let me explain my definition of “untranslatable” so we’re all on the same page.
An untranslatable word is a foreign word that doesn’t have a single-word equivalent in English.
Chatelaine is a good example, where the best and shortest translation is “a woman who runs a castle”. How can you fit that into one English word? Impossible! There are loads of great words in French that I consider to be untranslatable. For example, in France people tend to take their summer holidays in July or August. Lengthy, month-long holidays. If you take them in July, or as the French call it, juillet, then you’re a juilletiste (while those who holiday in August are aoûtiens). Now, imagine that you can say that singular word - juilletiste - to a French person and they’d understand. In English, you’d have to say “a person who holidays in July” - but even then, you’re not capturing it. It’s more “A person who holidays in July rather than August”. And if you think about it, even that doesn’t explain it for someone in the southern hemisphere, where July and August are winter months. In France, you can call someone a juilletiste. In Australia, you’d have to say “she takes July off for her summer holiday rather than August”.
I suppose why I love these little quirks is because they also teach you about the culture that comes with the language. The example above shows that the French take long holidays in the summer, and that the idea is so popular that they have names for which part of the season you holiday in. When you boil it down, you realize that the French take their summer holidays seriously.
Anyway, collecting untranslatable words is one of my favourite things to do. And they’re not always charming little insights into a country’s vacationing habits. The French have a single word for “cutting someone’s throat” (égorger) and also for “throwing someone out a window” (défenestrer).
Another favourite I have, which is pretty difficult to explain if you don’t know French, is the verb tutoyer, which more or less means “to be less formal with someone”. To understand this, though, you have to know that in France there are two ways to say “you”. There’s the formal version, vous, that you’d use with older people or strangers. Then there’s the less formal version, tu, which you’d use with friends, children, animals. So the verb tutoyer more specifically means “to use the tu form”. I love this word, tutoyer: it’s absolutely untranslatable; it says a lot about French culture; and it makes no sense at all to English speakers. And the word vouvoyer, which means “to use the vous form”, is an equally great and untranslatable word. But maybe we should leave it there, before it gets too confusing.
All this is to say that the French language is a rich thing, and for me it was never more beautiful than the day a senior architect told me I could tutoyer her, almost two years after I’d started working in the building. I didn’t have to say vous any longer, I could finally say tu. There was a rush of emotions, a feeling of pure acceptance, equality, friendship even. I wonder if there’s a word to describe the pleasure that comes with social formalities being swept away. But who cares if there’s not, it was a lovely feeling to be considered as an equal with one of the older architects, I felt warm and welcome - perhaps for the first time in that office. To this day I’m not sure, but I think the architect chose to accept me because she also rode a scooter around Paris and felt, deep down, that we weren’t so different after all.
4.3 A whole new Paris
They say Paris is a city best discovered on foot - but they, whoever they are, have obviously never discovered Paris on scooter. It was amazing how much having that vehicle changed our lives in Paris. Overnight, the city became more manageable. Montmartre was a fifteen-minute ride away. I could get to work in ten minutes. The thought of crossing the river to explore the Left Bank didn’t seem like a day trip anymore. We could head to the city’s big parks - the Bois de Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne - without spending half the day on travelling. We made excursions to places we’d never considered visiting before, like the Parc des Sceaux with its explosions of cherry blossoms, and the affluent suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. And what’s best, we could park wherever we wanted.
Well, that last bit wasn’t strictly true. I’ve had it towed away twice for questionable parking efforts, but I’ve heard that’s a pretty low score for a Parisian scooter. A French friend of mine put it this way: riding a scooter in Paris comes with a 120 euro annual parking permit. While it�
�s technically free to park most places, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get it towed every six months (with a 60 euro pick-up fee each time). By my calculations, that was still wildly cheaper than an annual car park in a cramped city like Paris.
But the unexpected pleasure that came with the scooter was the act of driving in Paris. Sure, it was nice to be able to get to distant places and to park for only 120 euros a year. It was a treat to sleep in a few extra minutes on workdays too. But nothing compared to the feeling of seeing Paris from the middle of the roads. Surprisingly, it was right up there with riding through the French Riviera in a storm. You see, when you cycle in Paris you’re typically hugging the kerb, hoping not to get hit by a bus, and trying to avoid wayward pedestrians. When you’re driving a car or a truck you’re forever bogged down by the traffic. But when you’re on a scooter you become the king of the road. The other motorists respect you, for a reason I’ve never really understood. I sometimes wonder if it’s because they feel guilty to be driving a big empty car when we’re on little scooters. Maybe it’s because they’re terrified of knocking a scooterist off their bike. Who knows?
But the best bit is peeling away from the masses when the traffic light turns green. A scooter is much lighter than a car, so it can take off much, much faster. So when there was traffic at a red light, I could easily scoot up between all the stationary cars to the front. The motorists are usually excellent at leaving a lane between them for us bikers. And once at the front, when that light goes green, and when I’ve got a beautiful boulevard in front of me, then there’s no place I’d rather be.
Funnily enough, the scooter revealed itself to be a real head turner on the streets of Paris too. Most of the city’s scooters are nondescript, forgettable, and ugly. But not mine. Mine stood out like a gleaming little fire engine in a sea of black. Other scooterists would often turn to me at a red light and ask me where I got it from. Or how much it cost. Or they’d just say that it was beautiful. Once an elderly woman crossing the road in front of me turned and suggested I should work for the local fire station with colours so bright. And often, when I parked it outside of a cafe or restaurant, I’d watch people take photos of it - sometimes climbing aboard for the opportunity.
But the driving was the best bit. And if you’d like a tip for an enjoyable ride, I’d point you in the direction of the big boulevards, like Sebastopol on the Right Bank, where you can get from one end to the other catching every light the moment it turns green. The absolute best scooter drive in Paris, without a doubt, is Quai des Grands Augustins on the Left Bank, which runs west along the riverside and past all the famed monuments. If you ever have the chance, rent a scooter and drive it from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower and you’ll see what I mean.
4.4 Finding our feet
There was something beautiful about getting to know Paris together with Lina, another foreigner in Paris. I often thought about this, actually, because a fair few of my foreigner friends had come to Paris for a French person. That French person could not only help them navigate the minefields of administration, but could also point out the best milk to buy, the best restaurants, the streets to avoid, and everything from Metro etiquette to language lessons.
I had none of those luxuries and neither did Lina. We were two foreigners in Paris; we were lost at sea but we were lost together. If you can imagine the romanticism of a weekend away with a loved one in Paris, exploring, taking wrong turns, laughing in strange restaurants… that had been us for almost two years, and we loved it. Making mistakes was one of the great pleasures of coming to understand Paris and it’s something I’d encourage any tourist to do too.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s also hard. It takes time to learn the things we took for granted back home, like knowing which brand of yoghurt was best, or which telephone company had an awful reputation, or where you should never walk at night. These things we learned the hard way, or at least the long way.
I was also coming to appreciate the intricacies of Paris. I’d surprised myself, really. I was never a big fan of history or architecture, but life in the centre of Paris changed me dramatically. I found myself devouring the information plaques that crop up all over the city. I marvelled at the dramatic stories that have changed the face of Paris over the centuries. I loved how if you looked hard enough, you could find traces of history on the lampposts, the doors, the walls…
And while Lina and I still liked our little apartment, it came with a few annoyances too. I missed having proper showers, standing up straight and washing my hair. We had to crouch due to the slanting ceiling, while holding the shower head in one hand. Sometimes we found ourselves longing for an elevator, especially when returning from the supermarket. And what I really would have loved was a west-facing window in the bathroom or kitchen. That way, we would have had unspoiled views of the Eiffel Tower, which was still only visible from the communal toilet. Such a western view was impossible to even create, as the whole west-facing wall was blocked off by a huge unused chimney that ran along the building and extended high above our rooftop. If it weren’t for that chimney, our view would have been twice as impressive. But instead, it felt like half the city was hidden from view because of a chimney. It was such a shame to think of what we were missing, and strange to consider that two years ago I’d been so smitten with the rooftop view to the south. But I’m a sucker for that Eiffel Tower and I wanted to be closer to it.
What I really needed, as you’ll probably agree, was a little bit of perspective, thank you very much, and it would come in the most unexpected of ways.
4.5 Paris from the top
I was reminded of the beauty of Paris in a rather surprising way one autumn morning. Lina was out of town and I was home alone when there was a knock at the door. What with the often impenetrable front doors to Paris apartments, I knew that it was probably my neighbour Stephane. And I was right.
“Oliver, ze sun is shining, ze weazzer eez magnifique. I need someone to enjoy eet wizz. What are you doing?”
I was doing nothing and I told him so.
“Parfait, come wizz me. Wino.”
Ah, some things never change, I’d forever be a “wino” to Stephane. We crossed the corridor of the seventh floor landing and he led me to the far side of his equally small apartment.
“I ‘ope you don’t fear ice,” he added, giving me a mischievous wink.
Ice? What tricks did Stephane have in mind? Gin and tonics on his balcony? Did he have a balcony...
Stephane launched open his window, which was the same style as my own - built into the sloping ceiling so he had to lift it upwards.
I’d never seen the view from his apartment, but because it was on the opposite side of the building it was quite different from mine. He had an eastern-facing window, which was pretty intriguing to me. I glanced out towards the Marais and the Bastille, getting my bearings. But that was nothing compared to what was coming.
“Well, nowz ze time to tell me. Do you fear ice?”
“Ice? No. Why would I fear ice?”
“Non, not ice, ice!” he said, pointing out the window and towards the ground.
I looked down at the courtyard seven floors below, then back at Stephane who was grinning madly as usual. Ice? Ice?
“You know, ice, when you are ‘igh up in ze ‘eavens.”
“Oh heights!? You mean am I afraid of heights?” I said.
“Zat’s exactly what I said, ice,” Stephane said.
I laughed. It’s true, the French don’t care much for the letter H when speaking English. Except when there’s a silent H. That’s exactly when they often decide to pronounce it. I’ve heard a few Parisians say ‘appy Hour rather than Happy ‘our.
“Don’t laugh at me, or we will sweetch to français and eet will be me who eez laughing,” Stephane said. “So, do you fear HHHeights or not?”
The truth is, I’m not afraid of heights at all. Or ice, inciden
tally. I grew up climbing trees like a jungle child. I’ve bungee jumped in three different continents. I’ve peered into the depths of the Grand Canyon and cleared snow from Swedish rooftops. But when I saw Stephane scramble through his window and out onto the sloping rooftop I almost wet myself. Was he crazy? It was a drop of seven floors. It was certain doom if he slipped. From out on the rooftop Stephane must have sensed my fear.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Zairs a chimney blocking your fall. Eet’s not as bad as eet looks.”
I’m ashamed to admit it, and I know my own mother will never forgive me, but I caved in to the charming Frenchman and I climbed through the damn window. I didn’t look down and I followed him up the sloping roof to the top, which came to an apex of death before sloping downwards on the other side. Stephane guided me to what he said was the best spot, the flat slab of concrete that held a dozen terracotta chimney pots in place. I climbed on top of it, and, for the first time, surveyed my surroundings.
I don’t know if it was the fear of falling or the astonishing beauty of Paris, but when I looked around I could hardly breathe. It was immense. I was standing in the epicentre of the city and I could see uninterrupted in every direction. Better still, there wasn’t a person in sight. The sensation was extra special because I was standing on top of my own building, where I’d lived for two years, and I was getting a sudden new perspective on it. Sacre-Coeur was shining in resplendent white to the far north, the Eiffel Tower gleaming away to the southwest. With just that added bit of height I could see so much further. I could see the skyscrapers in the suburbs, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the spire of the Sainte Chapelle, the roof of the Opera, the looming Montparnasse tower, and everything in between.