The evening sun had painted the sky over Paris in a red velvety color.
I was on my way to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the theater near my hotel.
I turned down a narrow, one-way cobblestone street, and soon caught the aroma from the small restaurants. While beforehand, all I could smell was exhaust fumes and gasoline, these scents were soon replaced by the wonderful smells of baked potatoes, duck and garlic from the nearby restaurants.
The smells were an innocent testament to me being far away from home, as where I come from, the scents that fill the air mainly originate from sketchy meals that more often than not come from Kraft Foods cardboard boxes.
My thoughts were suddenly halted as an angry French hostess raised her voice at some poor waitresses. "Girls! Stop what you are doing! Go get knives and forks!", she yelled at them, which caused them all to scurry off in near panic.
I continued on my path and soon reached the theater, where my girlfriend was waiting for me.
"Harvey Milk! Paris suits you!", she said as I approached her.
She soon started blabbering about her day. She had gone to the Louvre, and had gotten a bit too inspired by the Mona Lisa, having tried to copy her both in terms of makeup and hairstyle.
"And I have used hairspray for both my hair and makeup! It really works great as a setting spray for makeup, too!"
I smiled fondly at her. "Well, you do look fabulous, but next time you really should not spray your face with hairspray. Did you get the tickets for the theater?"
"Uh-oh, Spaghetti-O's! I forgot them!", she exclaimed, already preparing to head off.
I smiled to myself. While Lisa is usually a very good travel companion, sometimes, it is almost like she lives on a different planet with how forgetful she is. Saturn, I would say. I have heard it rains diamonds there. It would suit her well.
As she headed off to get the tickets, I looked around for something to waste time on. After a while, I decided to order a cup of coffee at a cafe while waiting for her to come back with them.
Nice flow to the text. One wonders if it reads more as a short story intro than as travel writing, though. One reason for this is the dialogue parts between the two travelers who know each other so very well. Leaves too little room for exotic encounters with local characters. That said, there is good fun in the narrator's thoughts about his girlfriend, and his reflections gives occasion to clever use of an ingredient such as Saturn. Another issue with the piece is the way it ends - without ending as such. It reads much more like an intro section to a longer story - again veering away from the travel writing reading protocol.
ReplyDeleteI've already mentioned one well-integrated ingredient, but there are many other perfectly naturalized ones. Less successful are the list of smells and the Harvey Milk name, which really sticks out like a sore thumb.
I like how the text is structured, I thought all the elements seemed very naturally occuring.
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