For the love of vin

It started five years ago.

The classic love story. We'd been acquainted for as long as I can remember. Then, when I first came to France in the summer of 2013, I saw our relationship in a new light. 

My amour was rich. Full-bodied. And way older than I was. 

It was, of course, the perfect glass of red wine. 

You have to realize, I was a year shy of the U.S. drinking age that summer, and even so, the college pallet consists of beer so-watered down you could probably water plants with it. 

My relationship with wine had been much different before then. I grew up drinking it every week — stiff, ceremonial sips from a glinty communion chalice on Sunday mornings. 

Needless to say, the fermented grapes of France opened up a whole new world. It was like your cliché American high school film. Wine had taken off its glasses, removed its braces and was suddenly, like, really hot.

And that was it. We'd been on again off again ever since. I'll admit, as craft beer took off in the U.S., I strayed. But now that I'm back in France, I tried to rekindle things this year. It started in the fall. 

This was a few months ago, at the end of October. We'd just gotten our first of many vacations (Vive la France education system) and I was searching for something cool to do in Paris. So I rounded up me and a few other teaching assistant friends for a wine tasting. 

Dégustation du vin, the French call it. 

The wine tasting was in the First Arrondissement, in the center of Paris. This time, I fell in love with the streets. Any local would say I'm in the shittiest part of town, but you know what? I'm not afraid to like basic things. I love listening to Drake, too. 

One of our friends were running late, so we stopped at a café to kill time. 

La Taverne de L'Arbre Sec. I remembered the name because I decided I'd take my friends there when they visit. It was nice and simple. 

We sat at a small table near the bar. I ordered a vin chaud. 

Yes, I was the only one in the group to pre-game a wine tasting with more wine. But my oh my. It was something. You see, many French specialities come in seasons. Vin chaud, or mulled wine, is usually only available in the cold months. So this was one of the places that already had it on the menu. It was the first I tasted of the season and now, months later, I can confirm it was the best I had. 

Vin chaud à la canelle. It comes in a clear glass mug, with sugar packets on the side and a cinnamon stick in the glass. I savoured it. 

At the café, we talked about our teaching jobs and our plans for the rest of the vacation, and soon, it was time to leave. In virtually every French establishment, bathrooms or "WCs" are in the basement. As we walked downstairs to find one, we learned why the café was called a tavern. The basement was an even cooler area, with all the lighting, ambiance and atmosphere you'd expect to find on a nice first date. 

And because I often forget to take pictures in the moment (and usually can't be bothered), you will be left to imagine what it looked like.

So finally, we went to the wine tasting. It was at Les Caves du Louvre. Story goes, it used to be a "royal wine cellar," established by the sommelier of King Louis XV (for my American friends, he was the last guy before they brought out the guillotines). 

Like all really old French things, it was renovated for both capitalist and cultural gain, now touted as an attraction for tourists. This time, I did take photos.

Nowadays, the old Parisian wine center is a far cry from the advent of the French Revolution. You could download an app to guide you through the tour. We all did, and it was wholly confusing so we just wandered through without a guide. 

Did you know an automated wine filling line can produce between 500 and 15,000 bottles an hour? I took a picture of some random sign at the wine tasting with that information, but the math seems off. Why does it vary literally more than 10,000 bottles? 

The sign on bottle output. 

Apparently, corks are made from cork oak trees. Every nine years, you can strip the bark to make corks. 

This sign explains the aging process. Once wine is fermented, it can age anywhere from 3 to 36 months. I learned all this in October and promptly forgot until I found these pictures on my phone. 

Soon, we got to the best part. The actual tasting. A very kind sommelier guided us through a tasting of three wines. 

First was a dry white wine — a Sauvignon Blanc from Val de Loire. It's fresh, the freshness derived from the limestone soil the vines grow in. 

The next wine, also from Val de Loire, was the Côte-roannaise. The sommelier says you're supposed to drink it in the summertime, although we were tasting it in the fall. It's usually paired with fish, and it has a "stoneish" aroma, which also reduces the level of acidity. I actually don't care about any of the sommelier talk and just like drinking wine, but I'm giving a nice little intro for anyone who's curious. 

Last but not least was a wine from the Languedcoc region in the south of France. The wine was called JMF, and it was from 2016. I think this might have been my favorite. This wine, according to the sommelier, was richer and stronger. It was aged in an oak barrel for six months. 

90 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. 10 percent Pinot Noir. 

Cabernet Sauvignon, which comes from Bordeaux, is strong. Pinot Noir, which hales from Burgundy, is light.

An illegible map with wine corresponding to France's regions

JMF — I need to find a bottle of this stuff

We left the caves, and, back out into the light of day, we were all hungry. Someone in the group suggested McDonald's and I silently fumed. No, no, no. I would not be that American who traveled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to eat shitty American food in a culinary mecca like Paris. 

So we ended up at McDonald's. 

I told myself I wouldn't buy anything, but then I thought about it again. I thought about one of my favorite scenes from "Pulp Fiction," and I thought about the title of the first blog I ever made about France. Then I ordered a sandwich. 

"You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Paris?"

Now that I think about it, I haven't had much wine since that tasting. Nowadays when I go out, my friends and I are so broke we look for the cheapest beer on the menu and just go with that.  And now that I inspect the situation further, I guess, if I really loved wine as much as I said I did I would make more of an effort to drink it. But maybe I like it so much, I'm trying not to overdo it.  

It's like that line from my favorite book of short stories. 

"If you love something, let it go. If you don't love something definitely let it go. Basically, drop everything, who cares." 

Mr. Coates in Paris

October continued. I went around the city nonstop. There was always something to see. Something to do. It was a month of exploration and curiosity.

One of my roommates lent me a copy of "Between the World and Me." By Ta-Nehisi Coates. I still haven't finished it, months later. I savor books, dissecting every word, every sentence, every paragraph for the precise meaning, on a quest to know the exact intention of the words, to learn all I can. 

It's like taking the time to get to know a new friend. Being patient to try to understand someone who might not be...well...an open book. 

The words would hit me. I'd have to stop while reading and marvel at them. When he wrote that race is the child, not the father, of racism, I had to take a step back. Take a step back and think about everything I thought I knew, and then realize everything that actually is. 

I'd gather myself, and start reading again. A week or two later, I heard Mr. Coates would be doing a Q-and-A in Paris, at Musée du quai Branly. What are the odds? I wanted to go. 

I kept reading the book, thinking in vain I would finish it before his talk. One day I sat on the couch reading "Between the World and Me" in the living room. I stopped at page 26. 

"I remember sitting in my seventh-grade French class and not having any idea why I was there. I did not know any French people, and nothing around me suggested I ever would. France was a rock rotating in another galaxy around another sun in another sky that I would not cross. Why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom?" 

This was a section where he criticized the school system. A school system that, admittedly, was not the factor that ultimately led him to France. And still, the irony was too much. I could barely process it all.

I ended up going to see Mr. Coates speak. It was October 14. I don't remember much, but there was one thing he said that I wrote down. One thing I wanted to make sure I remembered. 

"If you're going to write. Write true. You have to write from the perspective you came up in." 

He signed book copies and talked to attendees after. There was a long line. I had a question to ask him, and had told my roommate I'd try to get the copy of "Between the World and Me" signed. 

The museum closed before I even neared the front of the line. I went back home, only slightly disappointed.

But I had learned one thing that night. That was enough, I think. 

Two fleeting weeks

Now time blends and swirls together, and I struggle to remember what happened at the beginning of October. I look at my notes.

I took notes whenever something "of note" happened. 

On Oct. 2., a Tuesday., I left my bag on a train. I was coming from orientation, where me and the other English language assistants in my zip code learned the ins and outs of our assignments. (Actually, I was coming from the bar we all went to afterward). It was a purple laptop bag I lost. My laptop wasn't inside. Instead, it was filled with copies of important documents, except one original document that I later found was easier to replace than I expected. Life was not over. But I learned my lesson. 

On a Sunday in October, I heard church bells ringing from my room. I'm a short walk away from the Église Saint-Ouen — an old Catholic church famous for something. You can always find an old Catholic church here famous for something. I remember checking my phone to see what time it was. 10:20. I wondered why the bells wouldn't ring on the hour. It was a foggy, overcast day, and it looked like it had just rained. New friends who I would later lose touch with were already in Paris at Centre Georges Pompidou — museums are free the first Sunday of every month. 

I knew I wouldn't get out of bed early enough to meet them. 

On a Friday night in October — it was Oct. 9, actually — I checked out bars in Paris, the Ninth Arrondissement, with other assistants.  One was called La Comète, on Rue Fauborg Monmartre. I ordered a drink called the AK 47. But when you order, you have to ask for an "ah kah quarante sept."

It was so good I took a picture: Zubrówka, mango, and passion fruit. 

The other bar is called Syphax. It's cheap, and I got a great lime drink called a Caïpirinha. There were bright read tables and black chairs. We sat outside, and, at a nearby table, a man sitting with his friends smoked a cigarette. He politely turned away from his friends when he had to blow out the smoke, blowing it in my direction instead. I remember hearing French trap music coming from the speakers. 

A day later, I went out for "Nuit Blanche," a hyped up night of illuminated art installations around Paris. We actually ended up not really seeing anything, ending the night sitting along the Seine instead. Still, I snapped a few pics though. 

   

       

Some time during these two weeks, I learned euphemisms for curse words. 

In English, it's shoot instead of shit. But in French, it's merrrrcredi (Wednesday) instead of merde (shit).

"Danneuse" is like saying dang instead of damn.

I spend my weekends in Paris. The next weekend, I believe, a group of us were out again, hopping from place to place. We decided we'd try to check out a gay bar, Le Raidd. 

It's in the popular Marais neighborhood. 

The same people who decided Brooklyn was the place to be in New York and the Mission District was the cool part of San Francisco decided the Marais is the new hip neighborhood of Paris. 

The bouncer wouldn't let us in. 

"Trop de filles," he said. Too many girls.  

I live so far away, if I stay out past 12:20, I can't take trains back. Instead, I hop on a night bus I can catch from Saint Lazare. 

That night, I took the night bus back home. Right before the second bus stop in the commune of Pierrelaye, a guy in a red hoodie started falling asleep on the shoulder of the man next to him.  My headphones were in, but, judging by the gestures, it looked like the man offered to switch seats so the sleepy hoodie guy could lean on the window instead. It was 3 a.m.

The hoodie guy declined. Within a few minutes, he was sleeping on the man's shoulder again. Some girls across from him giggled. 

I thought it was sweet. 

Now, looking back, I think of all the strangers' shoulders I've leaned on since arriving. People who might have helped me out, in ways large and small. 

The proprietor's daughter, who brought me the chocolate cake. 

The family friend, who offered me her home when I didn't have one. 

The stranger I haven't met yet, who will help me some time soon. 

It's February, now, as I reflect on all of this. I'm already trying to prepare for the months ahead. My next steps. 

It's winter, but I'm thinking about the summer. And I'm writing about fall. 

My mind split between present, future and past.  

All at once

The next day, the day after I saw Paris again, I was certain I would leave the town of Herblay.

The cold, the dirt, the lack of adequate public transportation. I took a step back and thought about why I'd come to France. To live in a basement in the middle of the woods?

I had just gotten in touch with a family friend, someone who is proof angels exist. She has treated me better than people I've known for years. Friday night She picked me up and I stayed with her in the city of Argenteuil, a bigger town closer to Paris, closer to the train. For the first time since I arrived, I slept somewhere clean and somewhere warm.

I hadn't started work yet, so I had a few more days to look for housing. It was stressful to say the least. It seemed at the time like everything took so long, but my life changed drastically within days. Six days living in Herblay, Two days staying with a family friend in Argenteuil.

In the middle of this transition, I got to visit one of the schools I was working at for the first time. It went well. Things were looking up.

I hate to impose, so I was searching like crazy. Housing Facebook groups. All the online housing sites. leboncoin, lacartedescolocs, appartager.

And suddenly — like my least favorite Drake album — nothing was the same.

But in a good way.

The last place I looked at — an apartment in Saint-Ouen L'Aumône, worked out. I moved in on a Sunday, I remember because directly afterward I hopped on a train. Back to Paris. This time, I headed out to a picnic for all of the other language assistants doing my program.

There, the tribes were formed. Young 20 and 30 something expats, all new to Paris, all trying to make friends before it was too late. Winter was coming, which meant you had to form your social circle before it got so cold no one wanted to go outside.

I hopped from one circle of talking adolescents to the other. I say adolescents because none of us seemed mature just yet, almost like we were all back in college, forming cliques. I ended up going off with a group who tried to find a good Mexican restaurant in Paris.

I ordered a drink while a few of them tried to convince themselves the tacos were not too bad for France. As the night went on, the group thinned out. Soon, four of us found ourselves at a random bar somewhere in Paris.

We got drinks and we all just talked. Edith Piaf played over the speakers. My favorite. A tipsy older man approached our table and I started to sing along to the song.

I can't remember what he said now, I think it might have been some variation of, "Oh shit."

It felt good to sing in public.

At the time, I thought that was one of my best nights in Paris, something I'd hardly forget. Now, I can't nearly recall it as well as I used to. It was the first of many moments I would have in that city.

I took the train back home. Just a week earlier, I was in a basement. Now, in the elevator, I ascended to the 12th floor.

It's been more than four months since then. But now, in Saint-Ouen L'Aumône, the 12th floor is starting to feel like the ground floor.

I'm trying to go higher still.