In the footsteps of the most romantic film in Paris

If there’s one thing that French films have taught me over the years, it’s that the French seem to have a hard time believing in romance. Certainly not the Hollywood kind anyway. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that the most romantic film set in Paris isn’t actually a French one.

I first saw Before Sunset by Richard Linklater when it came out in 2004. I sat in the front row of the Dendy cinema in Newtown (Sydney), squirming with delight throughout the entire screening. Somehow I felt so damn happy watching a film which is basically just two people having a conversation. Everyone clapped loudly at the end of it.

The film opens in Paris nine years after a fateful night in Vienna, depicted so wonderfully in the first movie, Before Sunrise. Now we see Jesse the American (Ethan Hawke), go on to be a writer, reading at Shakespeare & Co. He looks decidedly older and perhaps world-wearier as well. It’s at this bookstore that he’s finally reunited with Celine (Julie Delpy), the woman who inspired the book he wrote. The two haven’t seen each other since the night they spent together.

Lorin Stein from the Paris Review at Shakespeare & Co.

(During my stay in Paris this year in July, I popped along to this legendary bookshop to see the editor of The Paris Review speak. The pic above was taken by the bookstore photographer — that’s me in the back corner on the far right.)

Le Pure Cafe, Paris

A few weeks later, on a gloriously warm and sunny afternoon in August, Josh and I retraced the rest of the film after watching it in our little apartment. Josh, not exactly known for his love of romantic films, watched it for the first time and couldn’t help but feel its magic too.

After Jesse and Celine encounter each other in the bookstore, they go for a walk and end up at typical Parisian cafe. But they have other things on their mind and a lot of ground to cover, so they don’t pay too much attention to their surrounds. Understandable, given how much they have to say to each other, how much catching up they have to do.

It was my friend Gemma who tipped me off about Le Pure Cafe (which is the cafe in the film), and she was totally right to rave about the menu. We had one of our best meals in Paris that afternoon. My entree was tartare de courgettes et tomates confites, which tasted like summer, followed by boudin noir, puree maison et pommes fruits. A modern twist on an old classic: blood sausage.

Tartare de courgettes et tomates

Promenade Plantée in Paris

After Jesse and Celine have coffee, they go for a walk along the Promenade Plantée. It’s a beautiful backdrop for their absorbing conversation; they finally recall the night they spent in Vienna. But what the film doesn’t quite show is the architectural feat that the Promenade actually is. It’s not merely a beautiful garden; it’s actually a parkway built on an old railway. It’s an elevated park surrounded by buildings, the likes of which is found in only a few places in the world. Amazing.

In many ways the first movie, Before Sunrise, was more romantic. Two young strangers meeting on a train and over the course of one night they connect and fall madly in love. And it’s a beautiful fantasy that probably happens from time to time.

But there is so much more depth in the way the fully grown adult versions of those two meet in Paris. They have messier lives, with unresolved questions and a lot of baggage as well. But it’s easier to relate to these flawed beings because we all make mistakes, we couple with the wrong people and we hurt other people whether we try to or not. And all of these reasons is why Before Sunset is so magnificent.

In just over an hour the film shows just how complicated people’s lives can become, so far removed from their younger unencumbered selves; and yet maybe, just maybe, it’s possible for love to bloom again despite everything. That it’s possible for a second chance by the side of the Seine.

The Seine, Paris

Past and present

For the last two days I’ve been recovering from a nasty cold by watching one BBC drama after another, immersing myself in worlds that feel so different to my own: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and finally, Upstairs Downstairs. The latter was a revelation; I thought it would be about class and an insight into the lives of servants, but it’s so much deeper than that. It’s set in the 1930s and touches upon many key moments in history through the lens of a particular household – 165 Eaton Place.

Watching these BBC series has been so inspiring; by demonstrating the power of good tv; the complexities of history and things past; the beauty of writing; the thousands of details that make up a life. I know I’ll continue to turn it all over in my mind while I’m sketching out ideas I have for stories. I feel like I’m going really well with my writing at the moment and chipping away at it seems to be working out. I have another personal essay being published in The Big Issue in the first week of January, this time talking about my family’s experiences with Chinese New Year.

Weekend away in November at Copacabana on the Central Coast

For most people here, this time of year is frantic, and the last gasp before we can all breathe a collective sigh at another year reaching an end. Coming back home in September has cushioned me from the worst impacts of it. I’m continuing to slow down and my main extracurricular activity aside from writing is French and I just finished classes this week. I’m going to commit to another year, punctuated by a trip to New Caledonia half way through. It’ll be my first ever proper island holiday too, so I’m terribly excited. My feet are itchy again, and I can’t believe it’s now been more than six months since I left Thailand and three months since I left Europe. My time abroad feels like a lifetime ago, in the distant past, especially when I am wading in the Pacific or jumping up and down at a music festival. This is the present.

Hello Summer! Last Saturday at Homebake in the Domain.

Ladyhawke at Homebake

Adelaide

My parents started out in Adelaide in 1980, which is where I was born. We left when I was still a baby, leaving behind some of the relatives who had come with my parents to Australia. Despite moving away from Adelaide so long ago, my ties to the city remain reasonably strong, and I visit regularly. This time I also caught up with new and old friends, including a friend I met ten years ago in Canberra who’s just had her first child. I usually go to Adelaide once a year, though my visit last weekend was exactly three years since my last one because of all my travelling.

With regard to travel, I think one of the main reasons I love it is to find out how other people live. Last weekend, spending time with my cousins and their families reminded me that you don’t have to always travel overseas to peer into a totally different life; in so many ways, their very settled lives feel so different to mine. They have kids and husbands and homes to maintain; and then I look at my life, which seems so unsettled in comparison. But I’m trying hard to stand more still, given all the planning for the future here in Sydney.

It’s funny to think how my life might have turned out had we stayed in Adelaide. It’s a beautiful town and has so many things going for it, but it seems so small, with fewer opportunities than a place like Sydney. Spending time in Northern Thailand made me realise just how much of a big city girl I am, complete with big city ambitions. When I found myself bored with the smallness of Chiang Mai I tried to find ways to make it seem bigger than what it was. If I lived in Adelaide, I’d feel the same.

In other news, I’ve now started writing for national magazine The Big Issue. I don’t know why I never thought of it before, because it’s such a natural fit for my personal essays and my deep need to ‘make a difference’ (half of the cover price goes to the vendors that sell them, often men and women who are homeless). I recently submitted a story I wrote a while back, in time for Thanksgiving today, and am over the moon about how the story was published with beautiful illustrations. The story is about celebrating Thanksgiving with my friend Sarah, who passed away from a mental illness in May 2009. It’s a tribute to the friendship we had. The editor of the magazine is keen to see more of my work, so now I’m writing another article about Lunar New Year. I’m really beginning to feel that my writing is moving in the right direction.

I know I sound as busy as ever, but somehow this time round in Sydney the pace of my life is actually far slower. I’ve decided that whatever I undertake from now should be done to count for something, though I’m still not sure exactly where it’s all leading. I’m looking forward to finding out.

From the Eternal City to the Emerald City

I travelled a bit more after Rome, including some old faves – Paris, London, Brussels, Antwerp, Frankfurt, Incheon – but none of it quite compared to the Eternal City. That’s not to say that there weren’t thousands of delights in the rest of Europe, which I’ll have to write about sometime; but mostly I was pretty happy to come back to Sydney life…

…until I got back to Sydney life, that is. The first month back was a bit difficult — a cold Spring, living at home again, and a large dose of post-trip blues. I couldn’t help feeling a bit down even though I kept reminding myself that these were all #firstworldproblems. Coming down from a giddy year and a half also led to me sobering up to the fact that I’m back to a more normal life now so my future travel will only take place within those precious weeks of annual leave. Even after all the travel I’ve done, I’m still far from satisfied. (In fact, I’ve already started planning a round the world trip for next year…)

I’m slowly getting my head around work, which has turned out to be an extremely complex project. But it’s also exciting to work with people that I used to only ‘know’ through the radio. The only downside to all of this is that I don’t have much time for my own creative projects but I’ll definitely get to all that in good time.

The other thing that helped to get me back in the swing of things, was that I was invited onto the team organising the biggest TEDx in Australia. It’s a huge, HUGE honour to be involved with TEDx here. When I ran a TEDx back in Thailand it was simply an idea I wanted to explore without any particular agenda; I had no idea what kind of doors it could open.

So what about Josh? Luckily for us, he landed a great job too, so returned a week after I did. Actually, he’s just come back from two weeks abroad on work trips so he’s already been travelling again. Otherwise, we’re mostly focusing on enjoying Sydney life and getting our apartment ready to move into by the start of December. We even went furniture shopping on the weekend and it wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be.

If you’ve been following my adventures, you’ll know that it’s been an eventful year and a half. Even though I’m essentially the same person I was back in March 2010 when I left for Thailand, somehow I feel completely different as well. I guess I really lived for a while and my eyes were opened up to so many things — and really, that was the whole point of going.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Roman holiday

Rome’s faded grandeur was completely overwhelming and four days in the Eternal City was hardly enough time to do it justice.

The Colosseum

At the end of our brief stay, I felt real regret that I gave such little time to a city – not to mention, country – that I’d dreamed about visiting for so long. From the moment we stepped off that overnight train from Dijon, our days were filled with interesting and stimulating experiences, in no small part due to our friend Stuart who went out of his way to share his great passion for the city he now lives in. We stayed with him and his partner in a wonderful and sprawling four bedroom apartment in the heart of Rome’s old quarter, a stone throw from all the must-see sites that pop out on tourist maps.

Josh and Stuart climbing the steps of the Santa Maria in Aracoeli

However, as my friend Mike would say, Rome is “hella sketchy”. After spending so much time in restrained but beautiful Paris, Rome felt so romantic and free…and dysfunctional! Saying that it has things in common with the developing world is not a total exaggeration, even though there’s still a lot of wealth around. The day before our last, we went out to the westernmost part by the sea to visit some friends based in Lido Nord. At the station in central Rome, Josh inserted his ticket into the machine and passed through the gates without a problem. Meanwhile, I had managed to lose my 1 euro train ticket and stood before the gates going through every conceivable crevice in my handbag. In less than a minute, an Italian family sitting just inside the terminal motioned to Josh to re-use his ticket to get me in. But before he was able to act on their suggestion, a guy who was exiting motioned for me to enter as he was exiting – never mind my ticket, his face and hands said. I thought the entire scene was hilarious and how nice everyone was being – and then we entered the graffiti-saturated and crowded train and I could see why they aided and abetted me to fare evade. Josh immediately had heat-induced visions of the poor Jews who were put in trains to go to concentration camps. I thought it was a completely over-the-top and inappropriate comparison – the trains were bad, but they weren’t that bad – and when we popped out the other end our new Italian friend Stefano commented that didn’t we think that the trains were like something out of Schindler’s List?

Out by the Mediterranean we spent a wonderful day with our friends Rakesh and Vijay, dipping our feet into its warm waters, shopping in stores like Benetton and eating huge amounts of gelato and pizza – the latter being more delicious than anything we found in the city, which apparently isn’t the greatest for cheap Italian food.

Buffalina pizza

In Rome, I saw sites that had only existed in childhood books and my imagination. The most mind-boggling thing about seeing what remains of the Roman Empire is that it really did exist, and that I was able to see thousands of years of history crowding for space in the present. I couldn’t absorb it all because every site was grander than the next, but I did have the recurring thought that what may feel like forever really does pass eventually. Buildings and tombs may last thousands and thousands of years, but not people. So the way things are in the world now will undoubtedly change and as one empire falls, another one rises.

On our last morning, we also squeezed in a few hours inside the Vatican as well as St Paul’s Basilica and the latter in particular felt like a symbol for the Roman Catholic empire. I actually started to feel physically ill seeing so many statues of past popes in the vein of Roman gods and emperors.

The Roman Forum

And thinking of the inevitability of change, I’ll always associate Rome with the time and place where I found out that I landed the dream job I blogged about back in June. So a big change is about to happen in my life. I have a lot of work ahead of me, and still some loose ends to tie up from Chiang Mai and Paris, but I can’t wait; as one chapter of my journey ends, another one begins.