Pizza in Paris

The story of a marriage

Paris 1995

My first impression of Paris was that it was filthy. We got off the overnight train from Germany, having hardly slept, It was early morning, and the city was just waking. We stopped in a café and had croissants and café au lait. We found our hotel, down a little alleyway, and fell asleep.

The sound of Caribbean music woke us. It was dark and we didn’t know where we were, what time, or even day it was. We had slept most of the day and well into the night. We stood at the window and looked at the bar at the end of the alley and watched people dancing to the drums and the rain falling.

We headed into the cold, wet night in search of dinner. It was the time before Yelp (or even the internet, really) and we simply walked the street until we came upon a restaurant we could afford. It was an Italian restaurant, and we ate pizza, looking out the window at the rain. We had been engaged to be married for two days.

Afterwards, we stopped in a small bar and ordered Pernod. The rain had stopped, and we sat outside, shivering, pouring the Pernod into glasses of water. The drinks were as cloudy as the sky as we watched the streetlights sparkle on the wet sidewalks around us.

The next morning, we ate the free breakfast in the basement of our hotel, under brick archways that made me feel like I was eating in either a wine cellar or the catacombs.

These memories had a bigger impact on me than the Eiffel Tower. It was freezing and expensive and there were moments when I felt like Mimi from La Boheme.   

Paris 2023

My second impression of Paris was that it didn’t seem filthy anymore.

We got off a three-hour train ride from Italy, tired but not exhausted. It was no longer the two of us now, but three. Our eighteen-year-old daughter in tow. We all bickered over where to find an Uber.

Eventually, we got a car and went to our hotel. It was nicer than the one we stayed in 28 years ago, but not much bigger. We did not nap. Three of us were sharing a room.

We headed out in search of food, holding iPhones with Maps and Yelp reviews. More bickering as we were all hungry and tired from a day of travel. Again, we found ourselves in an Italian restaurant. Some of us ordered pizza. It was not raining and most decidedly not cold. It was, however, cooler than Italy and we were pleased. Our moods expanded as we ate good food and sipped wine. We were jovial and my daughter and I held hands as we walked back to the hotel, excited to be a family on the brink of adventure in Paris. My husband and I have been married for 27 years.

Although we did not ride the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower like we did last time, we do eat lunch in its shadow, at a Michelin starred restaurant. We told our daughter how we could barely afford bottled water the last time we were in Paris.

My husband looks more handsome now than he did then. For a minute, we are 25-year-old bohemians again. We held hands across the table. Perhaps we will eat pizza in Paris in another 28 years.