Paris: Part I

Starting at L'Arc de Triomphe, a sunlit torrent of traffic and amateur Asian photographers, I wind my way down the Champs-Élysées. I have two missions before midday: locate a poker room and then a hotel. I quickly find Cercle Gaillon, one of the only rooms in Paris without a membership fee, only to find a note on the door explaining it will be closed for two weeks. At this moment I realize I'm dying to play some cards. Maybe it's the thirty six hours of travel, or perhaps it's the urge to start the trip off with a solid win and whisk away all short term cost burdens. Regardless, I lower myself to approaching the Aviation Club of France (ACF) where they charge a 100 Euro annual membership fee. I don't go in, but haggle with the doorman over the dress code: “You change, come back later, non?”

Via metro, I drag my pack to Rue Cler, a perfect Parisian sidestreet complete with cartfulls of local vendibles tumbling out of every shopfront. A true French market. I have found France! And it is thick with Fromageries, Pattiseries, and Boulangeries. On the same street I find a three star hotel and book a couple nights.

Looking to kill a few hours before I return to ACF, I visit the Eiffel Tower, overrated and awash with tourists. Luckily I took a WWI-intensive history course at LSU that gave me an appreciation for its historical significance, which I marvel at for a few moments before pushing on to Monmarte. The cemetery sits in the Northern, hilly sector of Paris, where the Moulin Rouge and the rest of the smut district has sprung up around it. The centuries-old tombs lay on several tiers, gradually stepping up to the edge of the urban basin that has filled in over the years. Monmarte puts New Orleans cemeteries to shame. I think it would be something to sneak in at night, like I used to as teenager, but won’t for many obvious reasons.

From there I head straight to ACF, sports-coat and all. The registration process takes awhile and a fingerprint. The place is small and swanky. Eventually I sit in a 5/10Euro game and play about ten hands. I get it all in preflop with AKs vs KJs vs AA, with even more dead money in around the table (the game is wild). I reload, pick up AK a couple more times but have to give up on terrible flops in four way pots. Then I see a flop five ways with 55. A45r, middle set. Some French businessman donks huge into everyone, and I get in all in with him, for barely more than a minimum raise left in my stack. He has A8s, and it comes 6, 7. I haven’t brought enough cash to put another bullet on the table; I haven’t really even come with much more to spend on the trip. Oops.

The metro is closed so I take an overpriced cab. The only thing I notice on the ride home is that there appears to be a rave at the Eiffel Tower. Supposedly this epileptic display at the great phallic monument happens every night. I couldn’t care less with my face blotted against the cab window. I slowly realize the repercussions of tonight’s loss: a tighter spending allowance, reduced threshold for further gambling, and general emotional malaise. In a sense I’ve been relegated to some ethereal Euro trip losers bracket, but not totally eliminated; although I am the one who forced the variance.

Outside my hotel two drunk skinheads chant, “White powwwwer!” and “Sieg heil!” in thick French accents. It’s off-putting and I cross the street, given that I’m dressed preppier than usual and still have a good amount of cash on me. I’ve heard about the National Front, a borderline-racist political party in France, chiefly concerned with keeping out Muslims. I have no interest in these idiots’ party affiliations, but think it very strange for this encounter to take place openly on the streets of Paris.

I dedicate the next day to the Louvre. To see everything in the museum would take multiple visits, and who knows how long it takes to truly appreciate the entirety of the collection. Louvre management allows non-flash photography in every wing of the museum; needless to say, I went a little trigger happy with my camera. I wander around to a soundtrack of Jesu, Seven Fields of Aphelion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and other lo-fi post rock. The collections of sculptures absolutely floors me. After an hour I’ve only made it through seven or eight rooms. That is how this place works, nearly everything ranks as a masterpiece and deserves some reflection. But there is also a slow fading of my capacity for wonder and awe. You can only see so many consecutive great works of art before becoming desensitized. By the time I reach Mona, I’m thinking cool but why is she so famous again? C’mon be in awe, try try to be in awe...ah there we go. And then it was gone again.

Four hours later I step out into the rain of Jardin de Something Important, operating as the Louvre courtyard. Brain circuits fried, I manage to input a croissant before heading to my bed for a nap. When I wake up I’m going to get my money back from those French bastards at the ACF.