Souvenirs

The one thing Mimi most wanted to do in Paris was go up the Eiffel Tower; since when Jen and I lived here, I was pretending to be French, I never deigned to have that experience; so today, we got up and out early in order to avoid the crowds and succeeded well in that effort.

When we arrived at Gustave Eiffel’s masterpiece, there was hardly a line at all for the stairs—by contrast, the queue for the elevator was pretty long—so not only did we get to feel superior for choosing to walk up, we also managed to do so with nary a wait. And frankly, the view was pretty awesome, well worth the climb, and every bit as magnificent as advertised. I was glad to have indulged the kid and done the tourist thing; certainly, it’s a memory of Paris not soon to be forgotten.

The one thing I most wanted to do while we were here, apart from seeing friends and attending the races at Longchamp, was to make a pilgrimage to the shop of arguably the most famous of all the remaining French bicycle constructeurs, Alex Singer.

Yesterday, Mimi and Jen indulged me a long metro ride to the outskirts of Paris—a place called Levallois-Perret—and then a couple mile hike to the semi-industrial street where the Singer shop is to be found and hung with me while I gushed in fractured French to Marcel, who apparently is currently the main builder (at least of racks) for owner Ernest Czuka who, Marcel said, was currently ill and at home.

Marcel took us in the back of the shop, where the frames are made, and we shared a laugh over the hand-drawn design they use, (in contrast to my custom Tournesol, sketched out on a computer), and then, as we were leaving, he kindly gave me an Alex Singer cap (casquette) for free (gratuit!), so far, my one and only souvenir of Paris.