Julien et Sacre Coeur

The other day we met Julien, our encyclopedic guide of Paris. I was told that I would be able to recognize him very easily, although what Ludmilla (our director) offered me was only a vague description of his appearance including that he walked with a cane. However her words served me well and I spotted him as soon as I exited the metro- a petite man in his mid-twenties dressed head-to-toe in black, bedraggled hair extending in every direction, a scraggy uneven mustache, (because his hand was broken and couldn’t shave his mustache easily), and a shiny black cane. He greeted me with a big kind smile and an unforced handshake. Julien is essentially an affable anarichist, who should have lived in the late 19th century, and who works as a ghostwriter – loosely translated he is by far the most intriguing person I’ve met since I’ve been in Paris. He reminds me of a jollier version of a Zola character. I am so fascinated by the way his mind works – the way he smirks mischievously as we walk by three stoic police officers, the way he is constantly either hand-rolling or smoking cigarettes, and his endless stores of knowledge about high culture, history, and virtually EVERYTHING about his city. Naturally, he hates Sacre Coeur, where he took us for our day expedition, and warned us that we were about the enter Disneyland or Hell, although he did consent that it offered a good view of the city, which we had the “right to appreciate.” He speaks of everything in terms of rights, for example, as American students in Paris, we “do NOT have the right” to spend our time under the Eiffel Tower, or we will surely be wasting our visit. He also showed us the way in which you can see the outlines of the different arrondissements, which I hope will become more definite to me by the time I leave Paris!