Italianate

There was the tortilla in La Boqueria, jetlagged and with an empty belly. And how I pointed because I was afraid to say things in Spanish or in Catalan or in anything that wasn’t English. And I ate it standing up amidst the stalls of hanging pork legs and lanyards of chiles and wide-eyed staring fish. I thought it was the best market I’d ever seen — no small feat after Provence, after the strawberry sellers in Paris and the guys with tables of mangoes and coconuts halfway across the Pacific. But I liked this better, the colored glass and the narrow lanes and the candy sellers and the intricate sea creatures with spiny, spindly shells.

On the last night in Paris, I visit the Eiffel Tower, because no one can be cynical about the Eiffel Tower, even in February. I went up once, but not to the top. It was closed because of the wind. But I have never really needed to go up, to get the true bird’s eye. Once you have done it from the Tour Montparnasse or the Sacre Coeur, you don’t need to do it again, to see miniscule Paris. Or maybe I’m just leaving things, setting aside Paris experiences to have later. I never want to run out.