Zidane, Ribery, et le Trocadero at Midnight
World Cup 2006: Wandering Europe
SNAPSHOTS:
1. Paris et Les Invalides
3. Aller a Strasbourg
4. The Autobahn and the Art of Happiness
5. What Happened in Berlin
6. My Birthday: Berlin in Summer
7. Back in the Thick of It: Ghana v USA
8. Sam's Army, Cognitive Dissonance, and Facepaint
9. Born in the USA
10. "USA!" he yelled. "USA!"
11. And our best player left the field on a stretcher.
12. We watched happily as the scores of passing Ghanai...
 Midnight (Paris) |
"Welcome to Paris," cried Lourdes Gutierrez, throwing open the door. We had never met. Her accent was American; she had flowing brown hair and an enthusiastic smile. Her astonishing apartment opened up all around, room after room, vibrant paintings and stuffed bookcases lining the walls, oriental rugs carpeting the floors.
"It's 1-0," she said simply. And with that we sat beside her son Dorian and watched France miss chance after chance to increase their lead. Dorian was clad in the jersey of Les Bleus, the French national team, and his eyes were glued to the screen. Lourdes was ever so slightly less intent on the match, occasionally asking me questions about her native city, San Francisco.
Our eyes remained focused on the screen. Zidane and Ribery stood out as eminently talented among the French, as players destined to score momentarily. Time and again, narrowly, they missed. The only thing impressive that I could discern about the South Korean team was its fans. Enthusiastic, red-painted-faces, tip-toe-eager, they stood by the thousands in the stands, singing , swaying, and chanting. The minutes ticked by and the game swung further and further in the French direction, yet the red sea of Korean fans were ultimately not disappointed. In the 81st minute, with 9 minutes left in the match, seemingly inspired by the endless undaunted cheers of his nation, Park Ji Sung found the net and brought Korea level.
Dorian's jaw dropped in horror.
And that's how it ended. France had to settle for a draw, a single point, and wait nearly a week for a match with Togo to hope to advance into the knock-out phase.
"This is really your first time to Paris?" Lourdes asked. She told me she'd fallen in love with the city as a girl and had finally given up the United States altogether in 1998, the year France first won the World Cup, and moved to the city of her dreams.
It is utterly beyond me how the Germans have convinced the soccer players of the planet to begin playing matches at 9:15pm, but so it is. The clock on the wall read 11:30pm, yet it had only been dark for an hour or so. Such is the summer in Europe, with its extreme northern latitude; Paris is a good bit further north than Montreal and thus nearly enjoys the midnight sun in summer.
It was just before midnight when Lourdes gave me a tour of Paris on her motorcycle. I jumped at the chance of course, and soon we were speeding through the golden light of the Parisian boulevards.
In every direction, at every angle, astonishing architecture, ancient stone, towering statues, glorious lights -- it all shone in the intoxicating illuminated nighttime of the eternal City of Light. The streets met and flowed together, along the river, beside parks, over bridges, through sweet-smelling trees. Amazing churches, museums, banks, and plazas rushed by in a blur, seemingly all laid out in precisely the orientation and sequence that would most impress the human eye.
We reached the Trocadero, a vast plaza overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and I gazed at the glowing, world-famous steeple; La Tour Eiffel was illuminated with its own twinkling gold lights which flashed brilliantly -- on-off, on-off -- for several minutes. This pyrotechnics, I learned, signified the stroke of midnight.
We zipped down the Champs Elysees and along the Seine and by Notre Dame and around the Arc de Triomphe, and it all began to blur together - an impossible orgy of gorgeousness I became drunk on.
Paris is much more than a city. Or else I dreamed the whole thing.