Day 20 - Home

Day 20—Friday, May 29, 1992

And so twenty days after we set out to explore France it was time to go home, but first we had one last bit of adventure to attend to—we had to have our last mango in Paris.

We got up real early, packed, and walked to “our” cafe on Rue Cler for a cup of coffee and a croissant. We sat at an outdoor table and took our time, time to take in Rue Cler coming to life. The shops opened, the kids made their way to school, and the sun shined. And after we finished our second cup of coffee, we started back up that street for the last time, and we looked for a mango. Now not only had neither of us ever eaten a mango, we didn’t even know what they looked like; fortunately, thanks to my trusty little French phrase book, we did know the French word for this fruit—it is “la manque.” We stopped in a produce market and found a selection of mangoes, but they were damn near as hard as coconuts. As I said we didn’t know much about mangoes, but surely you didn’t need a saw to eat one. We walked on and the further we did our hope of ever finding a ripe mango diminished. And then we found a perfectly ripe mango, and it cost five bucks. Well, we wouldn’t normally have put up a fin for a piece of fruit we’d never eaten, but these were not normal times, so we bought it. And we sliced it up with my miniature pocket knife, and we ate our first and our last mango in Paris. It tasted pretty good; it was also exceptionally messy.

But now we needed proof, for the doubters, and the cynics, and the unbelievers. Photographic proof. I was a little shy about asking someone to take our picture eating the mango together, so I tried to rig up the camera atop a large trash container. In order to see if the angle was right, I had to put the camera on the trash container lid and look through the view finder, which meant I had to put my nose practically on the lid itself. This really amused a lady passing by; I wish I got a picture of her expression. (Later Sharon and I would joke about how it was our job to closely inspect public trash containers.) Anyway the trash can bit didn’t hold any promise; the angle was all wrong. So I broke down and asked a young oriental woman to take our picture as we delighted in our last mango in Paris. She did, with a telltale smirk, and that was that.

Time to get going. We returned to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and walked to the Air France bus terminal, where we caught a bus to Orly. I could say that clearing customs and boarding our plane was a snap, but do so I would either have to come down with a severe case of amnesia or lie through my teeth, because it wasn’t a snap at all, it was torture (isn’t it always). Enough said—I somehow managed to get my Swiss Army knife on the plane without having to spend the rest of my days in a French prison. We also had time to do a little last minute shopping. And then we flew away.

We left the Eiffel Tower behind, along with a good chunk of money, be it dollars or francs, and we left behind twenty of the most glorious days we’ll ever know, days exploring castles and ancient ruins, driving down peaceful country roads and through robust towns and over mountains that put us closer to heaven than was entirely comforting; days spent along the Loire and the Dordogne and the Rhine, in the Pyrenees and in the Alps, on the beach and on Lac Leman, in museums and in cemeteries where those who died for the France are remembered and in a cellar filled with the best wines on Earth; days meeting people, mostly French people, mostly caring and mostly charming and mostly smiling people; and quite simply days in the city they call the City of Light.

Not bad for a place where they don’t give you butter with your bread, but the bread is legendary, where too many toilets are on the floor, but hey it’s good exercise, where they only serve coffee at select hours of the day, but for coffee that good it’s worth the wait, where they charge you to sit, but then you get a discount if you stand, where road routes vanish in the middle of town, but then who ever said adventure didn’t have a few detours, where service is included in the tab, but who wants to multiply every last bill by fifteen percent anyway, where there is no such thing as a bag of ice, but what better way to stay out of the cold, where somehow two single beds equal a double, but what better way to stay close and warm, where the Styrofoam cooler is undiscovered, but who needs it—there’s no ice, where you can travel hundreds of kilometers and not find a single cold beer, so what, drink a bottle of red. No, not bad at all.

And, as I said, so we left; however, we didn’t leave alone—France, you see, is a fertile country.

The Beginning.

FINAL REFLECTIONS FROM 2020:

The story of our last mango in Paris, along with the shenanigans in Carcassonne and road that didn't go to Mount Blanc tunnel, is one of the most told of this or any trip Sharon and I have taken. It was a zany idea to start. We ran into obstacles at every turn and bumbled our way around each. But in the end, we got our shot.

About the photos, most of the ones in the online version of the 2020 account were taken by me during our travels. The rest, excepting of course the last mango one, I found on the internet. And to those who shot and posted them, I extend my sincere gratitude for allowing me to borrow/appropriate/steal you artistic creations in order to fill in the gaps. If you want them removed, say the word and they’re gone.

About the journal, it was kept while we traveled and revised soon after we got home. I sent it to a few relatives, notably my Grandma Evans, who praised it as she praised everything I ever did in my life. She also questioned how the heck we did what we did in Carcassonne. Marjorie Evans died at home in her sleep a week before her 96 birthday in 2004. I wish I still had her. I'm pretty sure she'd read this version and tell me how much she loved it. As for everyone else, I don't expect many readers, but if you've gotten this far, I tip my hat to you. Thanks so much for taking time to read what I wrote about a time and place that was as good as it gets.

Au revoir, Marc Evans | 3/27/2020