Above it all- Part I

So I have finally gotten some pics from P that she took at the carnival. She's been doing well with the pictures...my camera and my computer both stopped functioning within the first week, so F has saved the day by sharing both her camera and her comp. I give the girls credit for imploring me to let them go on the sketchy looking rides and enjoying the carnival after our long museum day, but the selling point was there was a 'Bar' tent where I could sit out the action.
It is not that common for women to sit 'alone' at a bar, but that wasnt going to stop me, of course, and the place was a classic tent with the 'bar' being made up of the plywood shipping boxes from the carnival. There was a woman about my age pouring who I became endeared to when I translated 'white wine' for two loud, pushy American men who were demanding 'Chardonay'. (At a carnival you get red, you get white, and it's out of a box in the fridge.) After they left we shared a giggle. She spoke no English. My French is limited to basic food and beverage vocab. Still, somehow, we had a good time. On starting my second glass of red wine, the temperature inside the tent had dropped and she asked me if I wanted it hot. I thought, did I get that right? Hot? So I said, sure, and she topped off my glass and took it to the steam wand on the espresso machine, brought it back and put a half packet of sugar in it and stirred. Ok, this was heaven. It was fabulous and warmed me up.

There is a jazz festival throughout Paris this month and there was a classic 3 piece Gypsy band with a brunette singer with dangling earrings and swirling skirt that began to play in the tent. In between the gypsy classics (think soundtrack to Chocolat), there was Louis Armstrong's hits, of which only one or two lines in English were known, but repeated over and over. F and P dashed in, rosy cheeked and laughing and asking for more money for more rides. They were like little kids and it made me smile, and the bartendress too when she saw the classic 'Mommy gets out her wallet' move.

The boss of the carnival was a woman about 60, dressed all in white men's clothes (pants, and loafers too,) which matched her white cropped hair and she came over and stood very close to me and spoke in French, welcoming me. Everyone greeted her as they came in the tent and I could tell these folks had been around a long time, and were a summer tradition. I noticed a canvas across the back of the room painted with her portrait and another woman next to her, not a daughter. This gal was perhaps mid 30's, thin and pretty in jeans and pointy cowboy boots, she sang a song with the band and then later as the evening wound down, and the girls had come back to sit and inhale a crepe, she came over to me to ask me to come back again. She flirted with me and I flirted back and in a mixture of Spanish and English and she told me about them.

Nine generations of their family had run this fair. They were Russians and traveled all over, doing a month in different European cities. The rides and games and food and music were all operated by the family or extended members. This was the real deal: carnies, gypsies. Everyone knew each other and had a grand time, laughing, drinking, clapping in time. I felt like we had stumbled onto a family gathering and were lucky guests. My new friend apologized they would have to close early because of the rules of the park (it was 11:00 pm) but as they were drawing the tarps around the tent I guessed fun would continue for quite a bit longer. But we were tired and cold and ready to go. I put down 20 euro for my 16 euro tab and bid fairwell to them all with thanks and assurance we would would return while in Paris. The girls gathered up the trinkets they had 'won' at the game booths and we headed off to the metro. It was an evening you would not find in a travel guide, hospitality as only a family would offer, and a moment where- on the ferris wheel above a twinkling Paris, or sipping hot wine on the rickety boards of a tent bar-we all got to run away with Gypsies.