Paris is post coital.

The sex was loud, after lunch. The light is low and long and warm, in a constant state of mid-afternoon. The blood is cooling. Residual static nips at fingers and elbows. Previously coiffed Parisians are adjusting their ties, reattaching thigh highs to suspenders, smacking a lick of paint over every façade. This is Autumn, and they’re due at dinner somewhere in the sixth.

***

Our base for the week is the enigmatic Hotel Marignan. Famous on both sides of my family for being ‘unapologetically one star’, they welcome us as their quaint, antipodean relatives - the ones who always promise to visit and never do. They are (also unapologetically) renovating: a new floor of the stairwell is freshly plastered each day, our room has two door frames, and Ollie and Beth share their bathroom with the workmen. We hope they are not thinking of adding to that star.

Paul, our host, is here. A French Kevin Klein, although his conversation is more Woody Allen. In our first interaction he argues with us that there are far more layers of meaning in the French language than in English. If we are offended, we are all polite enough not to show it. (His right hand shakes now. We are concerned enough not to mention it.)

On our first morning, Tony has an altercation with the elderly breakfast lady. If I didn’t understand a little French I would think that we were about to be evicted. Instead I know that we have merely sat at a four person table without telling her that we are, indeed, a party of four and not the two we appear to be. It is important to have these small interactions in loud French, in front of a room of strangers, accompanied by gestures and chins and low decibel muttering. In true Paris style, Tony is now her favourite guest. She offers to do our washing, makes him an extra dark chocolat-chaud and looks out for me. Mock stern, she pulls my jumper down over my kidneys - “il fait froid!” My mum would thank this woman. No wonder I feel so at home.

But the Australian in us is committing so many faux pas(s?) that we lose count: not ordering an aperitif, selecting the wine before the dish, tipping too high. Still, part of me (the Charteris perhaps?) is hopeful that I might one day blend seamlessly into the French.

For a start, (and this is a very good sign), the mannequins here all have my bum.  Nowhere else on my travels have I ever seen my generous Charteris bum preserved in fiberglass and displayed masterpiece-like behind glass. In addition, most stores in Paris appear to be related to at least one of my passions - food, wine and stationery.

I am also (like every other visitor) under the illusion that I belong on Rue Mouffetard, and I picture myself picking up the necessities here every Saturday before heading back to our little white, fictitious, floor boarded apartment.  It’s a bad habit - attempting to be locals, long before we have earned the right. The street does nothing to halt my obsession with chocolate flavoured carbs either – there is many a shrine to the éclair, nutella crepe and pain au chocolat. We snobbishly rank creperies on whether theirs are freshly made or pre-prepared, French or Lebanese, if they use real Nutella or the poor man’s pate de tartiner.

Most people walk the Moufftard from the bottom and treat themselves to crepes at the top. Instead, we walk from the top, against the tide of people clutching blue and white and aluminum wrapped parcels until we find the source of the flow. Walking down a street packed with cheese and fois gras and fruits and vegetables is much easier if you are also carrying one of these parcels, a cross between a pizza and a burger (and the perfect hangover food).  We tut-tut the crowds, conveniently forgetting for the moment that we are there for exactly the same reason as they are.

***

Before leaving Sydney, I promised myself to let a Parisian cut off all my hair. It seemed like the city for such a responsibility. I made no plans, just asked the Universe and waited it out.

On our first day in Paris, we are wandering down rue Saint-André des Arts and my eye is taken by a window display of various wooden things. “Love!” Tony (knowing the plan) nudges me. Marianne Gray is not a kitchen supplier, but a Coiffure. A well disguised one too. We enter.

An older Russell Brand is drawn, nurse like, to my long wedding locks. He asks me questions in French, I respond in English - although the most important instruction is conveyed without language.  His eyebrows ask - What do you want? I run my fingers through my hair to show its length and make a face. He responds with a nod, a flourish of hands and something like a whinny. 15 minutes later I have been artfully and organically razored, so far from anything by the book. A new look for you, he says, one with love from Paris. As if to prove his point, shopkeepers address me in French for the rest of the day. Perfection.

The Centre Pompidou is showing a Women in Art exhibition. Its intention is not to show how different an exhibition of the work of female artists would be from any other exhibition, but how similar.

Parisians sit in a darkened pavilion, quietly watching a slide show of young love - complete with sweaty first times and enthralling pubic hair. How would this go down anywhere else? They are equally as patient and quiet at another artwork: a micro camera is dragged over a body in monstrous close up, and inserted in various orifices. In the end our nationality doesn’t matter – we all leave when it goes too far up the, uh.

***

At the busiest point of the day, we find ourselves in an underground cellar at a wine and cheese tasting lunch for Beth’s birthday.

We are asked to introduce ourselves, where we’re from and what we want to get out of today. I am a blank canvas from Sydney, Australia. The Americans have a habit of listing their current city, state and home town. And nothing else. “Indianapolis, Indiana, originally Peekskill, New York.” Like Indiana or New York was a country of the world, like any other.  Olivier, our sommelier, picks up on this also. At a map of France’s wine regions he smirks, “and for the Americans in the room-” (insert Wheel of Fortune flourish) “-this is France!”

They get their own back though. Everyone (except us) giggles when Olivier mentions Yellow Tail, “No offence to the Australians!” They nod and smile knowingly. We look genuinely blankly back at them, and then at each other. Later, when the others are distracted by a red, we ask him - in a whisper – what is this ‘Yellow Tail’? Enlightened, we are embarrassed, and disperse a disclaimer around the room – they don’t sell it in Australia.

Hours later, high on tannins and milk solids, we trundle back to the Latin Quarter. Along the way we sympathetically lament the lot of a statue in Paris. They must be so pissed that they ended up in Paris!! Instead of somewhere with more of a monument drought, like Sydney. At home they’d be lauded! Here, they get nothing.

***

By the end of the week we have farewelled Ollie and Beth, and welcomed Benny. He shows us a different Paris, one of clowns and dens, double-cheeked kisses, strangers and vodka. The urge to smoke is overwhelming, but easily sated - passively.

With Benny comes his charming French girl Maya. She is the quintessential Parisienne: petite, brunette, all eyes and fringe, a bow for a mouth. She has a blog, Paris DC (read: d’ici – from here). Benny’s easy ways translate our lunches and dinners, but I am scared of her. A real live French person! There was one day we spent speaking only in French, but it was only in front of Tony that I felt remotely unembarrassed enough to trip and stumble my way through conversation - including a philosophical discussion on the power of confidence - and allowed him to correct my tenses. I shyly avoid her eyes in case she asks me a question – please God, don’t let her ask me a question! In the end she does, about my SLR, and I can only smile and monosyllabically respond. I hope the warmth in my eyes is answer enough.

In the daylight hours, we are keen to get bikes. All week we have admired the suited and heeled taking the hire bikes that line various streets. When we question our host on this system she responds - “Oh no. These bikes are not for you.” Our credit cards are nothing to their machines, but thanks to Benny we circumvent that understanding, and spend a few hours hugging the banks of the Seine. The broken pavers sound xylophonic under our bike wheels. The lock sellers avoid us under le Tour. For a moment, we are riding back to that floor boarded apartment…

In our last conversation with Paul, as we leave the hotel for the Loire, he requests (cheekily) that we don’t come back to Paris until our third or fourth anniversary. The apartment is demolished. Did we do something wrong? we ask. “No, no” he smiles. The French part of him doesn’t mind so much, but the American part of him can’t stand newlyweds. “What can I say? It’s my double personality”.

PHOTOS