{"id":164,"date":"2021-02-23T22:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T22:01:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-08T20:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T20:28:24","slug":"bonjour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/2021\/02\/23\/bonjour\/","title":{"rendered":"Bonjour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/Bonjour.png\" style=\"margin-left: 1em;margin-right: 1em\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"500\" data-original-width=\"500\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/Bonjour-300x300.png\" width=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about Paris lately.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">In high school I read about all the best writers spending time there, writing, finding their voice. That my favorite book was written by a Frenchman only added to my fascination. I was convinced all the women looked like Isabelle Adjani.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">At nineteen, wandering through this life aimlessly, I considered moving to France to work at Disney Paris. I joined the Air Force instead.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">Less paperwork. Paris would have to wait.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">I finally made it to Paris with <a href=\"https:\/\/thegorgeousblonde.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Gorgeous Blonde<\/a> in 2019.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;text-align: center\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/IMG_20190403_144934.jpg\" style=\"clear: right;margin-bottom: 1em;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"3024\" data-original-width=\"4032\" height=\"240\" src=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/IMG_20190403_144934-300x225.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/>&nbsp;<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">TGB is the best travel partner<\/span><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\"><br \/><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">We did the things one does in Paris. The Louvre. The Eiffel Tower. A ride on the River Seine past Notre Dame.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">We kissed under the Bridge of Sighs.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">Mostly though, we did a lot of nothing. We walked along canals, ate a lot of cheese and baguettes. She wrote while drinking wine and smoking on a Parisian balcony. I smoked and watched her write and drink wine.&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">We said bonjour to everyone we met and got bemused laughs as we stumbled through our bad French.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/IMG_20190401_143428.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em;margin-right: 1em\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" data-original-height=\"1536\" data-original-width=\"2048\" src=\"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/02\/IMG_20190401_143428-300x225.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">I would like to point something out here. Parisians get a bad rap as rude, but that was not our experience. Not remotely. They may be blunt, but as a blunt person, I found it refreshing. No false niceties, just direct communique and a lack of tolerance for bullshit. Even then, I found Parisians to be passionate, and helpful, and so fucking alive in this very moment.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">In fact, before we ever arrived in Paris we met a couple on our cruise who insisted that we contact them once we arrive and they would help us with our journey. Rude? No, most definitely not.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">More than once I found myself thinking about nineteen year old me, wondering if he regrets not getting here sooner.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">But he wouldn&#8217;t have been in Paris with her. And she makes Paris perfect.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">We&#8217;ll get back to that glorious city one day soon. Maybe even stay a bit longer.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">For now I&#8217;ll resign myself to thinking back to that time and look forward to the next time.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\">Bonsoir.&nbsp; <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Special Elite\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>Copyright 2022 Rudy Martinez <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about Paris lately.&nbsp; In high school I read about all the best writers spending time there, writing, finding their voice. That my favorite book was written by a Frenchman only added to my fascination. I was convinced all the women looked like Isabelle Adjani. At nineteen, wandering through this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oxygen_hide_in_design_set":false,"_oxygen_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21],"tags":[121],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paris","category-travel","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rudymartinez.wtf\/stuff-and-nonsense\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}