Cafe Culture

The best part about the six months I studied abroad in Santiago was this little cafe about a 5 minute walk from where I lived. I went there nearly every day. About 3-4 times per week I actually sat and stayed for a while, and the other days I'd just pick up some bread, cheese and cookies for lunch and then be on my way. I had two favourite times to go: Sunday afternoons and weekdays between 5-6. I always ordered a variation of the following things: mendocinos or mendocinos chicos (those dulce de leche/manjar filled cookies I mentioned in the post on dulce de leche), cafe helado (an amazing ice coffee in a tall milkshake like glass with 2 big scoops of vanilla ice cream and sometimes whip cream on top, see picture below), some other manjar filled pastry, or occasionally bread and cheese. On Sundays, the cafe was open for a few hours in the morning, then it closed from 12-2 and then reopened from 2-6. I would usually go around 2:15 or 2:30, order a cafe helado and write letters.

The cafe was on the corner (which is always ideal, I love corner rooms/corner cafes/ anything that has windows on two sides is great with me!) and had big windows on both sides. My favourite table was right next to the big side windows where I could watch people walk down the street. I almost always went alone to the cafe on Sundays, but during the week I'd either go alone or with C. or L. Unsurprisingly, the women who worked at the cafe knew me. One late weekday afternoon as I got up to leave, my favourite woman who worked there asked me if I was writing a novel as whenever I went to the cafe alone I would spend my time there writing. To this day that memory makes me happy. I never wrote so much in my diary as I did in Santiago. I was unhappy for the a lot of my time there and working through why that was and what I could do about it in my diary was what got me through. That, and C. and L. and cafe helados and manjar, of course. Sometimes there were French people in the cafe too as the French Embassy was about a 10 minute walk away, and I loved when French people were there because I could pretend I was in Paris. Almost all of the good memories I have of Santiago are of sitting in that cafe. Renovations had begun on the cafe just before I left, and when they finished a few months later, L. who stayed in Santiago until December (I left in early August), told me they only served to make the place feel generic. So in that respect I'm glad I never saw the renovations. I wonder if that cafe is even still there, and what it's like now. Do they still sell cafe helados? Do the same women still work there? It's a bit odd to think that it probably only exists in my memory now.

Surprisingly, (to me, anyway) I didn't really have one regular or favourite cafe in Paris. I had favourite cafes all over the city, which I liked because it meant I was usually never far from a place I wanted to go. Having a kir or a glass of wine or a beer after work was one of the most enjoyable and relaxing things I did there. The best part about cafes in Paris (and really anywhere, but I felt it especially there) was that it really made no difference if you went with another person or if you went alone. I could have a fabulous time and then head home (or wherever I was going) feeling content and satisfied whether I'd just spent a few hours talking, or writing/people watching. When L. visited me in July 2007, she wanted to go to Le Dome which was the favourite cafe of Anais Nin and Henry Miller. We spent a wonderful few hours there getting slightly drunk and taking lots of photos (see the wine glasses below). We were also fascinated with this old white hair very distinguished looking man who came in alone all dressed up in a suit with a bow tie, and immediately made himself at home with his crossword puzzle. A year later I was back in Paris and having an hour to kill before meeting a friend, I went in to Le Dome alone for a quick kir. Much to my surprise and joy, that same man was there, again working on a crossword puzzle. A lot had changed for me since I'd been at Le Dome with L. to when I was there alone, and it made me glad that some things - like that old man and his crosswords - were still the same.

When I visited J. in Buenos Aires, we spent probably half (if not more) of my visit in cafes. On 5 of the 7 days I was there, we went to this one particular cafe called Retro right by the Argentine Congress (if you're ever in Buenos Aires, go there!), for hours on end. Buenos Aires, like Paris, has a wonderful cafe culture and sitting there with J. talking, trying to do work, talking, eating these amazing croissants called medialunas which have this delicious sweet glaze and are everywhere in Buenos Aires, and talking some more was so much fun and so relaxing. It also provided a nice peek at Buenos Aires culture. I could have kept going back there every day for at least another week, if not two.

What my trip to Buenos Aires helped make clear is that I'm best at going to cafes when I am on vacation, or when my life is in a carefree, lots of free time, no pressure, no deadlines, nothing pressing phase. Though I took classes in Santiago, I didn't take that many and they weren't a lot of work, so I really did have plenty of time to wile away afternoons in the cafe. Similarly in Paris, nothing was ever so important that it couldn't wait until after I'd gone for a kir (or two...) But since I've been in Montreal, I haven't once gone to a cafe just to sit and hang out. Most of the reason for why not is that I'm very busy with school and I don't get my best work done in cafes - I find all the people/noise/atmosphere too intriguing, and thus too distracting. But, spending hours every day in cafes in Buenos Aires with J. reminded me how much I do love going to cafes, and how I should really try to make time for it in my life. I've already identified a favourite Montreal cafe called Figaro. It is on a corner, has bright big windows, and tiny little tables, and openly acknowledges that it models itself after Parisian cafes (see picture below). I try to go once or twice a month for a meal (I've been for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and I'm determined to go much more regularly, and maybe even actually try to work there in May. Once a person identifies something she likes to do, she should keep doing it. And since I know I love going to cafes, and since I've already even found my favourite cafe in Montreal, I need to start going there more.

Cups of Sugar and other Neighbour Related Things

During her second year in Berkeley, K. moved in to a house on Oregon St., just down the block from Berkeley Bowl. Little did she know when she moved in that a guy named D. lived across the street. They met, they started hanging out, they became (and remain to this day) close friends, and they are my most favourite neighbours becoming friends story. That same year, on the other side of the continent, in a city on a different ocean, L. and 6 other girls moved into the first floor and basement of a house in Halifax. In another happy neighbour story, a group of guys lived on the upper floors of the house, and of course the girls and guys all met, started hanging out, and became friends. Some years after K. and L.'s neighbours turned friends adventures, N. made friends with a downstairs neighbour because they shared a porch and started hanging out on it together. That originally struck me as a cool story... But then I had my own porch in Austin, and didn't start really using it until my next door neighbour moved out (8 months into my living there) and I finally knew I could sit out there without having to run into him! I guess some of us are better sitting on porches either alone, or when already established friends come over.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all neighbourly stories are as pleasant as K., D. and L's. This past fall (spring, there), J. lived in a tiny room in an apt in Buenos Aires above an angry and obnoxious neighbour. J. has lived in Austin, Texas for the last 5 years, and though she's originally from the Empire State (with an I Heart NY t-shirt to prove it) she's become something of a Texas girl, with cowboy boots to prove it. In winter, spring, summer and fall, J. loves to wear those cowboy boots. Her downstairs neighbour, an old lady, didn't like them. So persistently, every night, she banged on her ceiling / J.'s floor, yelling obscenities in Spanish to J. and her boots.

Now fortunately, I've never had as mean a neighbour as J. But nor have I ever become friends with a neighbour either! When I moved in to the Hilgard apt in Berkeley, I was already friends with some guys who lived across the street. One time that spring, T. even had to come over and use my shower because he had a date and his shower was not working! I did feel pretty neighbourly letting him shower, which was nice. It was also wonderful when I lived on Ridge Road and N. lived down the street and L. lived right around the corner. But again, those were all pre-established friends. Excluding those situations, with one notable exception which will be detailed below and which only kind of counts as a cool neighbour story, most of my neighbours have been average or below, and either non-memorable or only memorable in a bad way (like for being weird and slightly creepy for example). My current neighbours - a girlfriend and boyfriend - with whom I share a small stairway, and a landing, and one fairly long wall, and a back fire escape which neither they nor I seem to use, are just kind of annoying. It's not that they do anything really bad, except constantly leave the stairwell light on after they've either gone out or are back inside their apt, but overall they just seem pretty uninteresting, and definitely not friend material.

So my only cool neighbour story comes from the six months I lived in Paris in 2007. I didn't know any of my neighbours who lived in my actual building, although I would always say hi whenever I saw anyone on the stairs. But, because my street - rue des Batignolles - was quite narrow, I could easily see into numerous apts across from the road from mine. And, because that lovely apt was a corner apt, I could see into other apts in two separate buildings in two separate directions. (Slightly related story: there was a window behind the kitchen sink in my Hilgard apt so I had a really great and direct view into this guy's (I was convinced he was a grad student writing his dissertation because he was always at his computer) apt. That is, I had a really great and direct view for the month of September, until, somewhere around the beginning of October, he must have become aware of (and uncomfortable with) my presence and began pulling down the blind whenever I came into my kitchen. One time I actually saw him do it - he just reached behind him and pulled the curtain cord without even taking his eyes off his computer screen. It bummed me out a little, but mostly I was just disappointed I only had his covered window (although sometimes I could make out a silhouette) to stare at while I did the dishes.) Unlike that guy in Berkeley, most of my Parisian neighbours rarely shut either their curtains or their shutters. I never once shut my shutters the entire time I lived there, although my roommate did at night to make her room darker. During the winter, she closed the living room curtains at night to keep the cold out, but once it got warmer we usually left the curtains open all the time. As for my bedroom, I only closed the curtains at night, and often on weekend mornings I would wake up, climb out of bed to pull back the curtains, and then get back into bed and read or go online and enjoy the natural light coming in.

Of all the neighbours who I regularly saw in their windows (and there were quite a few) my favourite was this old man (maybe in his late 70s/early 80s? so quite old) who was a fairly permanent fixture at his window. He lived directly across from my apt and one floor up (he was the third floor and I was the second). I saw him looking out all the time, and liked to think he was the self-appointed neighbourhood watchman. Sometimes we'd both be looking out at the same time and though I felt too shy to wave, I always hoped he'd wave to me. But alas, he only acknowledged my presence once. So April of that year was my favourite April ever (which is saying a lot, because until I was 18, April was my favourite month... it was then surpassed by June, but now I don't really have one, which isn't good because I like having favourite things, but I digress...). The weather that month had to be the most perfect weather ever. I'm pretty sure I remember reading in the newspaper and hearing from other people there that the weather was setting record highs for April. It was in the mid-20s and sunny and perfect for almost 3 weeks in a row. Everyone was in a good mood, the outdoor cafes were packed, on the weekends I went to the park and tanned, along with hundreds of other people, it was lovely. One weekday evening, right at the beginning of the heat wave, I was home alone in my apt with all the windows flung open to help with the heat, when a bunch of flies bugs flew in. I stood in the middle of the room, clapping (trying to frighten them out) and shouting "Get out" to them in English, when I noticed the old man from across the way, looking right at me and laughing. I'd like to say I smiled or waved at him, but instead I felt really embarrassed and quickly ran into the kitchen to escape. Sometimes I wonder about him, is he still alive? is he still keep rue des Batignolles up to its high standards? I hope so.

To conclude, I hope I do make friends with a neighbour one day. My ideal would be to find/have a K. and D. situation, but interestingly, K. hasn't made friends with any neighbours since then... So maybe it's a one time thing for everyone? Here's to hoping I eventually get mine!