Yesterday morning began the way it has for the past two days. I woke around nine to find breakfast ready, displayed in an extravagant spread across the white beach table, and the news blaring out of my grammy's humble kitchen television.
I have come to understand that the job of a Floridian weatherman/woman requires little use of specifics. During the winter and spring, the dry season, he/she grossly overuses thesaurus entries related to 'heat' and 'sunshine.' As October lingers closely behind each odd patterned kitchen calendar, rain becomes the word of the day. The rain will always find you at sometime, wherever you are. To their credit, the weather people are always correct, rain does always find its way to the ground, they just never let on to when it will show up to the party. This has come to mean that my grandmother has declared herself some sort of weather psychic like a classier Karen from Mean Girls.
On Wednesday, she was positive it would rain.
She had been wanting to see Woody Allen's {Midnight in Paris} all week, and was set on going to {Silverspot} cinema in Naples. We had a quick lunch at a nearby pub (portobello and goat cheese panini) and stopped in on the odd color organized store down the street, I later learned it was a cult favorite called "Charming Charlie's." After two hours of wandering around in the over baring humidity, which my curly hair was not a fan of, I found myself happily sinking into the world's most cushy theater seat. From the moment the projector began flashing scenes of Paris set to a jazzy french tune the Francophile in me fell acted up and I in love with the city all over again, the same way I had the first time I visited.
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"This is what you do on your very first day in Paris. You get yourself, not a drizzle, but some honest-to-goodness rain, and you find yourself someone really nice and drive her through the Bois de Boulogne in a taxi. The rain’s very important. That’s when Paris smells its sweetest. It’s the damp chestnut trees."
- Audrey Hepburn as Sabrina
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"The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant."
- Honoré de Balzac
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The city was not the only thing that caught my fancy though. The main character essentially has dreams of Paris in the twenties, surrounded by fabulous artists and writers alike, making the costumes divine. Although I was partial to Inez's shirtdress choices, lack of shoe diversity aside, I was taken by the quirky Zelda and lovely Adriana.
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"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
- Ernest Hemmingway
"Everything ends this way in France - everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, burials, swindlings, diplomatic affairs -everything is a pretext for a good dinner."
- Jean Anouilh
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"America is my country and Paris is my hometown."
- Gertrude Stein
The movie was lovely and being partial to F. Scott Fitzgerald and his novel The Great Gatsby, cannot wait for the movie to debut next year, the characters were just as I had imagined they would be. It was wonderfully cast and each person taught Gil, the lost main character, that although we may dream we can never be happy if we do not realize that the present is our greatest gift.
Something I sometimes need reminding of too.
I would give it four out of five crowns, definitely princess approved!