July 21, 2017 (202/365)

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris...then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” - Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

During my birthday week in Paris, I did a lot of "girly" things, but I chose to toast the big day in the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz. The hotel boasts that "Cole Porter would spend up to 9 hours a day in the Hemingway Bar: he's said to have composed Begin the Beguine here. F. Scott Fitzgerald had his favorite seat; Ernest Hemingway and Gary Cooper made it the epicenter of their life in Paris." In fact, in 1944, Hemingway "liberated" the bar of German soldiers by drinking 51 martinis (with his fellow liberators — not just him). I had only one very lovely, very expensive French 75 (to be fair, it did come with olives, almonds, and chips). I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated by the very "macho" Ernest Hemingway, but since high school he has been one of my literary idols. So it's fitting that today's French Friday post, on what would be "Papa's" 118th Birthday, features the Bar Hemingway. Cheers!