Christmas 2014

What could be more pleasant than this moment?  Yes, this was happiness, there was no other word for it.  To be walking through a beautiful valley on Christmas Day with the laughing children of an old friend who used to kick your ass at tennis and had just kicked it again at Ping-Pong, this was the thing itself, and Steiner, for once, seemed to actually know it.

-Christmas in Paris 2002, Ronald K. Fried

The above doesn't really describe my experience this year, but close enough.  It's from a novel, someone else's imagined experience of visiting France and staying with his college friend from years ago.  

Maxine and I are in Mondonville, a suburb of Toulouse.  In the South of France.  With my college roommate from 35 years ago.  We've just been playing with his daughters.  Bill has never beaten me at tennis or Ping-Pong -- we don't do that.  But, we do sit and talk for hours, which is its own form of recreation.  Also, another form of the word recreation, we're recreating what we used to do all those years ago.  Just talking.  Exploring our differences.  Enjoying the time together.

So, while it's difficult at times (at least for me) to really understand happiness, I'm going to echo the author and call today by that name.  We, Maxine and I, are extremely lucky to live the life we do, and especially  to be here living our own version of what the paragraph above describes.

(Written and posted from Paris before we made the drive south.)

Merry Christmas to all!

Tom & Maxine

Mondonville, France

Friday Dec 19 – Sunday Dec 21

I’m starting to think of Paris -- and probably France too, although I don’t have the same exposure -- as in a very strong transition right now.  I mentioned in an earlier post about the financial “crisis” which still continues.  Everyone reads about how coddled some French workers are.  The 35 hour work week (revised upwards, but in exchange people were given 2 more weeks vacation).  The extremely good social services.  Very early retirement.  And then, of course, the French lifestyle.

But that seems to be changing.  Quicker lunches.  Companies coming up with ways to lay people off.  Businesses that have closed.  New restaurant concepts successfully competing with old ones (more on this in a couple paragraphs…).  What I wonder about is this.  France is one of the largest economies in the world, not a small social experiment.  And the whole “French thing” from lifestyle to employment to food to architecture and beauty, all of it is something that has always struck Maxine and me as apart from our US experience.  But is it changing, and changing to more of a US/21^st century model (I’m treading carefully with my words here to avoid being too pejorative)?  Some portion of that strikes me as inevitable.  If you want to be productive, you’ve got to get more hours out of your workers, all of that.  So, is the France (Paris) that we’ve come here to see an archetype of a lifestyle that is evaporating in the face of exposure to the rest of the world?  I don’t have a conclusion, but I suspect that it is.  And then I wonder what’s left.  Over time is France reduced to a French speaking America, with Gap store and even French *chain* retailers?

OK, enough of that.  Friday, Maxine walked through the 16^th arrondissement to the Musee d’Art Moderne.  They have wonderful Matisse murals which turned out to be closed that day!?*!  But she really enjoyed the Sonia Delaunay special exhibit.  To be honest, she’d never heard of Sonia Delaunay before this but there are posters up all over Paris and this prompted her interest.  Definitely worth seeing.

We went out for dinner to Frenchie’s Bar a Vins, another great wine bar, another of those places that flies in the face of conventional French food.  Waited in line to be seated.  Hung up our own jackets.  We sat at high stools and shared a table (that’s how everyone does it at this place).  No idea who exactly was our waiter.  No table cloth.  A serve-yourself pile of silverware in a basket on the table.  And prices nearly as high (for the total meal) as a Michelin 1 star restaurant.  Yet, we paid it willingly, and we’d go back there again, ahead of the 1 star.  Why, interesting and great food and fun atmosphere versus stuffy and quiet.  This is what I was talking about a couple paragraphs back.  People, young people?, are exploring.  They are breaking out of the mold of what a restaurant “should” be.  They’re creating casual experience.  And, let’s be realistic here, they’re taking money away from the French restaurant establishment.  Last trip, Maxine and I went to a 1 star in Paris every 2 weeks.  This time, only one for the entire trip.  We’re looking for good food, good wine, a comfortable experience, and to feel welcome.  The wine bars, the cocktail bars, the craft beer bars are the ones getting our attention.  (Of course, to counter argue all of this, we had a phenomenal beef bourguignon at a 30 year old restaurant a few weeks ago).

Emmy continues to be the clock that drives our day.  Maxine walks her first thing in the morning.  We switch off on the late afternoon walk.  And I do the 11pm one.  Recall that it’s 65 stairs up to the apartment.  I think I disappoint my dog both when we head out and when we return.  She races ahead of me and is waiting at the far end of the hallway, looking to go outside, way before I get there.  And on the return, she zips up a few stairs, then waits patiently for me to catch up, time and time again till I unlock the door and she races up the last flight of stairs inside the unit, to Maxine.

And the day ended with some more observations on surreality…  In the evening I started watching Love Actually, which if you haven’t seen it, is a movie set in London during the Christmas season.  I got through the first ½ hour which has a lot of scene-setting segments showing London at the holiday.  At one level, this all made sense. After all it is the Christmas season.  But, when I paused the movie and took Emmy outside, as I stepped off the building curb, it struck me.  I’d become engaged in London Christmas for the last ½ hour, but my feet were touching ground in Paris-Christmas.  Once more, I feel fortunate being able to do this trip with Maxine and Emmy…  To conclude things, during the walk, Emmy and I passed the Serbian and Congo embassies.

Saturday was sort of mixed.  I went out for some Christmas vibe, which I got, and some last minute Christmas shopping, which was much more difficult.  By mid-afternoon I was beat and trudging through the streets.  I called Maxine back in the apartment.  I was looking for a magnum of champagne to bring the friends we’re visiting for Christmas.  It’s available everywhere, but we wanted to get a special bottle, and I didn’t see any options during my trudge.  Maxine did a search and, from what she’d found, the “best” place in the city was the one where we’d done the champagne tasting last week.  So, we took the ½ hour, 2 metro lines, trip over there…  And they were out of everything.  And, it was raining despite a 0% probability of rain in the forecast.  I got grumpy and we headed home to a dinner of some cheese, and the foie gras Maxine made!

Sunday we’re getting ready to go out of town.  We’re spending a week in Toulouse with our friends, my friend from college, and his family.  We’re picking up the rental car tomorrow morning and making the 6-7 hour drive down there. So, we’re getting caught up today.  Some more shopping. Getting the blog current before we forget things we’d prefer to remember here.  Packing.  Although tonight we’re both going out.  I’m going to a Philosophy club dinner.  And Maxine is going to a Chanukah menorah lighting and concert.

Monday Dec 15 – Thursday Dec 18

Monday we continued to look for interesting food and drink, focusing on new, rather than traditional places.  We’re just not finding mid-range, traditional French food that’s compelling on this trip.  Instead, we’ve continued to pursue new avenues in the northeast corner of Paris, a cheaper area where younger chefs seem to be experimenting.  So, tonight we went to Le Mary Celeste, another place recommended by Parisbymouth.com.  They labeled it one of their top cocktail bars, but they also gave it very good reviews for small portion (tapas-like) food items.  That sold us.

The food was international fusion.  Nice spice and interesting flavors.  The drinks were interesting, with intriguing ingredients, but I felt that the place I went to 1 ½ weeks ago, Sherry Butt, was better.  So, for a nightcap after dinner, we headed over there.

Everything works easily if the metros are with you.  They were and it was only 15 minutes to the Bastille stop.  But, as the photo shows (the other blog entry) it’s a big metro stop (the photo is of the Bastille area above ground).  So, with the bigger metro stops, the trick is to exit nearest to the direction you want to go.  Here if we’d have flubbed it the walk just to get to the correct starting point (around the radius of a circle) would probably be over ½ mile!  We got it right, but when we got close to Sherry Butt (PS, it’s the name for a storage vehicle, that’s all), I couldn’t actually find it.  Fairly non-descrip entrance, and there’s a photo in the other blog entry.  But, I recognized the bartender outside finishing a cigarette.  He remembered me, we shook hands, then went inside.  I told he that we’d come from Le Mary Celeste and that the drinks weren’t up to his level of taste or craftsmanship.  Interestingly, he praised them and mentioned that he was friends with their bartender.

Tuesday was the first night of Chanukah.  Maxine and I went shopping for her present.  She found a small store (in the northeast) with nice scarves and sweaters when she was out exploring a couple weeks ago.  While she was trying things on, I spoke to the owner (the only person in the store).  Turned out that she had been General Manager of Woolmark’s French operations, until “the crisis” 4 years ago.  “The crisis” is the term several people have used to refer to the economic hit the world took a few years ago.  In France, the hit remains, unemployment is high, and people are worried.  The owner was, as you’d expect, extremely knowledgeable about fabrics.  It seems to have forced a level of entrepreneurship onto the fabric of the city.

After checking things out there, I prevailed on Maxine to try “one more place” that had nice scarves, and was a short bus ride away.  This worked out conveniently for us since it put us adjacent to the core Marais district.  We were able to have falafel once more at L’As du Falafel for lunch.  The scarves at this other place were pieces of art, but not compelling enough, so we went back to La Boutique Extraordinaire and I was happy to get Maxine her presents!  Maxine’s note:  Tom bought me a beautiful, lightweight, reversible cashmere scarf and a very soft merino wool tunic/sweater.  I love both!

From there, Maxine went home to take care of Emmy, who’s really gotten used to being alone for 6-9 hours at a shot, which isn’t something she ever had to deal with in LA.  I went over to the “Grand Magasins” and made my way to the roof deck at Galeries Lafayette.  The weather had cleared up and it was amazing to be outside.  The shopping, however, was discouraging.  Two things.  First, French department stores all seem to be organized by brand.  So, if you want to buy a shirt and aren’t sure which brand, you have to walk to each of the different sections of the store and check out the different manufacturers.  Tedious.  The second reason is that shopping is awfully, discouragingly international.  In other words, if it’s popular here, it’s also popular in the US.  So, not much unique shopping.  And crowded, so I headed home.  We had reservations for a special dinner at Spring as part of our Chanukah celebration.  Maxine will describe the dinner in a separate post with photos.

Wednesday was a quiet day for Maxine since some part of last night’s dinner didn’t agree with her.  We did make one excursion, to do this month’s renewal of our cell phones.  Recall that last month we couldn’t renew online because Bouygues’s website wasn’t working.  Still not…  So, we made the 15 minute walk to the store and had them do it in person.  This time, humorously(!), their credit card processing systems weren’t working either.  So, we paid cash.  And no, this wasn’t a scam.  It’s just ironic that cell phones, certainly reasonably high tech, are supported with such wobbly technology.

In the evening with Maxine resting at home, I decided to do a wander of the city.  We did this a bit in London 2 years ago, pick a bus and let it show us the city.  That, however, worked better for us in London.  We’re just too familiar with Paris for the bus to show us very much new and interesting.  Plus, the busses are designed more for transport and less for sightseeing.  I hopped off at the Hotel de Ville (picture of ice skating and penguins) then tried to get ice cream at Berthillon, but they were closing.  So, I made my way across the Seine and walked over to Shakespeare & Co. 

I’ve written before about the special place that bookstore has for me, based on memories from 20 years ago.  And while it always will, it’s a bit diminished now.  Unless my memory is *really* failing me, they’ve done two things that trouble me.  First, cut the number of rooms dedicated to being “the store”.  Second, they’re much more new book sellers now than used books. But, it’s still a great experience for me in this city.  So, after wandering the stacks for a while I found a leather chair to sit in upstairs, pulled out my iPad, and read 50 pages from the novel I was currently reading.  [Maxine’s note:  yes this is ironic!]  Lovely place to do it!  And, I’ll always have fond memories of the way George Whitman inspired me.

Thursday was tourist day for us!  Eiffel Tower.  Rodin Museum.  Montparnasse.  A drink at a café.  La Defense Christmas Market.  We can’t recall the last time we were up at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but today was a good day for it. So close to Christmas and early in the day – we had no line other than at security.  Little in the way of crowds so we felt like we could stay up top as long as we liked and enjoy the views over the city. We probably were a bit silly as we kept trying to identify from a distance sights that we knew.  But, it was fun. 

And only a short bus ride to the Rodin Museum.  And we do know when we were here last, 1998.  A huge sculpture garden.  But again, I suspect this was the sort of place that could get very crowded in good weather.  The mud was a deterrent for us, but gave us private time in front of just about every sculpture casting except The Thinker.  Interestingly, we found a half dozen lounge chairs and 2 dozen more Luxembourg Garden-style chairs at the far side of the gardens.  We felt a small bit of dismay that we missed coming over earlier in the trip when better weather would have invited us to hang there for a while.

Lunch at one of the many restaurants along Blvd Montparnasse.  It’s an area we don’t know well, but fairly well developed.  There are a number of “famous” restaurants there, but they were all very expensive.  So, we ended up sharing a salad and a croque monsieur at a no-name place instead.  Home for a short break, then we had to take Emmy out for her mid day walk.  Usually we take turns, but one of my remaining trip To Do’s is to take her out for more than just bathroom breaks.  So, we went back to the café down the street.  As before, they were almost surprised that we asked permission to bring Emmy inside.  And literally not one of the 20-30 other patrons who passed our table gave her even the slightest look.  In other words, common place. 

This day was, as I said, a full and touristic one.  We dropped Emmy at the apartment and caught the metro out to La Defense to check out their Christmas market.  We made some friends in Paris who recommended it over the Champs Elysees one and they were right.  Much more interesting stuff to look at and to snack on.  The decorations were also beautiful along the La Defense Esplanade.

A long day!

P.S.  One other thing.  With all the ways Paris has changed, WHY do so many people still smoke cigarettes???

Maxine's Pictures -- Dec 13-18

Looking at these pictures, this may be the most touristy post yet from me.  You'll see what I mean below.  But, first, a picture of Tom and Emmy bundled up for the cold.  I just thought they both looked cute!

On Sunday, Dec 14 we walked around Montmartre and saw famous sites around every turn.

The Montmartre vineyard.  Unfortunately, we arrived in Paris just after the wine festival in October.

Just a pretty scene, so I made Tom pose for me.

On Tuesday night we went to Spring for dinner.  This was on my must-try list and Tom suggested we make this part of our Chanukah celebration.  To be honest, I have mixed feelings about Spring.  The food and service were both outstanding.  But I was really sick the next day and will always associate that with Spring, fair or not.  But let me tell you about the dinner.

I don't have a photo of the amuses -- fried oyster for me, pickled cauliflower for Tom, paper thin slices of Spanish blood sausage with apple, pumpkin with hazelnut.

Our first courses were showered with truffles:  brill fish for me and truffle salad with toast for Tom.

Sauteed foie gras in duck broth

Venison with nasturtium roots and chestnut puree

Cabbage with game -- hare and venison -- and black trumpet mushrooms

There were actually 4 desserts -- lychee ice cream with coconut cream, tropical fruit tart, chocolate gateau, coconut balls.  All but the ice cream are pictured here.

On Thursday, we played tourist in Paris.  These pictures are from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  It's great to be in Paris in the off season.  No lines or crowds that morning.  What great views!

Later that morning, we visited the Rodin Museum.  It's amazing how the Eiffel Tower sneaks into photos everywhere!

Tom's Pictures -- Dec 13-18, part 2

These 2 photos are from the roof deck of the Galeries Lafayette department store.  The weather, while somewhat random, remains "friendly" to our various excursions.

This building is the "Hotel de Ville", or city hall.  Really an amazingly beautiful structure.  Every year at Christmas time, the construct an ice skating rink in front of it.  For some reason, they're also projecting cartoon images of penguins on the HDV, the building behind the skaters.

From the same spot, I look to the right and get a picture of Notre Dame.  I look to the left and the building is shrink wrapped in an Apple iphone 6 advertisement.  Presumably they're paying a lot for this?

Maxine at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Not wanting to be left out (see Hotel de Ville ice rink above), the people who operate the Eiffel Tower built their own rink.  It's on the first level of the tower, so I'm guessing it's one of the highest above ground ice rinks anywhere.  I thought the red model of the tower, with the real structure in the background, was amusing.  As for the skating, it's free too,

Maxine at the Rodin Museum.

Rodin's "The Thinker".  Yes, that one!

And a close up section of his "Gates of Hell"

Emmy and I at the cafe down the street.

Christmas lights on the esplanade at La Defense.  In the far distance, you can see that they frame the Arc du Triomphe.

Tom's Pictures - Dec 13-18, part 1

Two pictures from the Champagne tasting. See, I did describe the room accurately...  Maxine is in the foreground in the second photo -- she'd made friends with the guy pouring for Roederer.  

I'd said the neighborhood by the champagne tasting seemed just a little dicey.  None the less, still a gorgeous city.  Next picture is just a restaurant we passed, 1/2 block down the street.  Picture after it is of the arc is at the end of the street.

Windmill in Montmartre.  The really hilly part of Paris.

The Lapin Agile, which we've never been to.  Although we did see the play years ago.  This too is in Montmartre.

Montmartre is "known" for artists.  Anyway, it's a hangout square where artists sell their works and draw people.  I took this picture because you can see how great a job the artist is doing capturing the guy in the chair!

Experimental new Paris.  This is a restaurant down the street...

...from here.  The best cocktail bar we've been to in Paris and as good as anywhere else (that sounds condescending, but it's really a comment on France being more of a wine country).  It's called "Sherry Butt" (look it up...)

If today you were going to "storm the Bastille", what you'd be doing is charging the glass building in the background.  On the site of the old prison they've build an opera house.

Saturday Dec 13 and Sunday Dec 14

On a roll now, having spent a good portion of Monday, Dec 15^th writing up blog entries and otherwise catching up.  I am NOW, not later, writing up what we did this past weekend.

Saturday we went to an event for French people, and had a fantastic time! Recall a prior blog entry where I talked about tourist oriented things being pricey?  Well, via the website parisbymouth.com I found out about a 10E champagne tasting.  Most of the major houses including Piper Heidsieck, Roederer, Deutz, Bollinger, Perrier-Jouet .  But, I need to set the stage.  As this was a decidedly non-touristic event, it was in an area of the city we hadn’t been before. Dicey enough that we felt really uncomfortable leaving the metro.  Also a little uneasy pulling out my iphone so I could figure out how to walk to the place doing the tasting.  (I’ll leave it at that).  But, off we went and after a couple streets we were at an incongruous-for-the-neighborhood gourmet food and wine/spirits shop.  I greeted someone working there and stumbled through a French language question about the champagne tasting and the guy pointed me towards the back of the store.  Where there was a doorway marked “Prive” (private).  We shrugged and went through to a hallway with the store’s office and beyond that through another door.  That led to an outdoor hallway and beyond that at the far end a room with a wall of windows so we could see perhaps 100 people inside.  OK, at least we found the place, an *old* room with the electrical wiring hanging down from above and held together in bundles with zip ties (apparently the favorite of French electricians since we’ve also seen this in under-remodel metro stations).  We signed in, and then began tasting the approximately 25 different champagnes being poured.  Our goal, unrealized unfortunately, was to find “our” champagne, meaning the one we’d buy on the occasional special occasions when we drink the stuff.  We were able to tell differences in almost every one we tasted, but no one stood out as a “that’s it” experience.  We did, sort of, conclude that Roederer was the best across the board.  And while we’ve got in mind that we need a bottle for New Years Eve, we didn’t buy anything.

We have to concede that we did see several Americans there after all.  A set of 2 couples where one of the guys was 6’4” (if that wasn’t enough of a tell-tale, the fact that they were speaking English locked it), and a guy from Virginia who graduated from UVa and moved here 6 years ago.

To leave the tasting we had to go back through the hallway, the office, and into the store.  Where the marketing rep for one of the Armagnac houses offered us tastes of their 1974 and 1994 releases.  We wandered home…

Sunday wandering took a different meaning.  Our legs are certainly sturdy now.  Maxine told me this morning that we walked 9 miles on Sunday!  We started with an aimless, but picturesque walk through Montmartre. We were there at night the first week we arrived here, but wanted to come back during the day.  It was touristic but fun.  Between 30 and 50 artists out painting portraits or landscapes.  Lots of souvenir stores.  The tremendous views Montmartre is known for.  We went into Sacre Coeur and were surprised to find that they didn’t have any Christmas decorations up.  A nice walk, again aimlessly, but enjoyable on a clear cold day.

From Montmartre we walked downhill to the Rue Des Martyrs foodie area.  We saw beautiful, artisanal food stores – several chocolatiers, the baker who won best baguette in Paris in 2007, an olive oil store, several pastry shops including one specializing in cream puffs in all types of flavors, a jam store with both sweet and savory jam and various flavors of spreadable chocolate.  This further corroborated for us that the most interesting things in Paris are being done not in the mainstream areas, but the fringe ones.  We filled up on a great Italian lunch and made it home to rest.

Because we had plans that evening to meet up with new friends (from Nutley NJ no less) at the British Christmas Carols event we found through meetup.  One of the choralists issued a blanket invitation to come for Christmas carols followed by mulled wine and mince pies (brought over from England!!!)  I should mention that we don’t have a Christmas tree in the apartment.  Originally I thought about getting one but I haven’t missed it at all since in this urban environment (I assume SF and NY would be the same) I’m getting enough exposure to the holiday simply walking around.

After the concert and service, Maxine and I started towards home but decided to stop at the near to our apartment Champs Elysees Christmas market for something to eat.  Here’s where I want to editorialize… I’ve made numerous comments about beer things we’ve done, and Maxine has often observed how good I am at remembering beer related things (in Paris but also at home!).  So, as we were getting close to the Champs Elysees market I asked her what she was interested in eating.  Her unhesitating answer was the tartiflette across the street.  To give you context, first off, I don’t even know the word tartiflette. Second, I didn’t know what it is.  Third, didn’t know that they had it here.  Finally, I certainly had no idea where in the market we’d find it.  The conclusion, Maxine and I have different interests.  Although we did agree to drink 2 glasses of Vin Chaud together that night and the tartiflette was good.

On a different topic, I continue to take Emmy on her night time walks.  It’s been cold enough recently that we’re dressing her in layers -- first her fleece jacket, then her fake down one over it.  I don’t know how she’s get by in the NE U.S.  We rationalize dressing her here like this.  If it’s cold enough for gloves she gets the fleece.  But, if we need hats, she gets both jackets.  It’s a pain getting them both on her but she doesn’t try to take them off.

Anyway, Sunday night I decided that Emmy hadn’t been getting much walking the past 2 days, so we walked past the Iraqi Embassy, the Jordanian Embassy, the Uruguay Embassy and the Quebec Province of Canada’s Ambassador’s residence.  One of the pleasant surprises to this apartment is that, with Avenue Foch so close, we haven’t needed to take Emmy to the Bois du Boulogne for walks.  It’s 15 minutes away and frankly, other things being equal, we’d rather just walk the neighborhood.  And see the Iraqi Embassy and the like…

Maxine's Pictures December 8-12

Monday, December 8th, I went to Galeries Lafayette for a fashion show.  I know we already posted pictures of the inverted glass Christmas tree in the middle of the store under the glass dome but it was so pretty, I had to take more.

Those who know me are probably surprised that I went to a fashion show.  At home I certainly don't spend much time or attention on fashion trends.  But I figured, I'm in Paris. So, why not?  Galeries Lafayette has a weekly fashion show on the top floor of the store.  It's free and you have to reserve in advance.

In case you couldn't tell from the photos, the trends of the season are High Tech (synthe-chic materials), Full Metal (metallic colors and materials), 60s Revival (self-explanatory), and what they called "Pop'timisme" (80's style, street look).  There were only a couple of outfits I could actually imagine wearing.  And the models were unbelievably skinny!

This is the view from the ladies bathroom at Galeries Lafayette.  That is Sacre Coeur in the distance.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to the Parler Paris salon in the Marais.  It was a chance to meet other expats and this salon featured a presentation by officers in the French Foreign Legion.  The Foreign Legion provides a new start for men from over 100 countries.  As long as you tell the truth about your past, they'll accept whatever you may have done.  We met a former legionnaire when we were in Burgundy.  He was a Brit who moved to France after serving.  Now I wish I'd asked this acquaintance  more about his past!

Thursday I took a foie gras cooking class at Cook'n with Class.  Although we can't get foie gras in California anymore, it was fun to learn how to make it a variety of different ways.  This first is seared foie gras wrapped in brioche dough.  It may look a little like a bagel dog but it tasted completely different!

Seared foie gras with caramelized apples and a gastrique (honey and sherry vinegar sauce).  This was a delicious combination of sweet, sour, crunchy and creamy.

Panna cotta foie gras with an almond tuile.  This creamy dessert was about 1/3 foie gras but really I only tasted the vanilla.

The only picture missing is the Torchon of foie gras cooked mi-cuit.  This is the traditional, partially cooked preparation that is served with bread.  I learned that it isn't pate which will always include pork in addition to the foie gras.  It's 100% foie gras and Tom's favorite.  The torchon is in our refrigerator and I'll take a picture when we cut it open.