Monday. Did
nothing. Caught up. Again, the catch up did not include
blogging… Emmy and I did see our first
French Rolls Royce when we were out for the evening walk. Maxine went to Galeries Lafayette for a
fashion show. She chronicles this in a
separate blog post with photos.
Tuesday, Maxine and I did separate things. I started over in the 5th arrondissement. I wanted to go to the Pantheon, even though
the dome is currently shrink wrapped to protect it while they renovate. Coming up to the Pantheon is like walking
along a street, turning the corner, and coming face to face with the US Capitol
Building. The domes are of comparable
size. But, before I bought a ticket and
went inside…
Thirty years ago this month I took my first trip to
Europe. I was dating someone in LA and I
convinced her to come back to NJ to celebrate Xmas with my family. She agreed and then also suggested that,
since we were on the East Coast, we should go to Europe for New Years. So we planned a trip of 3 days in London
followed by 3 in Paris. Probably not the
best time of year for a first trip to Paris, and especially not since we ended
up in a hotel near the Pantheon (you see where this is going…). We were there during the date of my father’s
birthday and had to ask the hotel to put an international call through (that’s
certainly changed!!!) We didn’t know
about busses and the metro was a fairly long walk away. It’s the student area and the students were on
winter break. The city looked pretty
desolate. And, relative to now, there
was much less emphasis on Christmas.
Yet, we went. And our hotel
looked out at the Pantheon – there’s a picture in another blog entry.
Turned out that girlfriend was the right one and we’re
still together (married now). This trip
to Paris is also a marker in that we were here 30 years ago, for New Years
Eve. Not sure yet what we’re going to do
that night, this time around, but it is very pleasant for me to look back to
that first trip, all those years ago, and recognize how incredibly fortunate
I’ve been in very, very, very many ways…
OK… After the Pantheon, which is a majestic building, I
walked by the Sorbonne and then over to Le Jacobine for lunch. I read that their hot chocolate is the
equivalent of Angelina (see last post), but it really isn’t. Close though.
The chocolate was thick enough that, after the mug cooled, I was able to
scrape the hardened chocolate off the sides.
Had a hearty Auvergne salad for lunch with warm potatoes, cheese melted
on bread, and other non-dietetic things for a salad, but excusable given the
temperatures.
Maxine spent the afternoon in the 3rd
arrondissement starting at the Musee d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme (Jewish
Museum). She saw a photo exhibit by the
photographer, Roman Vishniac, showing pre-war World War II Eastern Europe. She followed the cultural experience with
shopping at very interesting shops in the area and then went to a Parler Paris
expat get-together. There was a
presentation by officers from the French Foreign Legion and some interesting people
to talk to. See pictures in Maxine’s
separate blog post.
Tuesday night we
went to a champagne tasting at the American Library. There’s a lesson learned – avoid activities
oriented towards tourists, they’re expensive relative to their value.
Wednesday Maxine and I walked the islands in the center
of Paris, the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St. Louis. The 2 touristic highlights are Notre Dame,
which is an extraordinary cathedral, and St. Chapelle, a smaller cathedral but
no slouch given they’ve got the best stained glass windows I’ve ever seen. We walked around the islands, both to see the
Seine and also to look at the small shops.
Then the rain started so we ran to the restaurant where we planned to eat. Really small.
A single person (woman) who greets you, takes your order, makes the
food, and serves you. Nice meal, but on
the expensive side. (See my point from
the prior paragraph).
After lunch we went over to the old Jewish quarter, the
Marais district, to get Chanukah candles.
They’re in our menorah right now, waiting to be lit tonight, December 16th.
Thursday, more catching up. In the evening went to Shakespeare & Co.
for Christmas carols. It was a fun,
“small” event for expats. I’ve already
written about what affection I hold for Shakespeare & Co and its now
deceased founder, George Whitman… His
daughter is running the place now and she, along with 40-50 people, gathered
outside the store to sing carols together.
They had 2 people with guitars and another couple lead singers, but it
was a homespun event. They had hot
mulled wine and mince pies (I tried one and it turns out they’re fruit pies,
not chopped meat) for everyone. They
also asked for contributions for the “soup kitchen” that one of the girls
volunteers at. The charity serves 900
meals each night. … This is one of the things I’m having a hard
time with on this trip to Paris. There’s
just SO MUCH visible poverty. People
sleeping on outdoor heating grates.
Barefoot men with their hands holding out crumbled paper coffee cups
with a few coins in them. Abject bowing,
face down, humbly and silently looking for donations. Guys living on the streets with their dogs,
even puppies. And tonight a couple with
their small children tucked under a blanket.
The cynic in me questions this a bit, but, even if some of the people
are faking it, this isn’t a way for people to have to live. Especially on cold winter nights. Real food for thought for me.
Maxine’s main activity on Thursday was a foie gras
cooking class. In her pictures post she
has photos from the class. It was a lot
of fun and we now have 2 torchons of foie gras in our refrigerator to enjoy in
the next few weeks.
Friday was another meal with Maxine humoring me. I wanted to make a return trip to one of my 2
favorite craft beer bars, La Fine Mousse.
We got there and their taps were largely occupied by a recent tap
takeover by Del Decato, an Italian craft brewer. So, I had Del Decato’s Luna Mora, a
sour. Maxine had Hintacho’s (Japanese
brewer) Expresso Stout. But, I wasn’t there
for Italian and Japanese beers (there
was only one French beer on tap). Maxine
graciously agreed to take the walk over to Trois 8, my other favorite. It’s less than 10 minutes away from La Fine
Mousse and we finished out the evening there.
I had Brasserie de la Goute D’or’s Triple with coffee (a Parisian
brewer) and Maxine had some fabulous organic red wine from Languedoc. I also got a beer t-shirt for my
collection. We had fun talking to the bartender
who I mistook for English since he was nearly as tall as I am and spoke English
to us with an English (Scottish as it turned out) accent. Surprisingly, he was French and, when Maxine
praised the wine at this beer place, told us they spent a lot of time and
effort sourcing wines as good as the beers they pour.
Our bartender groused about how one of his co-workers at
another bar was Scottish and he could only understand “40% of what he said, and
we were speaking English”. And
complained about how the city name Edinburgh is pronounced, which struck us as
reasonable. I bring this up to mention
something else about languages. At
Bill’s house, I complained about how many French words that either sound or
look the same (or are nearly so) actually have different meanings. One of the other guests, French, pointed out the
challenge to the English language word “spring”, which has 4 meanings that we
can think of.
A couple more random notes:
1. The
incongruity of hearing a street musician, on the metro playing La Bamba.
2. The
difficulty in figuring people out in a foreign world with limited cues. On a metro ride I sat across from someone who
I wouldn’t have guessed had any money, but was wearing Sennheiser headphones.
3. The
ToiletFinder app is useful if you’re out for a long day.
4. As
I mentioned in a prior blog, Paris retail seems to be changing. We’ve seen factory outlet stores (Sympa) and
Clothing by the Kilo stores. New
concepts for this city it seems to us.
5. I
continue to marvel at the basic level of politeness in seeing younger people
give up their seats on the metros and busses for older people. Does that happen in New York?
Finally, a request to anyone reading this. Occasionally we get emails from people who
are reading the blog. It’s really great
to hear from you and to realize that our friends are following our
adventure. Sometimes surprising. So, a request… If you’re reading this and we don’t know it,
could you please email one of us? It
really helps to motivate us (and reduces delays in writing). Thanks!
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