Destination Anywhere

People move very, very slowly in Paris right now. With the temperature in the upper 90's, so do we.

As the day went on yesterday, the heat felt even worse, radiating off the buildings and sidewalks. We set out early, walking down rue St. Dominique, and then up to the Seine, crossing over the Pont de l'Alma. Just a few blocks up Avenue President Wilson was a street market, where we bought a few things for lunch. There's a lovely woman there with a stand where she sells vegetables from her land. She gave us a taste of one of her tomatoes, which rival anything I've ever pulled out of the garden. OK, hers were better.

Back across the Seine, and we spent some time poking around the neighborhood, looking at menus outside restaurants, finding the other shops, looking at some wonderful old buildings. By this time, my linen sundress was feeling like a wet parka.

At the apartment we made a cool lunch, and of course I had to take a picture.

This resident of suburbia needs to have a stern talk with her feet. Even though I spend five hours a day on my feet in the classroom and slog through my daily treadmill torture, it is an entirely different matter to trudge around Paris. My very comfortable walking shoes and sandals are no match for Paris's pavement, cobblestones, and packed dirt paths.

After a somewhat late start yesterday (Yes, I was the one who slept till 9, unheard of in my usual life) we headed into the Marais. We revisited the area where we stayed two years ago, and just kept walking in happy circles. We grabbed falafel at L'as du Falafel on rue des Rosiers, and walked over to the little park around the corner to eat on a bench while watching children throw sand at each other. Some things are universal. We were very amused to see the same messy street construction from two years ago. Again, universal. Amorino is still selling creamy gelato, shaped into a rosette on your cone. I enjoyed this little one getting licks from her sister's spoon all down rue des Francs Bourgeois.

We poked into galleries and shops, winding toward the 3rd, and then headed to the Picasso museum late in the afternoon. Larry comments that the Picasso would be a great place to meet women, as it is thronged with women alone or in small groups. I looked at the artwork.

I'll catch up on the Burgundy week at some point with a future post about Autun, and one about the area just north of Tivauche. But we're back in Paris now, so a Paris entry.

After several cloudy, cool, rainy days, it felt almost strange to see blue skies and a bit of sun. Very pretty day. So we went to my favorite market, the Richard Lenoir, just north of Bastille. After that, we were going to the Bois de Vincennes for a picnic and to see the Chateau.

We really didn't need too much, just enough for a picnic and some fruit for breakfasts. But the shopping aspect almost is besides the point, since I don't have to rush to get back home, pick someone up, prepare for work, deal with offspring's homework or social trauma, or have a real life. The people-watching and peering at stands are what we're really here for. This is a great market, crowded; filled with everyone from well-dressed ladies, people of almost every nationality, street kids and bums. And there's a bit of food.

Actually, a whole lot of food. Produce, breads, fish and seafood, meats, cheeses, roasted chickens, olives, salts, charcuterie, spices, herbs, about anything you would want. There's also several stands with people sellig wines, which people were tasting. It's 9:00 in the morning, but, hey.

Monday was cool, with grey skies and the threat of rain. Suitable weather for a walk through Pere-Lachaise, that 19th-century monument to the dead and deader.

Larry grew up in a family where visits to the cemetary are regular occurrances, giving people the chance to visit graves of loved ones, neighbors, friends, and even the unloved but well remembered. There's usually tears from some family, pulling of weeds from around the simple gravestones, and children taught to leave a pebble on visited headstones. My family remembers our dead more through stories, and usually only visits family gravestones when we're burying someone.

Those who buried their dead at Pere-Lachaise certainly expected those stones to be more than simple markers. We wandered around, using the terrible map and worse signs to try to locate some notables along the twisty paths. We found Colette, Rossini, more composers, Moliere, Heloise and Abelard (who, according to story, share a grave but have a barrier between them for "decency's sake.") and of course, Jim Morrison, who had an interesting collection of visitors. After a while, we gave up trying to find those who made history, and just looked at the tombs that caught our eyes.

For the record, please don't stash my bones underneath some gloomily moody grey sculpture. Have a party, and none of that Jewish-funeral deli platter food. Plant me, and then some tomatoes where I can do them some good.

Tuesday is still cool, still cloudy. It drives Larry bonkers that he cannot get an accurate weather forecast in France, with the level of obsessive hour-by-hour detail he's come to expect from the US weather service. Our favorite Paris weather moment was the "sunny" icon on the online forecast when it was pouring outside the window.

After cafe and croissant, we walked over to the new Musee du Quai Branly, that much-discussed museum of non-european art.
In essence, the artifacts and artwork are fabulous, of course. I loved, loved, so much of what I saw. It's a near thing though, and whatever impact the artwork had on me was in spite of the museum's design.

http://www.quaibranly.fr/index.php?id=1&L=1

The exterior, with colored building-block pieces is stunning, and especially that wonderful vertical garden planted with creeping plants and flowers.

The design of the exhibits feels like it was done by a committee of overenthusiastic 13 year olds. You bounce from one geographical or cultural grouping to another. Very little documentation or thoughtful explanation of the "why" behind the materials, beyond the very limited basics. The labels, when you can find them, are often in brown text on brown background. The lighting is dreadful. The glass and badly designed lighting causes so much glare and reflection that many items are extremely difficult to see. And good luck if you're in a wheelchair--the elevators up to the top levels weren't working; and many of the small hidden exhibit rooms didn't have doorways wide enough to allow the person I saw in a wheelchair to get through. In many of those small rooms, the flooring is already buckled and taped.

Don't you just hate the last day of a great trip? You feel unsettled, somewhat sad, have trouble focusing on the here and now; yet feel a degree of anticipation over getting home, being in your own bed, own space. The last day just seems like something to get through.

It reminds me of the last week or two in my classroom, when kids often get quarrelsome or unusually grumpy, and say "I hate this place! It's boring! I hate you!" as a way to say goodbye and have an easier ending that's more on their terms as a positive thing instead of a sadness.

Our last day, we still had so many things we still wanted to do; so of course, did none of them.

I often tell my eldest son Dan that he really was in Paris once. I was newly pregnant 15 years ago, and tagged along with Larry on a business trip to Paris. The morning sickness, dietary restrictions, and first trimester exhaustion made for a somewhat different Paris experience. I recall lots of resting on park benches, seeking out bathrooms, and the occasional frantic dash for a basin. But if you're going to mix wretchedness with sweet new beginnings, Paris is the place for it.

This will be Larry and my sixth trip to Paris, but the first time for Dan and Evan. They're excited to go to the Eiffel Tower, to ride the Batobus, get some gruesome Revolution stories from guide Michael Ozman, and eat a lot of chocolate. We just want to let them experience Paris on their terms, and hope to ingite in them some of our love for the city.

We're staying in what looks to be a very comfortable apartment in the eastern border of the Marais. http://www.jsdeft.com/paris/
Flying on Iceland Air tomorow night, arriving in Paris in the early afternoon. We'll have the laptop and a wifi connection, so I'll try to blog every now and then. I also have a paper to work on, so I'm making no promises!

We've arrived! The flights were very easy, and we all actually slept. The less said about Iceland Air's food, the better. We're still discussing what was in the tofu-textured brown things that were dinner.

The apartment is wonderful. Very spacious and light, with two comfortable bedrooms, kitchen, living room and dining room. We're overlooking the Arsenal Basin, a five minute walk from Bastille.

The Chowderheads earned their name yesterday with a little Parisian adventure. I dunno--"They" say they're bright, but my offspring could have proved them wrong yesterday. It started when we ventured out for a walk. As in most Paris buildings, the elevator here is the size of a phone booth. The boys got in to go downstairs, and Larry and I took the stairs. We got down, and the elevator didn't. Pushing the button a few times didn't get results. We walked up a flight, and heard the boys arguing inside the elevator shaft. The elevator was stuck between floors.

Tuesday morning we pried the boys out of bed so we could go climb the towers at Notre Dame. Since they only let groups of 20 inside at once, there's generally a long line. We arrived before 10, and waited about 20 minutes. As we were in line, Larry spotted a familiar profile--my sister Laura, who had arrived that morning and was walking off her jetlag.

Since I am no fan of tiny twisting stairways (been there, done that, and last time with morning sickness to boot) I went to the park to read while they went up. I eventually met up with them inside, and we went todn to the Crypt, where I've never been. Lots to look at here, with ruins of the Roman and Medieval layers of Paris under Notre Dame.

The boys had been looking forward to Wednesday and their Segway tour. Even so, it was rough going getting them out the door by 9:00. I split off to meet up with Laura and head over to see the Lalique exhibit at the Musee du Luxembourg.

The Lalique exhibit was wonderful, filled with gorgeous art nouveau jewelry, some glassware, and lots of drawings and designs. Getting a good look at some of the display cases meant using some of the techniques I've seen exhibited by the ladies at the markets. Don't give up an inch, and the famous Shoulder Edge and Block. We walked around a bit afterward, popping into shops, getting a cafe, and looking at restaurant menus. We ended up backtracking and eating at Au Gourmand, 22 rue Vaugirard. Laura fulfilled one of her Paris obligations with foie gras, and I started with tiny artichoke ravioli in a chive sauce. Both were excellent. Laura followed with roasted lapin, I had dorade over vegetables. She liked her bunny, I found my fish a bit dull. Ah, well.

On the way back, I managed to steer us going in the wrong direction not once, but twice. And we hadn't even had wine with lunch, since we'd be doing a tasting later. I suspect I'll be hearing about this for a long time.

I met up with Larry and the boys at the apartment. They had a blast on their Segway tour. Larry agreed with the statement that it was more about the Segway than Paris, but that's OK. After a brief training session, they were zipping around on "turtle mode" through Paris. They stopped for lunch in the Tuilleries, and the whole thing lasted over four hours. They rode the Batobus back, making it the boys' third time. Those five-day passes were worth it.

Thursday (again warm and sunny, ho hum) we trooped off to the Louvre. It was fairly crowded, but except for a brief line at Security, we breezed in with our museum passes. Before leaving home I had printed out two of the Louvre's Thematic Walks from their website. Dan really wanted to do the DaVinci Code one, Evan voted for Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. We started with the DaVinci Code. The walk was very interesting, as the writer wanted to show not only the sites and artworks from the book, but how Brown had juggled facts into fiction, and how art historians over the years have spun stories from mis- and over- interpreting artwork. Busted quite a few "facts" from the novel, which was eye-opening for Dan. The guard let the kids get closer to the Mona Lisa, which was nice. Afterward, we walked for what seemed like miles to the Egyptian galleries and did some of that walk before we admitted defeat, and went outside to eat our sandwiches.

We then hopped on the Metro to the left bank for our tour of the kitchen at Gérard Mulot, pastry and chocolate maker!

We had planned on a daytrip to Chantilly to see the Chateau and the Musée Vivant du Cheval. But my goodness, it feels like we've been running all week. We decided instead to just have a low key day, with no plans.

So of course, we ended up running all over the city.

Dan really wanted to use his birthday money from Grandma to get a football shirt, since he's become quite the fan of european soccer. We began by sleeping in. The boys were finally up and ready to leave at 11, and we were literally heading through the door when Dan threw back his arm, rotating for a faked baseball pitch. I was standing just behind him, and his elbow smacked right into the bridge of my nose. I now know what the expression about seeing stars feels like. I spent the next half hour with an icepack on my face, and Dan being once again mortified.