Cleaning day and chores 7-15-15

Today is cleaning day (usually Mondays) because we have an appointment for a company to come to the apartment to install smoke alarms.  Our landlady, Carole, had made the appointment before we took possession of the apartment, but for whatever reason it couldn't be scheduled until now.  Do you suppose it's because some of the many calls we received and couldn't understand were earlier attempts?   Who knows, who cares?  It's happening today.

We commence with our next visitors in 5 days, my sister Gail and her husband Peter.  So my chore was to go out and buy tickets to the Musee D'Orsay so that we're not trapped in the line to buy tickets when they are here.   So naturally I headed into town, with a few small diversions, I had to mail the ubiquitous post cards and a small package; then catch the Metro down to Bastille where I got off and walked over to the Marche d'Aligre.   This market runs everyday but Monday and is kind of a fixture in Paris.  If you're short of days in Paris and want to go to a market then this is a good one to see because it's close to the downtown and easy to get to, plus as I mentioned it runs six days a week. After my visit to the market, I headed over to a organic food store very close by and bought a large jar of organic honey, it turns out to be less expensive per unit than the stuff we've been buying in Monoprix.
 
After a bit of lunch I took the bus over to the Musee D'Orsay to buy the tickets.  Once there I decided to take a quick visit and see if they had drawings by Edgar Degas in their collections.  It appears that they don't have a specific collection, so whilst I was there I went in to the special exhibit of Pierre Bonnard, a member of the Nabis, a  post impressionist group during the 20's and 30's.   I've seen some Bonnard work before but I wasn't prepared for the impact of this show.   It is impressive to say the least.  There are a whole range of periods being covered during his career, and a visual feast.
After the exhibit I headed back to the apartment and got there just in time to hear that the smoke alarm had been installed only a short time before and to see the last 45 minutes of today's stage of the tour.


 Bad year for Vincenzo Nibali, last year's winner, who is fading with every stage so far. Chris Froome looks unbeatable but it's a long race and weird things happen.

July 14th

Today is the French version of our July 4th, celebrated to commemorate the revolution of 1789.  It was a quiet day for us.   We watched the national parade down the Champs Elysee on television and that was interesting.   The parade had elements of all the French armed forces, including the Sapiers and Pompiers (the firemen) who are de facto members of the army.  Part of the festivities feature air force flyovers and it was interesting to look out from our deck and see some of the planes flying along before disappearing behind Sacre Coeur. We then watched the next stage of the Tour de France, an obsession of mine although Deb is pretty interested as well.   In the evening we went for dinner at another of the restaurants that were featured when the Parc de la Villette was a major slaughter house.   Deb pronounced the flank steak as the best she's eaten to date.

Take a hard left, RIGHT NOW 7-13-15

We were on our way to see a garden, specifically the Andre Citroen Parc and garden, it has really good plantings and extraordinary outdoor sculpture on one of the old factory plant sites for the Citroen automobile company.  We had just come around on the tram and it was an overcast day so not too hot, ideal for seeing this park.   We walked down the street on our way to the park, when there it was!  A Guinguette!  Guinguettes were rural wine and beer gardens where Parisians of the late 19th century would go on a day out of Paris.  They served as the backdrop for many of the outdoor dancing and party paintings of the Impressionists, such as Renoir and Caillebotte.  So I was very animated in my desire to go to this one, especially as we hadn't had any lunch.

This modern version sits right on the banks of the Seine, just as the originals had, and has a little shack/bar that serves wine and beer as well as soft drinks and cider.  Each day food is provided by an up and coming phenomenon in Paris, food trucks.  They have a schedule of sorts and each day a couple trucks set up and serve food which is consumed at outdoor tables quai side.  They also have a stage where music is performed in the evenings.   We never made it to the park.

Todays trucks were serving burgers and seafood and after looking at the chalkboard menus we opted for the seafood.  They are called Lobster and Company, it is run by a Breton by the name of Stephane and his Russian wife (who unfortunately remains unnamed) and today we Scored!  Deb had a crab and crevette rollup and I had a lobster sandwich in a baguette, both were so good that we had an additional shared lobster rollup as a second course.   Along with that a small carafe of rose wine from the Loire and we dined like royalty.  It was so relaxing that we purchased another carafe of wine and spent the next couple hours in deck chairs just watching the river go by.


 But since Deb is helping our nephew, Marshall, with his chemistry class we had to pull up stakes and make for home in order to make the Skype connection.   This will not be the last time we go to the guinguette, I guarantee.

More Notes of a Novice Traveller 7-12-15

Deb found a special offer for Louvre members for a little museum out in the countryside dedicated to the making of Toile, which is very expensive printed fabric which has been made there since the late 1700's, so it sounded like a great day out.  HA HA HA!

We got out early, great start, and took the metro down to Gare St. Lazare with the intent of making a connection to the RER, a regional train, out to a small town called Jouy en Josas.   As we got there I spotted a train that would take us within two stops of the town and all we would have to do was make a connection on a different branch so we jumped on.  We got out to Versailles Chantier station and left the train as it was going on further out.   We went into the station to find the connecting line and seemed to have dropped off the edge of the known RER world.  We could find not one single reference to the line we wanted, so we went to the information booth to ask the employee where we could make the connection.  He told us and off we went, but unfortunately we misunderstood, so we stood around for several minutes in perplexity, so we went back and he repeated the information and asked if we hadn't just been there.  We had, and so we listened again and then hustled out to the platform that we thought he told us.  A train had just arrived so we jumped on and off we went, but when we got to the next station we realized it was the wrong train in the wrong direction and jumped off.  This time we had to go to the information booth and ask a new person where we should be going, he told us and even wrote it down so we would have something to refer to.  So we went back into the station and couldn't find the platform, AGAIN.

Luckily an amused young woman pointed us in the right direction and we were finally able to get to the station that was our original destination. But it was pin the tail on the donkey for quite a while.





We got off the train and had a lovely walk over to the museum where we presented our Louvre cards for the free tickets, at which point the young women there pointed out that the free day was YESTERDAY!  Argh.  But already being there we just purchased the tickets and had an enjoyable visit that was quite entertaining.  They had many fragments of fabric that they had created over the last 200+ years.  There are some really interesting presentations by artists that have been created in the last few years based on many of the fabric designs.

Luckily we were able to get back to the apartment without any drama, so all in all the day was a success.

Deb's Random Thoughts bis 7-11-15

*** I've read that one of the last traits to be lost as ethnic groups assimilate to another culture are food preferences. Following that trend, we find that from time to time we feel a longing for familiar foods. Tonight we reverted to type and cooked up a couple of cheeseburgers. Admittedly, the cheese was a Basque sheep cheese with dried Basque pimento, and we served the burgers on sliced baguettes with a good red Bordeaux but, hey, they still tasted of home. We can get lovely organic ground beef from a local supplier and keep a bit on hand for "emergencies" like needing a burger.

*** Actually burgers are VERY trendy in Paris at the moment. We even have a burger joint in our neighborhood (besides the ubiquitous McDonalds which the French call MacDoo). But having tried a couple of the fashionable burgers, I can detect almost no resemblance to what I think of as a burger. The flavors are lovely, and I've enjoyed them, but they aren't burgers.

*** A young Frenchman won a stage of the Tour de France today with all of France rooting for him on the last, killer of a hill, the Wall of Brittany. Good for him! He deserved the win, and it's nice to see the home team take an inning. (Thought I'd mix my sport metaphors there a bit in honor of my baseball and cycling loving brother-in-law, Peter.)

*** We get few channels of English speaking TV here, just a couple business and news channels. I think it's a good thing - keeps us honest and watching French language TV. We're regaining our sports vocabulary, watching the Tour de France on local coverage. Not to mention how interesting the coverage is, since they have a cultural commentator who explains the history and cultural importance of the sites the race is going by. Fun to hear the history of the chateau that the helicopter is filming, in between tracking the peloton.

*** The hydrangeas on our terrace are in an absolute blooming frenzy. They look like the familiar snowball bush of Denver, but on steroids. Big balls of tiny creamy flowers, these are about the diameter of soccer balls. I've brought some in for cut flowers. And speaking of flowers I've learned to buy what I see, when I see it, at my local florist. Seems like plants are like most everything else here - lovely quality that may only be available for a short time, and there are all these fragile looking elderly ladies who are circling like sharks to nab the best plants.

*** And back on the topic of terraces, I cleaned the tile on our lovely little red "Pagoda Terrace" where we often eat lunch or breakfast. I'm pretty amazed at how dirty things get here. Must be huge amounts of crud and dirt in the air. It wasn't just a matter of sweeping the tiles, I needed to wash them with hot sudsy water. I guess part of my amazement is that, even if the air is as dirty as I think it must be, my asthma and allergies have been all but non-existent here - such a dandy vacation from them. I guess I'm only allergic to things my system recognizes. But I'm still glad we did our homework and are in one of the lowest pollution areas of the city. It's bad enough here.

*** We get advertising circulars in the mail, and I try to take a look at them to work on my vocabulary, if nothing else, since we don't have any of the large vendors nearby. A recent advert was from E. Leclerc, a big grocery chain, sorta like King Soopers or vaguely Target. I was interested to see one of their promotions was to label the French makers of a whole series of Leclerc's products. The labels indicated the name of the company, the area of France, the founding year of the company, and the number of employees. I've noticed before that all produce and meats are always labelled clearly with their origins, but this is the first time I've seen such detailed labelling. Interesting. Obviously the locavore movement is alive and well in France.

*** Looking at the prices in the circulars, I realize that we are spending more to buy from our little local stores. Can't manage to work up much regret as the quality from our nearby vendors delights me, and we also enjoy the friendly interactions. It's very nice to have your wine vendor remember exactly which wine you bought before, when all you can manage to recall is that you want "that lovely, inexpensive Bordeaux you recommended when my brother-in-law was here." Or to have our cheese monger suggest a house-made, local brie layered with ground pistachios "because you liked that other brie so well." (The pistachio one was to die for, by the way.)

***I keep noticing new aspects of the neighborhood. Just noticed that we have a store nearby that sells carpentry and electrical tools for workmen, and uniforms and safety equipment for them. An interesting contrast to the store that sells handmade, harps for symphony orchestras, the shop that specializes in gifts for bar and bat mitzvahs and the jumbled, rarely open shop that seems to be for clock repairs although we're not sure.

*** Warren would like me to stop babbling and tell you what we did today. We had a leisurely breakfast of tea, croissants, and big, fat, black cherries. Then we wandered out to stroll through a nearby weekend flea market where I bought a silver plate teaspoon for 2 euros to use for our tea sugar, and just because it was so pretty. We came back to watch the Tour de France and enjoy the cool breezes flowing through the apartment. We've be luxuriating in a spell of cooler weather. And, with washing the little terrace floor and making the burgers for dinner, that was today.

*** A postscript - I'm hoping Warren will append some more pictures of Paris Coats of Arms. We've found some more!

The Library at the Hotel de Sens 7-10-15

Yesterday we didn't do anything remarkable, our shopping and the TdF so no entry.   But today we got a sort of early start and went down to the village St. Paul area of town.  It's the area just below the Marais between Rue de Rivoli and the quai along the Seine, it is primarily an area of nice antiques dealers.  But it's also the location of the Hotel de Sens, built in 1475, and now the location of one of the many city research libraries.  It is really a beautiful building and looks the part of a medieval structure.  Interestingly it has a cannonball still imbedded in the front wall from a battle conducted in the 1830's.
We really wanted to see the inside but unless one is an accredited researcher there is no access to the library.  There is however an exception made for visits to see temporary exhibitions so this was our "reason" to visit.  The exhibition presented needlework created to celebrate a series of poems created by a poet, pretty vague huh?  There are no pictures allowed so these are again surreptitious.  The needlework was interesting but frankly it didn't do too much for me.  The building has some very beautiful architectural detail but again I could only get sneaky photos.
The entire area has many little architectural gems; a long section of the 13th century wall fortifications of Phillip Auguste, a 16th century watchtower, a former Jesuit convent, also a really cool 1930 Art Deco building that houses a school dormitory.

A Spaniard in the Works - Velazquez 7-09-15

In Madrid we came to admire the painting of Velazquez very much so when the Grand Palais offered an exhibition of his paintings we jumped at the chance.  Being members of the Louvre the tickets are discounted to us so we added to our already considerable savings on our membership yet again.

When we arrived there was a photographic frenzy outside with paparazzi and video cameras everywhere.  We thought, Oh Great! but it turned out to be models leaving the building from another exhibition on fashion.

Velazquez was very influential during his lifetime but amazingly had only one student, his son-in-law, who was in my opinion only a middling painter.  There were no photos allowed in the exhibition so this image is bad as it came surreptitiously from my Iphone. 

There was one young man who was skulking around the rooms and taking pics but it looked like too much effort.  And since we have pics from Madrid of many of his greatest paintings...    It was once again a bit of a shark tank with wall to wall people cruising around and cutting each other off, but pretty sedately for the most part.   It was fun to see 'old friends' and to see some new works as well, there was one particularly arresting painting of one of the heads of the Inquisition, from a private collection.   I for one would have not wanted to come under his scrutiny, his haughtiness was chilling.

After the exhibition we went across the street to the Petit Palais for lunch at their cafe and from there back to the apartment to catch the finish of the Tour de France.   Many crashes due to wet and windy weather coupled with slick roads.