Foul disproportion?

If you know me well at all, you know I am directionally challenged. I have no internal compass or instinct for finding my way, so I have to use maps and GPS and careful planning when I go somewhere. When I met my classes for the first time I acknowledged this to them right away and told them it meant I would be extra careful planning field trips so that no one would get lost along the way. It has worked so far--on this morning's trip I had to Google-map but only because we emerged on a different side of a Métro station than I anticipated. What's consistently throwing me off about Paris is its proportions. Did I post this statistic the other day? The central city (inside the périphérique) is only 34 square miles. By comparison, the Atlanta metropolitan area (which does include suburbs) is over 8,000 square miles. So everything in Paris is much closer together than we are used to. The close proximity flummoxes me every time. I just can't look at a map of Paris and remember the scale of it. Hopefully I will adjust to this difference after more time around the city.

 I am slowly getting a few benchmarks in my head: I know we are on the southern boundary of the city. I know that the Louvre and the Palais Garnier are within sight of each other. I know that you can get on the 38 bus and end up at the Boulevard St-Michel, from which the cafés we went to today are readily accessible. And now I know that Shakespeare & Co. looks out onto Notre-Dame cathedral. To get there we came through narrow back streets from the St Michel-Notre Dame train station. We popped out alongside the Seine with the cathedral looming and it was a great Paris "wow" moment. Shakespeare & Co. was splendid as well: small and atmospheric and intellectual just like you expect. It was also a relief for all of our brains to be in an anglophone environment for an hour. I bought 2 novels set in Paris, The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke (read 3 pages, laughed at least 5 times) and Grey Cats by Adam Biles (looks vaguely The Road or China Mieville-ish). It turns out that Biles will be at S&Co. on the 26th to promote his book so I'm going to try to go back. I'm also going back tonight to hear Charles Simic read. 

After a good wallow in bibliophilia we went over to the famous Deux Magots and Flore cafés and decided to venture the Flore. We had examined the menu and knew it would be expensive, but I felt it was worth it and the students did too. Nice, basic French food, pretty presentations, better service than I'd been taught to expect. It probably helped that we went before the lunch rush so our waiter had time to deal with our sketchy French and weird requests. All the students said they had a good time and all assured me that they had learned something, so I'm going to call it a success!

On the way back here I needed to answer a call of nature and the automated entrance to the toilette nearest me in Chatelet station was not working. I consulted a nearby RATP employee who was working at a conveniently placed information stand. (God bless the RATP, which has, I suspect, cooked up this info-stand scheme to aid hapless tourists while giving their summer interns something to do.) She sent me through the maze that is Chatelet-Les Halles and I found that the formerly sparkling food market of Les Halles has indeed been turned into a soulless multi-level shopping plaza. With toilets that are not as clean as they should be for €0,50. Live and learn--I'd missed a perfectly good opportunity to tour the ladies' room at the Flore, after all.

When I returned to Cité, I went straight to the library to check my students' most recent blog posts (good job, thanks, guys) and . . . download pictures! So here I present to you:

Giverny: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjGJ1FrK

Le Marais: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjGJ1M74 (the cover photo for this one accidentally turned out to be a falafel sandwich)

Shakespeare & Co. and Café de Flore: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjGLY73w

Enjoy! À bientôt!