Mini blog: Weekend "de garde"

In the category of useful French vocabulary is the phrase "de garde" which means "on call." So the pharmacie de garde is the one that's open 24 hours. The maison medicale de garde is the after-hours clinic. And this weekend I am the assistant director de garde. I am free to flâner (that's "roam around without a plan") in Paris but I am checking messages and responding to student emergencies. Here's what I've been up to this weekend other than work:

On Friday morning I came back over to Les Halles to pick up tickets for the Louvre for that night.

The crowded-Metro struggle is real.

At the Les Halles observation deck where you can see the construction project.

I checked out the Louvre courtyard to see where we'd need to enter with our prepaid tickets, because Vicki and Robert and the kids were coming and I didn't want to make them wait and wander around aimlessly. From the courtyard I walked down through the Tuileries with, apparently, every tourist in Paris:

Someone told me once that when it's hot in Paris, you go to a park and put your feet in a basin. I didn't see anyone with their feet actually in the water, but many did have their shoes off.

Looking back toward the Louvre

The green chairs in parks are one of the things I get nostalgic for when I'm not here.

Sometimes it really does seem like translation is unnecessary. 

"Gee, Mildred, what do you think salade de fruits could possibly be?" 

"I dunno, Harold, we'd better skip it. It could be snails or something!"

At the Louvre with Daniel and Vicki's clan I decided not to take pictures but just walk around and look. I did take one pic of the newly restored Winged Victory:

I love the placement of this statue at the top of the staircase so you can see it from far away. It's an arresting focal point. A+ curatorial work, Musée du Louvre.

Daniel took a pic of us in front of the Mona Lisa, but if you want to see it, you'll have to read his blog.

Oh, wait . . . 

The major weekend highlight was seeing the Alvin Ailey dance company at Théatre du Châtelet. They were incredible and the French audience LOVED them. Also, the theatre is gorgeous:

I had this hilarious folding seat on the end of a row. It was pretty comfortable but every time I stood up/sat down I had to do origami.

I am not Alice Jane Knight, obviously. She is my colleague who sold me her ticket.

Anna Pavlova appeared for the first time in Paris at Théatre du Châtelet in 1909. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes also premiered there.

This morning (late) we went to the OTHER Breakfast in America (original/Left Bank version) for brunch and ended up next to a French couple with whom we (Daniel) struck up a conversation. I had to laugh because he grew up in Madagascar and she is Polish and yet like everyone in Paris they grumbled about the problems caused by immigration. In any case it was fun to meet some new people and have a traditional French arm-waving exchange about social issues. Americans are routinely taught not to discuss politics, religion, etc. with foreigners but we (Daniel) have jumped right in on many occasions and never been badly received. Honestly, it's pleasant when compared to the placid "Where are you from? What do you do for a living? Nice weather we're having" of American-style small talk!

This afternoon, the final stage of the Tour de France rides into Paris, so I am going with Vicki's fam and possibly some students. Our heat wave from a few weeks ago has been replaced by fall-like weather: chilly and persistent drizzle. It should be an interesting afternoon--gotta admit it is nice to be wearing long sleeves and socks at the end of July.

Mini Blog: A day to flâner

Daniel and I took advantage of a day on call with no calls to flâner in the Marais and go shopping at Les Halles today. He is looking for some specific things (a suit; shorts with zipper pockets). I am looking for things that are nice to wear and bien soldé.  He was also looking for a cooked breakfast so we went, inevitably, to Breakfast in America. I was not in a hurry to go back--as I've said, I do not go to Paris to eat American food. But he was THRILLED.

(Granted, in this pic he looks more demented than thrilled.)

I've realized that BIA makes me very depaysée. Look around the restaurant, I'm in the U.S. Look out at the street, I'm in Paris. And I cannot figure out what language to speak. 

But the coffee was really good.

On our shopping round we discovered Uniqlo, a store I'd have been better off not knowing about. Something about Uniqlo ticks all my boxes. We also went into the Swatch store where they polished the crystal of his watch to take a scratch out for the princely sum of 0€. We went by the Musée Carnavalet and peeped into the garden; we passed by L'As du Fallafel before the line had started to form. (Unfortunately that was right after BIA, so no falafel for me today.) We tried on clothes and heard many iterations of "So, you are from Québec, right?"

More of the same at Les Halles, a mall that is very comprehensive but also kind of stuffy and airless because it's underground. By midafternoon it was time to take a break for a drink and a snack so we passed through a small pedestrian market and fetched up at a café called Etienne Marcel. Outside it looks like a traditional café but the inside looks like late-series Mad Men with primary colors and molded plastic furniture. It was nice to relax in a quiet place with comfortable seats for a while!

Finally on our way out, I talked Daniel into stopping into St. Eustache, built in the 16th and 17th centuries and then restored in the early 19th after the Revolution:

Chapel of the Virgin

The altar

The organ has 8,000 pipes and is supposed to be the largest in France!

Here is what it sounds like.

The organ keyboard is right out where you can see it.

To cap off this excellent day we had dinner with Dr. Kirk and his wife Betsy at Rouge Pomme, which is becoming our go-to place for dinner/dessert/coffee/a drink. I always get a galette du sarrasin for dinner there but the Kirks both had tartines that looked amazing. Then we bought chocolates at Leonidas for dessert. Say what you want to about Paris but the food is hard to beat. So are the cathedrals and the shopping.

Tomorrow, Vicki and Robert and their kids come over from London. We are going to the Louvre tomorrow night. And on Saturday I am going to see Alvin Ailey at Théatre du Châtelet. It's gonna be an excellent weekend!

Chow Italia, Part 2

It was late by the time we returned from Alberobello on Friday night, so Saturday we blew off a trip to the beach (probably a bad decision, in retrospect) in favor of relaxing, watching Italian TV (i.e. American TV dubbed in Italian, plus some baffling infomercials), and spending time with Karine and Antonio's kittens. In Italian, "kittens" is "gattini." Easy to remember because kittens are teeny!

This is Maurice Ravel.

This is Coco Chanel.

(also pictured: the nifty tile floors in the apartment)

In the afternoon I went with Karine to buy cheese and vegetables at some of the small shops in Corato. The whole weekend was a linguistic and cultural adventure and this may have been the highlight. The man who runs the cheese shop loves Karine so he dished out some fresh mozzarella knots for us to try as soon as we came in the door. Then he chatted with her while taking her order even though there was a line and some people were griping at him to hurry it along. Karine says she is not always accepted everywhere in Corato but obviously she is well beloved at the cheese shop and at the fruit-and-vegetable shop where she got guidance about her lemon trees. It was fun just to tag along even though I couldn't understand everything or contribute much. Karine would just point at me and say "Famiglia!"

That night after serving as Antonio's roadies (broken elevator, music gear up 6 flights of stairs: let's try to forget that this ever happened) we went and got takeout pizza from a place called Pizza Teatro. It was jam-packed and boiling hot with a disorderly queue and one beleaguered waiter rushing back and forth with pizzas for the people eating at the tables outside the restaurant. Naturally, the pizza was delicious. I had a "Caprese" which was black olives, fresh tomatoes, and onion on a thin crust cooked in a brick oven. Worth the wait and the strange drama of ordering and paying there. Afterward I told Karine that it's called Pizza Teatro because they could film a reality show in the restaurant.

It was very interesting being a native English speaker/second-language French speaker on this trip. Daniel and Karine have French as their first language and English as their second. Antonio is a native Italian speaker (of course) with English as his second language and no French. And Karine has learned to speak Italian incredibly well in only a year and a half. So when Daniel, Karine, and I or just Karine and I were together we would speak French because she doesn't get to speak French very often. When the 4 of us were together we would speak English, and I would be the only one without (to my own ears) a melodious accent. But I learned a few words in Italian, such as "Molto bene!" which means "Very good." Lots of things in Italy are molto bene.

Yesterday morning we went to the Adriatic coast for a photo op before heading to the airport. It was very crowded but so pretty!

Cousin love!

Look, I was there!

Soon it was time to take our flight back and our Italian adventure was over. Karine says we need to come for 2 weeks next time so we can travel around. Good idea or GREAT idea? In any case I am so grateful for the warm welcome we received there and the fun and relaxing time we had. Hooray, Italy! 

Chow Italia, Part 1

Daniel and I are back in Paris after a fantastic weekend in Italy with his cousin Karine and her boyfriend Antonio. It was terribly hot the whole time we were there, and neither of us speaks any Italian, and we flew Ryanair, and the whole thing could have been disaster, but instead we had a great time. Karine and Antonio are excellent hosts! Let's click through, shall we?

Les Soldes

People, I'm not going to claim that les soldes are a valid reason to come to study abroad in Paris in the summer. But they are definitely a good side benefit. Les soldes (the sales) are a 5-week (approximately) period around July when stores are allowed to have sales. Believe it or not, over here the government controls this sort of thing. I expect there is another sale period around the holidays but I don't know for sure.

So les soldes are on right now and this afternoon I walked right into the middle of them. I had decided I wanted another scarf although, or more likely because, the one Nancy gave me is great and I've already worn it twice. And I wanted to get some Yves Rocher anti-fatigue foot gel--I love this product and I buy a tube anytime I am near an Yves Rocher. I knew I did not want to spend much money so I thought to go to H&M, which I also love.  I Googled the locations and found that the nearest one was in the 6th on a street called Rue de Rennes. Then I Googled Yves Rocher and behold! They had a location about 3 doors down and across the street. Off I went into the Métro. You can say what you want to about other forms of transit (my colleague Jim's tag line is "I found this great bus!") but I am irrationally attached to subways. Rue de Rennes turned out to be a fair-sized shopping street with a FNAC (electronics), a Zara, and even a Pandora store (who knew?). I hit Yves Rocher and they had a lot of stuff soldé so I got foot gel, lavender shower gel, and a shower puff for under €6. H&M had all their sale stuff on one level, so of course that level was full of people. I jostled around and found a cute sleeveless top as well as a cool scarf: a light peach background with Dia de los Muertos-style skulls on it in black. I'm excited to wear it! Then I went into Marionnaud (Sephora-type store but more fragrances than makeup) just to take a look. I got some perfume from the Couvent des Minimes brand (Mom, take note! Should I get you some hand cream?). Can't wait to wear that either as it is a great citrus scent and I ran out of my C. L. Bigelow Lemon right before I came. Paris is full of undesirable smells at times and I do not want to be one of them!

So that was my dip into les soldes. It was fun and a nice change from the U.S. where Macy's seems to have a "One Day Sale" every day. We are onto you, Macy's!

On a totally different note I spoke to my friend Nicole on the phone today. She was my home stay hostess when I was on study abroad as a student 10 years ago. She lives in Caen (Basse-Normandie, northwest coast of France) and used to be an English teacher but has been retired for a long time. I am planning to go out to visit her for a day, possibly next weekend. I had also raised the idea of bringing some students to visit Normandy and she seemed to think that would work with some help from a couple who are friends of hers, Jean-Alain and Françoise. Jean-Alain is retired from the Regional Council in Caen and Françoise is just a generally energetic person. I will have to see what my students think and who wants to go. They were very interested when I talked about Normandy in class. We have talked about the Norman Conquest and they are starting to understand how long & how deeply the English/Americans and the French have been connected. Plus, Caen is lovely and it would be nice for them to see another part of France.

Tomorrow we have a 2-hour guided tour of the Louvre. That, of course, will be excellent! À bientôt!