Un regard ouvert sur la Grande Mosquée

On my first trip to France in 2004 (when I was a student rather than a professor on Study Abroad), we had a little cultural orientation at the beginning of our stay and we learned that Americans have un regard ouvert, which means "an open look." Compared to other cultures we look other people in the eye more readily and we are quicker to presume or create relationships with others whereas the French are more private. We were told about this idea in the context of a warning: be careful about looking people in the eye on the street (it's not done) and be ready for more formality and social distance than you are used to. So over lunch today I told my students about this idea. They readily understood and agreed that it was correct, but also said that they think un regard ouvert is good because it means you're open to new people and situations, and you are willing to take an interest in others. From their perspective, I can't disagree, and they carry their open eyes into our class and our field trips in a very positive way.

So today we took our American openness to the Grande Mosquée and then to its attached café for lunch. Dr. Yahgoobi brought her class to the mosque with us as well. Click through for the details and pictures, s'il vous plaît?

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?

Anatomy of a Steak Tartare

This blog is teetering on the edge of total disarray because so much has been going on that I almost can't keep up with it. In addition to teaching, field trips, and a couple of other fun excursions, I've been to the doctor three times this week with sick or injured faculty or students. THREE TIMES. Today when I sat down in his office, "our" doctor looked at me across the desk and said "Vous savez, nous sommes fermé le dimanche."* Everybody wash your hands and be careful out there, okay?

So in between trips to the doctor's office I have managed to get in some top-quality cultural experiences. Last night with Dr. Kirk's class I saw L'Anatomie de la sensation by Wayne McGregor at the Paris Opera Ballet. It was an incredible experience. I have plenty of background with ballet but none with contemporary ballets such as this one, set to a piece of music titled "Blood on the Floor" and featuring a high-tech movable set. The dancing was simply extraordinary. Contemporary dance is fairly easy to do badly but incredibly evocative when done well. This ballet does not have a storyline but instead focuses on the quality of movement and the shifting relationships among the dancers, so it really shows off the artistry and the technical prowess of the company.  I was thrilled at the opportunity to see it and disappointed when it was over--I probably won't get a chance but I was tempted to attend a second performance just to study the dancing again.

Today's highlight was a visit to Les Tontons with the 4 students who had signed up for my "Dinner Club." Dinner Club is one of the optional activities our program is offering; professors choose a restaurant for dinner and students sign up to go with them. I picked Les Tontons on my Parisian friend's recommendation because their specialty is beef tartare. Two years ago I discovered that I love tartare. Meanwhile, most Americans probably haven't tried it and/or are horrified by the idea of eating uncooked chopped beef. So I was surprised when I posted my Dinner Club on Facebook and 4 students immediately signed up. Three of them ordered tartare poêlé (seared), which I think is cheating, but you have to start somewhere, right? They were all very enthusiastic and everyone cleaned their plates, so I'm calling this Dinner Club a success. Les Tontons is relaxed and friendly, not at all touristique, and of course the food is excellent. Next time I might splurge and get the Tartare A.O.C.--see if my little American palate can tell the difference.

My choice: tartare traditionnel, frites, salade (not pictured: a 1664 en pression and a chocolate mousse for dessert).

The students with their meals.

Tomorrow we go to the Loire Valley to see the châteaux for the weekend. I am so excited. Get ready for LOTS of pictures.

*"You know, we are closed on Sundays." He was teasing me, and in fact I was amused and touched that he cracked a joke because he has seemed very deadpan and shy in the past.

Monday, July 28: Bonus photos

Today was a regular teaching-and-meetings day, highlighted by the news that on our departure day we have to be ready to get on the bus at 2:45 a.m. TWO. FORTY. FIVE. Even if I write that French-style (2h45), it's still appalling. So let's just move on, shall we?

Saturday morning I visited the Musée Marmottan Monet but then didn't have a chance to post the pictures because other stuff came up. Both the building and the collections were donated to the Academie des Beaux-Arts on the deaths of their former owners, including, in the case of the Monet collection, Claude Monet's second son, Michel. People go for the Impressionist collections, of course, but there's also a room full of medieval illuminated manuscripts, and I probably spent the most time looking at those! It's a little off the beaten track, just off a garden called Ranelagh (a tribute to/imitation of the famous 18C English pleasure garden) via the metro stop La Muette on the #9 line. I did not know the neighborhood at all and thus was utterly flummoxed when a couple asked me if I knew where a grocery store was! They turned out to be German tourists so it was definitely the blind leading the blind. At least I redeemed myself today when someone asked me for directions in the metro. We were waiting for a southbound #4 train at Montparnasse-Bienvenue and a man wanted to know if that train would take him to Gare de l'Est. Having just done it on Saturday, I could confidently tell him that he'd need a northbound #4 to go to Gare de l'Est. I felt like a total Paris expert.

Anyway! Here, belatedly, are a few photos from around the Marmottan--none from inside the museum because they are not allowed. Click through . . .

Tuesday, July 22: "Que le paix et le salut soient sur Lui"

Today my World Lit. class took its field trip to the Grande Mosquée and the Arènes de Lutèce. The mosque is beautiful with "Hispano-Mauresque" architecture, mosaic tiles, and calligraphy everwhere. We had this very kind tour guide named Yamina who explained what the different rooms in the mosque were used for and at the same time explained a lot of the basics of Islamic beliefs and rituals. For instance, I did not know (or maybe had forgotten) that the 5-pointed star represents the 5 pillars of Islam. I did know that when Muslims say the name of the prophet Muhammad they follow it by saying a little blessing for him, but I did not know how to say it in French. Now I do, for which please see the title of this post. The tour was entirely in French so I was on translator duty. I think I mostly did well! One thing I am learning is that the person being translated also needs to know how to work with a translator. Yamina was very easy to understand but sometimes she'd tell us a LOT of information and I'd have to try to keep it all in my brain and roll it back out in English. In any case, we learned a lot at the mosque and I was happy to have this new experience. We were allowed to take pictures, which I was not sure about going in, so that was exciting as well.

From the mosque we went to the Arènes de Lutèce, which is right around the corner. It's the other ancient Roman ruins site in Paris in addition to the Thermes de Cluny (now part of the Musée du Moyen-Age). It is an amphitheatre that was built around the first century C.E. and was, as such things frequently are, almost demolished to make way for new construction. To be honest, it isn't much to look at but for an American it's exciting just to visit something that survives from so long ago. I wanted the class to be able to say they had been there!

Afterward we returned to the mosque, which has a café adjoining it, and we made a record amount of couscous, lamb, sausage, chicken, and vegetables disappear in a very short while. Memo to my students: now, if someone asks you if you like North African food, you can say yes! And hot mint tea with sugar--that went down very nicely on what felt to Southerners like a slightly chilly day.

This afternoon after we got back I made a run to Gibert Jeune (huge bookstore with a great stationery section as well), grabbed 2 more Pierre Lemaitre books and a used copy of Notre-Dame de Paris (i.e. The Hunchback of Notre Dame), and ran across a question-and-answer book of Paris trivia called Connaissez-Vous Paris? (Do You Know Paris?) so I grabbed that as well. Someone remind me not to buy any more books here. This makes 6!

Photos after the jump!

Saturday, July 19: Chantilly

Fun language fact: in French, whipped cream is called "Chantilly" (pronounced something like "shawn-tee-yee") because it was supposedly invented, or at least popularized, at the dairy on the Chantilly estate. If you are not into castles, gardens, horses, art, books, or military history, you should go to Chantilly just to have whipped cream at the source. However, if you are like me and you enjoy at least 4 out of those 6 other things, you can skip the whipped cream and have plenty of other stuff to look at instead. Chantilly is the château-turned-museum that was passed down from Anne de Montmorency to Henri II de Montmorency to the Grand Condé (Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé), destroyed in the French Revolution, and ultimately rebuilt and donated to the Institut de France by Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale. The Duke insisted that the artwork remain as he had hung it and not be rearranged within the château, sold, or loaned to other museums. So, for instance, if you want to see Raphael's "Three Graces," you have to come to Chantilly.

The château also features a library of thousands of printed books, several hundred incunabula, and about 300 medieval manuscripts including Les très riches heures of the Duc du Berry (sadly, only a facsimile of the latter work is displayed in order to preserve the condition of the original). Chantilly also features the Great Stables (the Grand Condé thought he would be reincarnated as a horse, and built accordingly), a hamlet (faux-rustic village as at Versailles) and a Le Nôtre-designed garden. In short, Chantilly checks all my boxes. My only regret is that I didn't get to spend more time there: 4 hours including a relaxed café lunch with one of our students. I took a good walk through the château and got lots of pictures inside and out, but did not make it to the hamlet and our tickets did not cover the Great Stables. However, as I've been telling our students, you have to believe that you will come back and hold some things in reserve for the next trip.

So . . . who wants to see some photos? Click through! Actually, get a sandwich and then click through. There are a LOT of pictures.

Friday, July 18: Cultural experiences are everywhere.

It's been quiet-ish on this blog this week because I have been busy handling some problems that students were having, and for obvious reasons of privacy I can't say much about the specifics. But I have been thinking about it and I feel okay saying that I've accompanied students to the doctor's office two days in a row, so now I know what at least one Parisian doctor's office is like and what at least one Parisian doctor (we'll call him Dr. Garnier because that's his name) is like. When students need to go to the doctor, one of us assistant directors always goes with him/her, mostly for translation purposes. It would likely be possible to find an English-speaking doctor but the program has worked with the same cabinet medical for a few years and they have been great about same-day appointments and generally giving good care, so we do this instead.

However, yesterday we could not get an appointment with the regular doctor till late evening--it is summer and everyone, including doctors, is taking vacations. We wanted to be seen sooner if possible so I did some digging and found a cabinet that takes walk-ins. One of the regular doctors there is at least nominally Anglophone but he was (guess what) on vacation, so we saw Dr. Garnier, the replacement. The office was very bare-bones compared to what we are used to at home: no front desk, no receptionist, no nurses, just a waiting room, a couple of exam rooms, and presumably a couple of other spaces. Everything was perfectly clean and nice but not at all fancy. No TV in the waiting room (thank God, says this blogger), no paintings on the exam room walls.

Since it was all walk-ins, Dr. Garnier would escort the previous patient out and stick his head into the waiting room to ask who was next. When it was our turn we went into the exam room and he took the patient's name and date of birth, then asked about the problem. He asked lots of questions, explained things really well, and probably spent 20-30 minutes with us each time I was there. He did not automatically do the routine things that a nurse or medical assistant does at every single appointment I've ever been to back home like take the patient's weight or blood pressure. I don't know if that's because he was flying solo or if it's always like that. He asked about symptoms and then did only what needed to be done based on what the patient told him.

At the end he printed out a prescription and also gave us a form that we will turn in to our insurance (special coverage that students get as part of the program package, to cover them while abroad) but I think is normally used for something to do with France's national health care system. The office visit was 23€. Twenty-three euro! At the current exchange rate that's $31.11. Not much more than a lot of people's co-pays. I wonder if he still gets paid something by the national system for seeing foreign patients who pay at the time of the visit? Prescriptions were also very inexpensive.

Both students who saw Dr. Garnier said he was very nice, and I agree. He explained the diagnosis and treatment thoroughly and he was conscientious about speaking slowly (and using small words when necessary) so that we could understand him. To be honest I also thought the atmosphere of the office was nice. It was less polished and "professional" than a lot of doctor's offices but it was quiet and not bustling with a million staff members and phones ringing off the wall. Even as walk-ins we waited less than I've often waited for appointments, and there was no fooling around with waiting in the waiting room, then going into an exam room where the nurse takes your blood pressure and then you wait another 15 minutes (especially annoying at the gynecologist, where you wait another 15 minutes while wearing a paper smock).

So, to sum up: A+++, would go to the doctor again except I hope we don't have to. Everybody wash your hands regularly, eat healthy, and get some sleep!

Tuesday, July 15: Musée du Quai Branly and Paris Opera Ballet (now with 100% fewer strikes!)

Tuesday was a huge day. In the morning I took my class to the Musée du Quai Branly, "the museum where cultures dialogue." It's a large museum focused on non-European art and artifacts and some innovative temporary exhibitions. One of the current ones is on tattoos and tattoo artists and that was incredibly cool to see. I did not get to spend enough time at the Quai Branly and would like to go back if time permits. I think the students liked it as well--if nothing else it's a nice break from marble statues and Impressionism. They came up with smart things to say about the stuff that they saw and the values that multiple cultures seem to have in common. It turns out that everybody is interested in birth, death, marriage, and social standing. Not a surprise but I'm glad they noticed!

In the evening I went with Dr. Kirk's Music Appreciation class to see Roland Petit's ballet Notre Dame de Paris at the Opéra Bastille. I hadn't been to the Bastille before, only the Garnier. If the Garnier is the old world, the Bastille is the new. It reminded me of the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas. And then the dancing started and I could barely sit still, it was so good. Modern-ballet choreography performed with all the precision and technical expertise the Paris Opera Ballet has to offer. Amandine Albisson danced Esmerelda and of course she was wonderful, strong and light and beautiful (she looks a little like Eva Green to me). It seems like a difficult character to play as she is almost always reacting rather than acting, but her dancing was beautiful and so were her interactions with the other characters. There was a touching moment when Quasimodo (Karl Paquette) is holding her, asleep, across his arms and swings her like a pendulum--recalling the bells of Notre Dame, surely--ever so gently down to the floor. I actually had tears in my eyes! As a bonus, Yves St. Laurent, my current obsession, designed the costumes. I can't say that this ballet entirely made up for missing Robbins/Ratmansky . . . but it came close.

After the jump, pics from the Quai Branly. No pics from the ballet because they are not allowed. You'll have to come and see for yourself.

Monday, July 14: Bastille Day!

Today is France's national holiday, commemorating the storming of the Bastille in 1789. It is celebrated with a military parade on the Champs-Elysées, which I attended this morning, and with fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, which I am avoiding like the plague this evening.

The parade is not an American parade with floats and bands; it is a formal military parade with tanks and horses. All the same, it is exciting and draws enormous crowd. I took a lot of pictures--in fact, I think I went mostly for the photo opportunities. Click through and see if I did a good job! Don't forget that you can click the pictures to enlarge them.

Sunday, July 13: Un dimanche à Paris

The idea that there isn't much going on in Paris on Sundays is only partially true. A lot of stores are closed but a lot of museums are open, the metro runs, and some big businesses or popular locations open their doors (although I think they pay some kind of tax penalty for this privilege). For instance, I was surprised to discover that the Orange (mobile phone) store on the Champs-Elysées is open on Sunday afternoon. But they are clearly making money via people who need some kind of service at that time. I happened to be there right at the opening time (1:00 p.m.) and there were at least a dozen people waiting, with more coming in once the doors opened. I like the idea that not everything has to be open 24/7--it makes you plan your life better and act more patient. There may be some truth to the idea that the French embrace their downtime a little too enthusiastically, but I can attest firsthand to Americans' culpability in not taking downtime seriously enough. We get less vacation time than most other developed nations and then when we get it, we don't take it! At minimum it makes for an interesting clash of cultures when the 24/7 Americans meet the 35-hour-work-week French.

Since I was in the neighborhood (sort of) I took the recommendation of an esteemed friend and went to the Musée Jacquemart-André this afternoon. This museum seems much less well known than the others I've been to--on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the day before Bastille Day, there was no line and it was not bustling with tourists. It is a 19th-century mansion built by a wealthy banker's son, Edouard André, to house and display his and his wife's (Nélie Jacquemart--she was a painter herself) art collection. When he died, the house and its collections were left to the Institut de France and it opened as a museum in 1913. It is a beautiful space: elaborate but not overwhelming. And as an 18th-century specialist, I was in heaven. A lot of the art dates to the 18th century and the styling of the house itself--as it is presented now--recalls that era. The special exhibition on display was focused on the fêtes galantes paintings of Watteau, Fragonard, and other artists who participated in that style: a sort of dressed-up version of the pastoral in which elegant people in beautiful clothes have a lovely (and sometimes slightly risqué) time in a fantastical woodland setting. The more paintings I'm exposed to, the more I enjoy looking at paintings because I often encounter familiar themes or people I recognize  Two of the paintings by Nicolas Lancret that I saw today incorporated La Camargo, a celebrity at the time Lancret was painting. Most of the fête galante paintings don't depict actual people but the idea of an idyllic party in the country, possibly featuring some shenanigans, certainly reflects things I'm familiar with from eighteenth-century culture. And like many places I've been recently, it's worth going just to see the building. The tour includes 3-4 rooms from the Andrés' private apartments. I always love seeing how people lived "back then," though I still can't quite imagine living in such an elaborate space every day--and with corsets on, at that.

At the end of my tour through the museum I decided to have a coffee in the café and read my roman polar for a while (have learned the difference between a polar, which is more like a noir thriller, and a policier, which is just a regular detective novel). It was only a little more expensive than at a regular café and I got to enjoy being seated next to a gentleman of a certain age and his young Swedish girlfriend, speaking English to each other because that was the language they had in common, and him holding her hand the entire time. To his credit he seemed unable to believe his luck, as well he should have been. Across from me were 2 women, one of whom was wearing several thousand dollars' worth of accessories (Gucci loafers, Birkin bag, and a watch I couldn't identify because I'm not fancy enough) and who wouldn't stop being rude to the server. She was like a caricature brought to life; I didn't think those types existed. Between the coffee (which was very good), the book, and the other patrons I got my money's worth out of that museum café.

Got a little lost coming out of the museum and walked too far through the 8th arrondissement in search of a metro. I don't know what it is about the 8th--maybe just lack of exposure--but I usually get turned around when I go there. Finally I found Gare St. Lazare and made my way back in time for dinner and laundry. Tomorrow is Bastille Day; I'm thinking of going out for the parade but it will all depend on the weather. A little blue sky is peeking through right now, but what will tomorrow bring?

Saturday, July 12: I accidentally went to the Musée Cluny

For today I only had about half a plan at most. There were a couple of stores I wanted to go to (and/or go back to from yesterday) and then I thought I might go to the Treasury at Notre Dame or sit in a café and read or go to a park if the weather would ever clear up . . . or just flâner. My first stop was Muji near St. Sulpice, which I'd heard had a good selection of papeterie. I have decided to go back to using a paper calendar instead of my phone calendar so I thought I'd look there for a nice-looking agenda. No luck, but I did get to see St. Sulpice itself and that was new for me. It struck me as imposing and gloomy, both inside and out, but it was interesting to visit. This is the fountain in the Place St-Sulpice facing the church:

Of course since I wasn't thinking of going anywhere photo-worthy I did not take the Good Camera; today's photos are all iPhone pics!

From Muji I went to Gibert Jeune which is a huge bookstore in the Latin Quarter. I found a really nice agenda there at a decent price and bought a roman policier called Alex by Pierre Lemaitre. I'm not big on crime novels in English but I figured it would be at about my reading level in French. It came recommended by one of the employees and the author is a Prix Goncourt winner, so hopefully it'll be good. I'm already almost to the end of Pierre Bergé's letters to Yves St. Laurent, which are very sad and full of love. Dr. Kirk is reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame but I wanted something popular rather than canonical.

En route to Gibert Jeune I came out of the metro right at the St. Michel fountain. I stayed in the Latin Quarter on my second trip to Paris in 2006 and I remember being amazed that the fountain is just THERE in the middle of the street:

After lunch (sandwich, drink, dessert, coffee: 8,20€ at Brioche Dorée, which we have in the Atlanta airport for crying out loud. I've got to raise my standards) I was just wandering around figuring out my next move and I landed in the garden of the Musée Cluny a.k.a. the Musée du Moyen-Age (Museum of the Middle Ages). The Cluny is a 15th-century hôtel particulier (sort of a . . . city mansion?) built next to/on top of a Roman thermal bath. It houses an important collection of medieval artifacts: pieces in ivory, enamel, stained glass, sculptures, armor, household items like combs and pitchers, and tapestries, most significantly the Lady and the Unicorn set. This last was not on display last summer but it is back now:

All the tapestries are fascinating to look at. The longer you look, the more details you see.

The Cluny (Wikipedia says it is officially called the Musée du Moyen-Age now but I like to say "Cluny") also has some illuminated manuscripts on display. One minor disappointment was that in several places, works had been removed for "reorganization") and it seemed like most of the things that were missing were manuscripts! Nevertheless, I did see a few neat things:

It's a letter B, see?

Italic hand . . . I think. Need my History of Print notes.

A calendar from a Book of Hours. The placard explained that 

"The page presented corresponds to the current month."

I did not take a lot of pictures because the connection between the objects and the space seems especially important in this case. That is, you have to see it for yourself. Half of the experience is being in this hôtel particulier that is sort of big and small at the same time, with painted wood beams on all the ceilings and depressions worn into the steps of all the staircases. A couple of the rooms are in parts of the former baths, so you can see the medieval walls and the even older Roman walls. Those rooms are full of pieces from cathedrals: you have no idea how big the kings' heads are around the front doors to Notre Dame until you see one up close! One of the last rooms on the tour is the chapel--the building was originally constructed for the abbots of the Order of Cluny--it's no bigger than a classroom but with an elaborate "stone lace" ceiling and painted altarpiece like in a chapel of a large cathedral. I think I will go back and try to take more photos although I don't know how successful they'll be. In any case I'm very glad I went. The joke is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long way, and Americans think 100 years is a long time. It is awe-inspiring to me to stand in a building that is 600+ years old (much older, in places) and see objects that also date back multiple centuries. There were objects on display from the 6th century. You can't see those things and continue to believe that the medieval period was "the dark ages."

When I left the museum I discovered that the sun had finally come out after about 8-9 days of clouds. Here are a couple of pictures from a small park behind the museum:

The plants and trees in the little park--Paris has lots of these small parks called "Squares" (they are never square) always named after a person, e.g. "Square Laura Thomason."

This is the back of the Cluny. You can see how elaborate it is--like a scaled-down castle. 

Really a neat place to visit.

Finished out the day with a visit to Carrefour (grocery store) where I almost bought more than I could carry. But now I have plenty of nice food for tomorrow and Monday. And a detective novel to read!

Saturday, July 5: Up and down (mostly up) in Montmartre

Today was our long-awaited (in the sense that we signed up for them in May) walking tours in Paris with professional tour guides. The students had 3 choices: le Marais, Montmartre, or Montparnasse ("I forgot which one I signed up for. . . I think it starts with an M?"). Originally I was supposed to go to Montparnasse, which I'd chosen because I've never visited there. But no faculty were signed up for Montmartre so I went along with that group instead. Our guide Orane was one of the guides on the visit to the Louvre last year. She recognized me even though we'd only seen each other once or twice before. I made a concerted effort to speak French--something I'm working on more diligently this year--and maintained what I'm pretty sure was a pleasant and intelligent level of small talk during the metro ride from Porte d'Orléans to Blanche. For future reference, when you get out at Blanche you will be directly in front of the Moulin Rouge, and that's pretty cool. In fact it's one of my overall favorite things about Paris: the prospect of coming up out of a metro station and finding yourself right next to something beautiful (Aubers station--turn around and you see the Opéra Garnier), famous (Blanche--Moulin Rouge), or important (St. Michel-Notre Dame--right across the street from Notre Dame cathedral).

Orane gave us a great, well-planned tour of Montmartre. The weather was not ideal--it drizzled intermittently--but the heavy rain held off till the tour was over and I was ensconced inside a crêperie. Because Montmartre is one huge hill, touring it is always a strenuous walk. However, there are lots of good places to stop and take a look around: in addition to the Moulin Rouge we saw the Montmartre vineyard, the Lapin Agile (originally the "Lapin à Gilles" because someone named Gilles painted the rabbit on the building--I love a good French pun), the Moulin à la Galette (one of only 2 remaining windmills in Montmartre, of which there used to be 30), and the café from Amelie. I used to turn my nose up at guided tours but I always end up learning something and seeing things I wouldn't have sought out on my own. So no more guided tour snobbery for me; I've been converted.

Montmartre pictures and the rest of my day after the jump.

Friday, July 4: En Grève

While America celebrated its birthday, France went quietly about its business (France's turn comes next Monday), though not without a frisson of excitement for the France-Germany World Cup match scheduled for Friday night. I taught my class and then worked in the office until about 3 p.m. when Dr. Guglielmi and I and our student assistant Caitlyn took a field trip to Tati for paper goods. Tati is a discount store full of clothes and housewares; we go there to get plates, cups, and napkins for our weekly pizza night and charcuterie buffet night. It is impressively cheap--we got 700 plates, cups, and napkins (enough for the whole program's worth of pizza and charcuterie nights) for 60€. There are several Tati locations but the one we went to is in Italie 2, a mall (centre commerciale) at Place d'Italie in the 13th. It was easier and faster than I thought to get there, buy mass quantities of paper goods, and haul it all back on the metro. We still have to get drinks Monday and that will be a larger undertaking.

Friday night I was supposed to go to a performance of Robbins/Ratmansky by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Opéra Garnier. Prof. Chen got me an inexpensive ticket some time ago. Then it transpired that I needed to give up my ticket so that one of her students could attend (the ballet was a field trip for her class). But then yesterday, another student wanted to sell her ticket, so Prof. Chen bought it and I was back on the roster. I had reconciled myself to not going but when the opportunity re-arose I was very excited! Once the Tati haul was stowed away I had just enough time to freshen up and eat a bowl of cereal while talking to Mr. B. on Skype, then we were off to the ballet. Extra props to Prof. Chen for figuring out a route to the Opéra Garnier that none of the rest of us had thought of: RER B from Cité U to Châtelet-Les Halles (Satan's own favorite train station), cross the platform and take RER A to Auber, whose exit is directly in front of the opera house. So much easier than doing it on the metro!

So we got there in good time and were greeted by the opera's immaculate ushers who handed us these flyers:

I'd been hearing about the grève des intermittents de spectacle on the radio without giving it too much thought, but now it was right in our faces. The performance was canceled because of the strike. It's been a big summer for strikes: air traffic controllers, the RATP (Paris transit authority), and the SNCF (French national railroads) have all been on strike in the last few weeks and we've been lucky that none of it has affected our travel. As such things go I'd rather miss a ballet than be unable to come to France at all because there's no air traffic controller to help guide the plane. But it was still a big disappointment. We were at least able to get our money back--had to wait in a fairly long queue but they did it on the spot and in cash. If I understood correctly what I was overhearing while waiting, it was a one-day national strike agreed upon among multiple unions. Hopefully the action will not affect any other performances that members of our group are supposed to attend. The strike already caused the cancellation of the Avignon film festival, which is a pretty big deal!

In lieu of the ballet we went to dinner at Le Vaudeville, which is always a treat. To be honest, I don't think the students knew what they were in for when they agreed to a "traditional French dinner." The food was comprehensible to everyone but the pace of service takes getting used to. We were already tired and maybe not in exactly the right frame of mind to enjoy it. Nevertheless, it was lovely as ever. I had duck foie gras as my starter followed by steamed cod with mashed potatoes and then a lemon crème with red fruit for dessert. I was disappointed that the beef tartare wasn't on the set menu last night. I'd have ordered it just to see the students' faces as I ate it. But the fish was good. Every time I come to France I resolve to eat more fish. 

By the time we finished, paid up, and came back on the metro it was after midnight. A short sleep and onward to the next adventure!

The end/the beginning

Today at an astonishingly early hour, the students and most of the faculty of the EC Paris program departed to return to the U.S. But I was not with them. Yesterday afternoon, Vicki, Samantha, and Daniel all arrived in Paris and we are spending a week here together. Vacaaaaaaay!!!

Yesterday was mostly taken up with packing and getting my stuff from Cité U. over to our apartment for the week, but Vicki and Samantha and I did have time to go over to Notre-Dame for a look around (did not go inside because the line was long) and then walk over to Ile St. Louis for some Berthillon ice cream. It was very pretty weather and not too hot--a perfect first day in Paris. 

By the time we went from Cité to the apartment in a taxi and got a little bit situated, I had to run out to Roissy to meet Daniel. He was exhausted but otherwise fine; we made a stop at Carrefour City (how many different flavors of Carrefour are there?), got back to the apartment and vaguely unpacked, and finally went out for a very late dinner ate a brasserie down the street called Le Boucl'Art. It is a cute, casual place with pretty good food and of course good wine. Daniel wasted no time befriending the waiter while enjoying a pizza. Pizza is not very French unless you put some chèvre and a fried egg on it as this restaurant did. It was tasty and so was the burger that I had.

Between jet lag and a noisy street outside the apartment none of us slept very well, but we rallied this morning for an attempt on the Louvre (free on the first Sunday of the month). The line was already out of hand when we arrived around 9:45 so we went over to the D'Orsay--also free--and waited less than 10 minutes. The D'Orsay is beautiful; it used to be a train station and it has an enormous barrel-vaulted ceiling with big archways leading to all the galleries. It holds a lot of famous Impressionist works so we had our fill of Monet, Seurat, Manet, Gaugin, Renoir, and Degas. I got to see Degas's La petite danseuse de 14 ans among other great stuff.

After the museum we walked through the Tuileries (always gorgeous), got lunch at one of the restaurants there, and then tried out a few rides and games in the little carnival/amusement park there. Samantha did the "Magic Bubbles" ride which is the giant, human-sized hamster balls that float in a pool. It is apparently a lot more fun than it looks to me, because she loved it. Daniel lost some money on the midway games and finally we came back out near the Louvre and walked down Rue de Rivoli for a while, thinking about shopping. But it was hot, and it was Sunday, and décalage horaire was kicking in so we took a break in a café and finally came back to the apartment. Our plan is to get an early night tonight and hit the Eiffel Tower tomorrow morning. After that, probably a boat tour on the Seine and picnic lunch if it's not too hot.

It's time for dinner. À bientôt!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to America...

Internet, I have a confession: 

When I got up this morning I was tired of being in Paris and ready to go home.

Actually, it is probably closer to the truth to say that when I got up this morning I was just plain tired. I wore myself out at the flea market yesterday but then did not sleep well last night. So when the alarm went off this morning I was less ready for another day's adventures in the world's most beautiful city than I was for another couple of hours of sleep and a big pot of coffee. There was no help for it, though. Another busy Monday was on the docket so I hurried out of bed, got ready, and hustled over to the Institut Protestant with plenty of time to spare for a coffee-and-croissant run.  Mondays are coffee-and-croissant days because I cannot break the habit of grocery shopping on Sundays but most stores here are closed Sundays. Ergo, no groceries; instead a visit to a local bakery for un croissant et un café crème à emporter, s'il vous plaît. That bakery is going to miss the USG European Council when we're gone, I'm here to tell you.

On the way into the IPT to put my book bag down before heading to the bakery I noticed that the men from J. C. Deceaux were changing out the affiches (posters) in the advertising display on the street corner. These posters are everywhere--standalone displays like the one on the corner, bus shelters, the outside of newspaper kiosks, etc. And all the displays seem to be maintained/managed by this one company, J. C. Deceaux, whose name appears somewhere on the display frame (Compulsive readers notice such things). The men happened to be taking down an affiche for the "La Mechanique de Dessous" exhibit at the Museum of Decorative Arts--the very poster I'd wanted to buy at their bookshop but no such thing was for sale. It has a black background with a beautifully lit photograph of a yellow velvet eighteenth-century corset with silver bows and paniers attached. The museum did not offer the same image even as a postcard, nor did I see the piece in the collection. Now here it was in a compellingly enormous format coming out of the frame right before my eyes--and still in great condition; those frames must be very sturdy.

I went up to the man taking the poster out and said, "Excuse me, sir, but what happens to the posters that you are changing out of the frames?" "They go in the trash," he told me--exactly what I expected/hoped for. "May I have that one?" I asked. "Bien sûr," he said, rolled it up for me nicely, and even put a rubber band around it.

And that, Internet, is when I stopped being tired of Paris. But on the matter of how I will get this huge poster home on the plane, let us remain silent.

Marché aux Puces de St-Ouen

After yesterday's rain, today was bright and clear but much cooler (hooray!), so I set out this morning for the huge flea market near Porte de Clignancourt on the north side of Paris. It is just inside the périphérique, in the department of Seine-St-Denis where the racailles live. (That was a Nicolas Sarkozy joke. Also, Autocorrect wants "racailles" to be "racial lens," which is painfully apt.) Actually, inside the Marché aux Puces de St-Ouen, as the flea market is properly known, I mostly saw and heard other tourists--Americans and Germans, judging by the accents. Plus some French people seriously engaged in decorating their homes with the antique furniture and accessories that make up a huge part of the huge market. 

Neither my budget nor my suitcase would accommodate an antique chair but I had hours of fun walking around looking at everything and eavesdropping on the merchants' conversations. This flea market is kind of a fancier and denser version of the one in Canton, Texas. No Beanie Babies or Fiesta ware but lots of fine jewelry, vintage clothes, antique books and prints, china and silver, and of course a healthy dollop of miscellaneous bits and bobs: watches that might or might not be working, old postcards, fountain pens, beads, toys, etc. Instead of being spread out over acres of land it is all contained within a series of buildings, stalls, alleys, and squares. I stayed for way too long just looking around because it just goes on and on and on! In the end I bought very little: some postcards that I plan to use on the cover of my scrapbook from this trip, and a teeny yellow pitcher emblazoned with the Ricard logo. I must have been thinking of Canton because the pitcher actually looks a lot like Fiesta ware. 

By the time I came back it was after 3 pm. St-Ouen is all the way on the other end of the #4 Métro line, about as far from Cité U. as you can get and still be in Paris. So getting there and back means riding for a little while. Back in my room I did my nails (walking in the rain in Caen yesterday wreaked havoc on my pedicure) and talked to Daniel on Skype. He will be here in only 6 days. I can hardly wait!

Tomorrow will be jam-packed: class, a meeting, other class, other meeting, then back to Shakespeare & Co. for Adam Biles's appearance at the Grey Cats launch event. I'd better rest up. À bientôt!

La Canicule

There is such a thing as vocabulary you wish you didn't have to learn, or at least vocabulary you wish did not apply to you. Today's undesirable word is canicule: heat wave. As in Paris est en plain canicule et les étudiants fondent. (Paris is in the middle of a heat wave and students are melting.) Les profs are melting too! I heard the heat index was 40°C today--just Googled the conversion and that's 104° Fahrenheit. This in a largely un-air-conditioned nation! Whew. No wonder we are all drinking tons of water and taking 2-3 showers per day. Of course, life does not stop for la canicule. We still ride the train, go to classes, and take excursions. We just don't smell good doing it.

This type of weather is not unheard-of in France but it is not typical either. There was a prolonged heat wave in 2003 or 2004 that resulted in several fatalities; since then the government has been more careful about issuing warnings, checking on the elderly, etc. when the temperature rises above a certain level. This year, winter was long and cold, spring was chilly, and summer was slow to arrive--our first week here we were happy to have sweaters in the mornings at least. There was some mirth in the press when the government rolled out its annual Heat Wave Plan for the summer at a time when it wasn't even warm yet. But clearly the powers that be knew what they were doing.

Before you ask, let me go back to the "no A/C" issue. The French are many things but they are not masochists. They enjoy comfort, but they are also very energy-conscious, as seen in la minuterie, automatic lights on timers in corridors: as I understand it these were installed as an energy-saving measure after WWII (7 decades ago) but are still in use, and not just in really old buildings. Most of the time, air conditioning is not necessary here. It would cost a lot to install and operate--I can't imagine trying to retrofit hundreds of Paris apartment buildings with A/C, nor do I want to see the Hausmann buildings bristling with window units. Some people even say that relying too much on A/C is unhealthy, that we're better off adjusting our lifestyles a bit and letting our bodies adapt. After sunset, I agree with those people, although I also know people whose bodies react very badly to the heat. I don't want to suggest that everyone should just toughen up--we are all different and have different sensitivities.

I admire the minimal approach to air conditioning in France because so many public spaces in the American South are overly air-conditioned. We all carry cardigans into restaurants; otherwise you order a flambé dessert just to have a chance to warm up a little. Going to a movie? Better put on warm socks and a hoodie. (I'm not joking.) This heat is not comfortable, but it is livable. If there were A/C here at Cité we'd never leave our rooms. This way, we might as well get out and at least lie under a tree in a park. Or eat some gelato as I did earlier today.

14 juillet--Bastille Day

Today is Bastille Day. People here just call it le 14 juillet, July 14, just like we usually say "the 4th of July" and not "Independence Day." It is the French national holiday and of course commemorates the storming of the Bastille in 1789 but also a holiday called La Fête de la Fédération that was celebrated first in1790. In Paris there is a military parade, fireworks and a concert in the evening, and public dances hosted at many of the fire stations around Paris. They are also doing something called  "Parisians Welcome Their Soldiers" where service members participate in meet-and-greet events around town. We saw a group of sailors with a model submarine meeting the public at Place de l'Opéra.

Our plan--it was Dr. Kirk, Dr. Hochschild, and me--was to spend a little time in the Louvre (admission is free on July 14) and then see the flyover that is part of the parade. We got to the Louvre around 9:30 and the line was already all the way around the courtyard! So instead we moseyed through the courtyard, taking a few pictures, to the edge of the Tuileries and then sat down at a café right along Rue de Rivoli. By accident we ended up in the perfect spot: we saw the opening flyover, which was magnificent, then drank some coffee and relaxed, then got to see some of the parade come past as it broke up. It was not too crowded and we had not had to wade all the way down to the Champs-Élysées. But come to think of it, I should try to go down there this week and take a few pictures while the tricolor is flying in the Arc de Triomphe. The highlight of sitting in the parade's wrap-up area was seeing a whole line of soldiers march down the sidewalk in dress uniform, through the café tables and spectators, with their bayonets fixed to their rifles and their white-gloved hands covering the bayonets so that no one accidentally got stabbed. Secondary highlight: watching the huge military vehicles (tank...tank...truck...tank...) pass by, interrupted at one point by a tiny Renault Clio belonging to the fire department. Local equivalent of tiny Shriner cars in our parades.

We could probably have seen a bit more of the parade if we'd stayed, but Dr. H. and I decided to seek out Paris's one and only Chipotle for a Bastille Day celebration lunch. Apple's Maps application performed as expected (imperfectly) but we got there, cheerfully overpaid, and ate Chipotle looking out over the Boulevard Haussmann. It was just like our Chipotle except no fountain drinks--only bottled drinks, so I had lemon fizzy water. I absolutely do not seek out American places when in France--have not been to Starbucks or McDonald's since arriving--but I love the incongruity of a Chipotle down the street from the grands magasins. I'd love to know what Paris thinks of Chipotle. There were some French people in there with us but I think they were outnumbered by Americans.

On the way back we were crammed into an RER with the half of Paris who had been doing the same things we'd been doing.  (The other half took Tour Guide Josh's advice and stayed home to watch the parade on TV.) We returned just in time for a quick nap--or blog post--before a game of pétanque that is coming up at 4:00. A chance to hone my skills before the next réunion des Boudreault.

À bientôt!

Adventures in Transit

Last night I went with three students to hear Charles Simic read his poetry at Shakespeare & Co. My friend Darin was right: it was a treat! His poetry seems to be quotidian (in a good way) and profound and funny and bleak all at the same time. I like to hear poetry read aloud but now I want to read some of his poetry on paper as well--a reading is ephemeral and you don't quite have time to really consider what you're hearing. In any case it was a perfect night and, of course, an excellent turnout. S&Co. had set up folding chairs and a sound system outside the shop (I don't know how I thought they would do it inside; there isn't room to swing a cat in there) and the whole little courtyard was filled. 

We arrived about 1 minute before Simic was introduced, which was a lucky break because we had an adventure getting there. We were on the RER B when it slowed down, stopped briefly between stations (unhelpful recorded announcement: "This train has stopped between stations. Please stay inside the train and do not open the doors."), slow-rolled through one or two more stops and finally parked, for lack of a better word, at Port-Royal. Incoherent announcements came over the intercom as  is the practice in all transit systems, everywhere. "Mesdames et Messieurs, mumble mumble crackle static mumble. Merci de votre comprehension." (That last part is the killer: "Thank you for your understanding," when you have not understood a thing.) I finally worked out that there had been a fire at or near Gare du Nord. It must not have been serious because I can't find anything about it in the news, but after several minutes they made us all get off the train.

Port-Royal does not connect to any other Métro or RER lines but I remembered Dr. Winchester's favorite 38 bus and thought we'd try that. Of course, so did the rest of the train passengers, so we were packed into the bus tighter than I thought possible. But it worked! We got out at St. Michel-St. Germain, spotted Notre Dame, and successfully made port at Shakespeare & Co. After the reading we walked around Notre Dame and along the Seine a little bit, and a bouquiniste made some money from my students who bought souvenirs from him. I was the translator so he gave me two free postcards. Then we walked on in search of an uncrowded café and ended up at this small place on the Right Bank with a crusty, white-haired proprietress and a menu on a chalkboard. Sarah ordered an assiette de fromage but she only liked one of the fromages, so Radiance and Lindsay and I helped her finish it. First time I'd eaten proper cheese since arriving, and the only relevant question is why did I wait so long?

Meeting with Dr. Kirk this morning, then some grading, then maybe a nap because it was late by the time we got back. All this daylight makes it easy to stay up late. This afternoon, perhaps a museum?