Paris at a Certain Age

au revoir Paris

For now...

Christmas in Paris!

In Galeries Lafayette at least.....

Halloween in France

I'd been told that Halloween in France is primarily seen in stores as a marketing gimmick. Supposedly 'regular' French don't recognize it, viewing it as another American commercial excess. The Toussaint holiday is celebrated with a long school vacance. Yet while visiting a friend in Burgundy, we saw a primary school in the small town of Joigny with drawings of witches posted in their school windows and in the vestiare above the coats and boots. And Anna, who lives in the tiny village of Venizy, says she gets trick-or-treaters every year.

The King of Cheeses

We just returned from Burgundy with this cheese, dubbed the King of Cheeses by no less than Brillat-Savarin.
It has a deep orange color and strong aroma. The taste is equally strong and rich. Berthaut won a gold medal for his Époisses cheese, which is one of the AOC cheeses(Appellation d’origine contrôlée) of Burgundy. This cheese is unpasteurized and a little bit of heaven.

Another Day/Another Grève (strike)

Yesterday there were plenty of bikes available at the vélib stand -

And today they are all gone -

Why? A massive grève (strike) was called by the transportation unions. The trains, metros and buses are not operating. The only way to get around Paris is on foot or by car, motorcycle or the free bikes available at stations like the one above near our apartment. The vélibs proved a grand success today and they were the only option available for many to travel to work. The government is trying to reform the pension system which provides better pensions to the transportation unions than are available to most other workers including those in private industry.




The manif (demonstration) passed right through our quartier.

Is October Paris' most beautiful month?

A Fall Day in Paris

Jardin du Luxembourg

A Kiss for You from Paris

The Stravinsky Fountain by the Centre Pompidou

Paris Dogs at Work

Place Dauphine Dog Outside His Café

Rue Dauphine Dog Guarding His Boutique

Electricity, Electronics and the Ex-pat

Yesterday the electricity est tombé en panne, i.e. broke down. Actually, it was simply a blown fuse, but it took awhile to fix because we could only find one of the two fuseboxes. It affected only the living room, allowing us to still cook, bathe with hot water and read in bed. But the internet connection is in the living room which meant no email and no Skype phonecalls. The experience demonstrated the importance of an electronic connection when you are abroad. After just one day without email, the inbox was full of "tried to reach you", "Why no answer" message titles.With Skype you feel like folks who live a continent away are next door. A blown fuse and a day without internet is trivial, but it caused me to imagine what it was like for the Ellis Island immigrants to leave their families far behind and out of touch.

And I learned a new word: fusible, meaning fuse, as opposed to fusil which is a shotgun. On the bus recently I passed a shop called Fusil d'occasion: used shotguns.

Nuit Blanche

Last night was Nuit Blanche and the France vs New Zealand rugby match and Paris went wild. Art installations, mostly involving light effects, were staged across the city and open all night. We hopped on the Bat-o-bus,
an ad lib water bus and travelled down the Seine watching Nuit Blanche light projections (onto buildings and into the sky) and the lights of nighttime Paris reflected on the water. It was a crisp and crystal clear evening and it seemed that everyone was out and about. The Bateaux Mouches were tarted up with lights, as was the giant ferris wheel of Paris (La Grande Roue). As the boat approached Hôtel-de-Ville, a loudspeaker announced that France had won the rugby game against New Zealand and folks went wild. Horns blared (including boat horns), lights flashed and people cheered. Folks ran around the streets waving French flags. The Eiffel Tower's on-the-hour nightly light show commenced and glittering lights sparkled and pulsated as if the tower was having an orgasm and about to erupt.
I don't understand the attraction of rugby at all. To me it's another example of testosterone poisoning. This Dieux du Stade Calendrier 2008 is on sale at our little neighborhood papeterie where schoolkids buy their cahiers. But it was fun to be caught up in rugby frenzy that attacked Paris on Nuit Blanche.

A Pregnant Blister

New French Word: Cloque
The metros of Paris are currently plastered with advertisements for this movie.

The term 'en cloque' was unfamiliar to me. But once I saw the companion poster I knew exactly which American movie it was.

It turns out 'cloque' means 'blister' and being 'en cloque' is an familiar (but not vulgar) way of saying someone is pregnant.

Falling in Love

The linguist Steve Kaufmann says that you have to be in love to learn a language well. Maybe that's why I've never learned Spanish, despite living in California where the language is omnipresent. I'm 'just not that into you', Mister Spanish Language. But French, oh that's a different story, a love story.

Sometimes it feels I'm in love with an entity who is out of my reach, like falling for a movie star. But I have the obsession that makes you think about it all the time, trying to tease out its secrets, boring other people with some new facet you've noticed, and wanting to be with it night and day. I want to inhale it, chew it, absorb it through my skin, soak it in, bathe my eyes and ears with it and live on it.

The airplane ride over to Paris was like foreplay. It began with hearing boarding announcements in French, then the flight attendants instructions in French and then fellow passengers chatting in French.

But being in love doesn't make you any smarter. I can memorize like a demon, but the accent is so-o-o hard for me. I think I have to develop a more physical relationship with Mr. French and wrap my lips around him more deeply. I have to work my orbicularis orus, depressor labii oris and levator labii muscles into a frenzy or just watch Mickelino's how to pout and make French sounds video over and over again.

You Know You're in Paris When:

You see this in the grocery market!