Laziness

I did my laundry this morning instead of going to the library; I was down to my last clean underwear.  There's a laundromat three blocks from my hotel.  I noticed that almost to a person, everyone in the laundromat was not a "typical" french person.  In addition to myself (tourist), there were several Africans and Arabs and one Asian woman. 

While my clothes were washing, I headed up to the weekly market that took over the main street.

I could spend the entire day photographing fruit, vegetable, cheese, fish, and meat markets; I find them physically and aesthetically fascinating.  I've always loved the way merchants try to arrange them to attract customers.

Many of them had strong and fascinating, if not always pleasant, aromas, like the fish mongers:

and the cheese mongers:

The people are also an interesting mix.  I find it difficult to take photos of people; you are essentially treating them as objects.  I did manage to get one shot of this woman working in a boucherie:

They also had some food that was prêt à manger, like this gorgeous paella, but I really couldn't buy it:

Eventually, though, I had to head back to the lavarie, to move my clothes to the dryer.  Altogether, I was in and out in about an hour and 15 minutes. 

I really wanted to check out on of the big covered markets, the Marché d'Aligre nearby in the 11th arrondissement.   Took me a while but I eventually found it.

It reminded me a lot of the mercado near our apartment in Barcelona.

I mean, why would anyone ever shop in a supermarket, if they could go to a place like this?

I could post photo after photo, but I won't.  Well, just one last one of some amazing looking mushrooms:

I wish I could have bought some of this amazing food for lunch, but, it's not like I had kitchen to go back to where I could cut up everything and prepare a meal.  I ended up in a small cafe on Avenue Daumesnil having a club sandwich.

(Who wants to see a picture of a chicken sandwich; here's the cafe).

Afterwards, I decided to take a walk on the Promenade plantée, an elevated walkway that stretches for almost three miles.

My uncle had recommended the walk, and also recommended I try an ice cream shop near the end of it.  Unfortunately, while I thought I had saved the address on my phone, it turned out I could only open the page if I had WiFi, which I didn't.  It took me a while but I eventually found Chez Raimo and asked for three boules:  praline, salted caramel, and vanilla.  The vanilla was actually my favorite, and I could see from the small, black vanilla seeds that they used real vanilla, not extract or even, God forbid, imitation:

By the time I finished my ice cream, I realized it was after 2:30 pm.  If I raced to the library, I could get there by 3, but I'd hoped to go to a concert this evening at St. Chapelle, which meant I would only have a few hours to work, at best.  I decided to be lazy and skipped the BnF altogether.

Instead, I went to the Cité and bought a ticket for the concert, which was a small chamber group performing baroque works.  Unfortunately, they only took cash.  This has been an issue; I've been paying with cash more often than I expected, so I'll have to go to the bank again tomorrow and withdraw some more.  

From there, I walked over to the Maison Européenne de la Photographie to check out there exhibit.  November is the "mois de la photo" (they do this every two years) so I was curious what they would have.  One exhibit, called "Suspense" by Tim Parchikov, was really interesting.  He solved the problem of how to take candid shots by doing it at night, when he (and his subjects) were partially obscured in darkness.  I didn't find the other big exhibit, "Faux Horizons," by Alberto García-Alix, nearly as interesting.  Here, most of the creativity was through manipulation of the image, such as this one, which I secretly snapped when no one was looking.

I had trouble figuring out at first, what was wrong with picture.  When I examined each half of the face, it looked fine.  Then I realized that what he had done was combined two photos of the same subject, but in which she is looking in slightly different directions.

It seems strange, if not hypocritical, not to permit photography in photography exhibitions.  There were far too many people at the Winogrand exhibition for me to sneak a shot, but they have a big display for it in one of the Metro stations.  Here, I think you can see how he almost disappears as the photographer into the picture.  He didn't stage his shots; he just photographed people on the street.  How he managed not to influence them by his presence, I wish I could learn.

Afterwards, I had a coffee and did the crossword puzzle.  Eventually, I made my way back to St. Chapelle and eventually they seated us the small gothic chapel.  The last time I was at a concert here was in 1992.  The sun set much later in the day then, so I could see the huge stained glass windows all lit up.  Now, it gets dark by 5:30.  Still, the music was gorgeous.

For dinner, I went back to Dame Tartine (they take credit cards and have WiFi) but only had the onion soup (in Paris, it's always French onion soup) and the veau marengo, both of which seemed appropriate for a cold night.

Finally, I headed back to the hotel where, as happens every day, I find the maid has closed the windows I left open so now the room is hot and stuffy.  I open them up wide to let in the cold night air and make the room more bearable:

Encounters

Yesterday evening (Friday) on the Metro, I had a humbling encounter.

I was sitting there when I noticed a young woman and her boyfriend; she kept looking at me and finally she came over and asked: "you teach at Cal State Long Beach, right?"  "Yes," I replied.  "You taught a history class I had a year ago; what's your name?" I told her and asked what class she took.  "I don't remember," she answered, "it was some history class I was required to take."  I'm guessing it must have been either World History I or World History II. 

To make matters worse, as we were making light conversation, I mentioned how I had brought so few pieces of dark-colored clothing with me.  "Yes," she said, "I remember you always those tan and khaki pants."  "Unfortunately," I responded, "I don't have the fashion gene."  "Well," she added, making matters worse, "at least you have the history gene."  Thank God they got off at the next stop.

Meanwhile....

Back to work at the BnF yesterday.  On the way, I saw the lycees were still blocked by student protests, this time backed up by barricades made from garbage cans, while some of the doors were sealed with package tape.

Returning home last night, all this had been removed and I noticed a plaque on the wall:

I don't know why, but I seem to have a singular ability to find Holocaust monuments.

Back at the library I made progress on my research and had lunch with Bill, my retired colleague from the History Dept.  He reminded me that next Tuesday is Armistice Day, so the library will be closed.  I'm trying to figure out what to do.

Stopped for coffee and a plain croissant along the way home, then made sure to walk the way from Place de la Nation to the hotel.

Last night, I headed out to meet a friend of my uncle's name Eric.  They're in the same running club.  Luckily, Eric's English was better than my French, so we chatted a bit.  Here he is with his new, uncooperative puppy, Gerry.

Eric had made reservations for dinner at La Maison du Jardin, a restaurant that the Michelin Guide has labeled a "Bib Gourmand."  This means a "reasonably priced" restaurant with excellent quality food.

After a started of duck paté, I had my main course of duck meat, stewed for 8 hours and then stuffed inside a thin, filo-dough crust, accompanied by salad and sauteed figs.  It was very, very good.

I noticed that for dessert they had île flottante, which I haven't had in years, so I ordered that:

The pink stuff dusted on top is actually praline powder.  And yes, it was very good.

By then it was 10 pm and time for me to head back to my hotel. It's amazing to me how quick and clean the Metro is.  I got from the Jardin du Luxembourg back to Porte de Vincennes (across town) in about 30 minutes.  Paris really is quite small (at least the center of it).

Today is Saturday and the BnF is open, so I will head out there later today after breakfast and laundry.  I tried to sleep in, so instead of waking up at 7:35, I got up at 7:55.

Seeing Things Other than the Mona Lisa

Woke up around 7:30 this morning, which seems to be becoming my standard time for getting up, with the room boiling hot.  I think they turn up the radiator around 7 am.  Why?  A quick check of the outside temperature revealed why:

I do like the breakfasts at the hotel.  Sure, I could eat for a few euros cheaper at the boulangerie on the corner, but it's awfully convenient.  I also don't have to bundle into my jacket just to eat.

They had the French news playing in the breakfast room, and I could see there was a story about students in Paris lycees going on strike to protest police brutality (this concerns the death of a 21 year old environmental activist in the south of France last month.  Since my hotel abuts two lycees, I was curious what I would find this morning.  Here's the protest scene in front of one them:

After spending two days looking at digitized images of newspapers, my eyes needed a break, so no archives today.  Instead, I headed off to the Louvre.  Along the way, I stopped to get the International New York Times (which has replaced the International Herald Tribune).  The guy said to me "cinq euros."  "Cinq?!" I replied, "c'est trois!"  He smiled and mumbled something about checking to see if I spoke French.  I'm not buying anything from his magazine stand again.

One advantage of visiting the Louvre on a weekday in November is no lines at all.  It also helped that I entered via the Carrousel du Louvre while their metal detector was down (he just waved me through) and I skipped the ticket lines and went right to one of the ticket vending machines.

They have a special exhibit on Morocco, so I spent an over an hour going through it. No photos, unfortunately, and I would have loved to snap a shot of the 14th century copy of Maimonide's Mishneh Torah, but even more his copy of the Talmud with the comments he, his son, and his grandson all wrote in the margins.  Maimonides' connection to Morocco was rather tenuous; he was included as an example of the Almohad persecutions.  The exhibit was fully of beautiful wood work, intricate stone and metal carvings, and finely illuminated manuscripts.

After that, I headed up to see the newly opened halls devoted to the interior decoration of private apartments in Paris in the 18th century. Something just totally different from the Moroccan stuff.

After over two hours in the museum, I was beginning to get burned out, but I didn't want to leave without heading over to where all the chaos was:  the Italian painting sections.

This is the room with the Mona Lisa:

But there are some lovely things painted by da Vinci in the museum that are, in my opinion, nicer than the Mona Lisa.  Take this portion of his "Madonna of the Rocks."

They also had three Caravaggio paintings, including this one of the fortune teller that is also, in my opinion, far more interesting than the Mona Lisa (sorry about the angle; trying to avoid glare):

I walked around the area north of the museum, looking for a place for lunch.  I ended up in a small cafe, having the daily special:  veal with tomato sauce.  It was more like a stew, but it was very good.  Then I headed back towards the Jardin du Tuileries, where I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time this trip.  I've just not been those parts of Paris where you can see it.

My goal for after lunch was the Jeu de Palme, which is having a major retrospective exhibition of the photographs of Garry Winogrand.  Really amazing photos.  A few things that stand out in his pictures:  there's always drama; he seems to catch people unawares, often with charged looks; and he loves it when people show their teeth when smiling or laughing.

I went for another long walk after leaving the museum, looking for a place for coffee.  I ended up at Le Stube, which turned out to be a little piece of Germany here in France.  I ordered the Zimt-Apfeltorte and cafe creme.  The coffee was much more German, not nearly as bitter as the French roast.

After that it was back to the hotel to put my stuff away and figure out where to go to dinner.  I went online to find places in my neighborhood, preferably in walking distance.  Eventually I decided to try Le Picotin, a small restaurant about 15 minutes away (at a fast pace) from my hotel.  They don't open until 7:30, so that's when I left my hotel.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't the first to arrive.

The menu offerings were quite small, but I easily decided what to have.

I started off with joue de porc confites, fromage frais aux herbes et confiture d'oignons.  I've decided to leave that untranslated since some people might be put off it if they knew exactly what it was.  What it was, was quite tasty.  

Since my main course was the pêche de jour, I ordered a glass of the Bourgogne, which was dry and fruity.

In this case, the pêche does not refer to peach or sin, but rather to fish: a nicely prepared filet of bass, with crispy skin over a risotto topped with sauteed leeks, herbs, a creamy sauce, and then the whole thing dusted with coriander.

To finish off the meal, and since I spent all day walking, I ordered a dessert:  the charlotte poivre. There actually is a small piece of poive (pear) under all that whipped cream and lady fingers, but it seems merely the support for the superstructure.

 
After all that, it was back to the hotel to work on my correspondence.  Tomorrow it's back to work at the BnF. 
 

Approved Colors of Clothing in Paris

I've noticed that only certain colors of clothing are appropriate to wear in Paris in November. They are:  black, grey, dark blue (or some combination of the three).  You are allowed a little more leeway in the scarf (which is de rigueur, by the way), which can even include dark reds.  I feel very conspicuous in my tan dockers on the Metro; thank God, I also brought a black leather jacket.  I think I'm keeping my bright red windbreaker locked away until I'm in New York.

When I woke up this morning it was 39 F outside, but clear and sunny.  Less pain in the knee today.  Back to work at the BnF, but today I had a pleasant surprise when I ran into a colleague of mine, who retired from our history department a few years ago.  Bill and his wife Linda are in Paris this month doing research, so we had lunch together in the BnF cafe.

After a while, my eyes begin to glaze over so, I decided I needed to see some sunlight now that we had a partially sunny day.  I decided to walk up to a near by Metro stop and head over to the Latin Quarter.

Along the way, I passed some fun graffiti on the walls.

This one is a block away from the BnF:

Then there was this one a block further.

And finally this one a block from the Metro. It says (I think) "one who steals an egg, steals a chicken."

I wandered around the Rue Mouffetard, but the markets described in the guidebook must be in the morning.  I stopped for a small coffee and a pain au chocolat aux amandes, and then kept on walking through some of the oldest streets in Paris.

When I got to Boulevard St. Michel, I looked for Rue Racine and snapped this shot (to the confusion of the passers by):

Why?  Because this is where one of the murders I'm researching took place.  On May 18th, 1926, at around 2:30 pm, Simon Petlura, former general of the Ukrainian Nationalist Army, stepped out of a restaurant here after having lunch.  He was confronted by Sholom Schwartzbard, who shot him several times, killing him.  When he was arrested (with the proverbial smoking gun in his hand), he said "J'ai tué un assassin." His trial last 8 days; the jury took less than 25 minutes to acquit.

I headed down to the Seine and crossed over to the Ile St.-Louis.  This is what Paris looks like at 5:15 pm in November:

This is the bridge between the Ile St.-Louis and the Ile de la Cité. 

By 5:45, my feet were starting to hurt.  I had been walking since 3:30, except for a 20 minute break at the boulangerie, so I figured I could sit for a while in Notre Dame.  I arrived just as the vesper service was starting so I sat in the far back for about 25 minutes and listened.

I eventually found my way to the Café des Musées in the northern fringe of the Marais.  I waited until it was 7 pm and there were at least two other people sitting in the restaurant before I came in.  I also made sure I could pay with a credit card.

After seeing how I stumbled over my French they gave me an English menu, though I can read a French one just fine.  I ordered the magret de canard with salad and frites.  The duck was cooked just right, with crispy and salty skin and very crisp and salty frites.  I washed it down with a glass of Bordeaux.

When you consider that I walked for close to four hours today (about a 1000 calories), I think I took care of any fears of gaining weight even though I also had for dessert a "Paris-Brest à la maison."

I had never heard of this before, but it's very, very good.  This is made with a pâte à choux dough (similar to an eclair), which is then filled with a crème mousseline pralinée.  A few drops of caramel complete the dish.

That was enough for one night.  The whole meal came to 32.30 euros, which I thought was pretty reasonable considering what I had.  I made sure to not to rush, so I didn't leave until just before 8 pm.  After that it was back to the hotel to catch up on the news of how bad the midterm elections were in the States.  I probably should have had more wine to drown my sorrows.

Getting to Work

I slept 11 and a half hours last night and woke up feeling great.

I decided to try the hotel breakfast (10 Euros), and I liked it.  I probably could eat cheaper at a boulangerie, but not by much and it's definitely more convenient.

My knee was doing fine today until I took my first step outside the hotel, then BAM! lots of pain.  Still not sure what's going on; the pain seems to come and go; one minute I'm fine and the next I'm limping.

The weather was definitely improved over yesterday with no rain, though still cold and breezy.  My goal today was the Bibliotheque national de France, a rather brutalist-style set of buildings put up by Mitterand. 

The reading rooms for the library are not in these tall, windowed buildings, but below.  I'm always nervous when I go to archives for the first time, but I was particularly so here in Paris since my spoken French is so weak.  The clerk, however, spoke English and was both friendly and helpful.

After getting my reader's card and checking my stuff, I headed down to the reading rooms.

As I said, brutalist architecture: lots and lots of tall, overwhelming, concrete walls.

They assigned me a seat in the reading room and I started going through their digitized newspaper collections, researching their coverage of the Schwartzbard murder trial in Paris 1927.  As it happens, all the newspapers I looked at today were anti-Schwartzbard.  I wasn't sure about L'Ḗcho de Paris, and then I saw this caricature of the Yiddish and Ukrainian translators:

I wasn't sure what I was going to do for lunch, but there's a cafe in the library that was quite affordable.

The only thing that gave me pause all day was when I tried to find the toilets.  I think these signs could have been designed a little clearer.

I left the library around 4:30 and had a cafe au lait nearby, thinking there was free wifi, only it was kaput.  It gets dark pretty early, around 5, so I headed to the Bastille to buy a daily newspaper and then take a walk before dinner.  Since most people don't eat before 7 pm, I spent an hour walking around the Marais, before settling on a place by the Pompidou Center.  Called "Dame Tartine," I ordered the daily special (lasagna) along with a glass of Chinon, and sat down to check my email (they had wifi).

It was actually pretty good (I had my doubts about coming to France to eat Italian food).  I decided that since I had been very good about not eating a lot at breakfast or lunch or having snacks and walking at least two hours today, I could afford a nice dessert.  I ordered the gataeu chaud aux pêches avec coulis framboise along with a grande cafe creme.

I think they microwived the gateau so it would be chaud, and the pêches appeared to have been canned and diced, but it was still pretty tasty.

Back at the hotel, they've turned the heat on in the room (via a radiator).  There's no thermostat, so I've opened a window so it won't be quite so hot in here.  I'm going to try to get into a daily sleep rhythm, so it's off to bed.

Autumn in Paris

Autumn in Paris.

It sounds much nicer than "fall in Paris," or "a cold, rainy, and windy day in Paris," but it's the same thing.

After a moderately successful conference in Florida, where I again had a scare that someone else was working on a project I had started (and again, it turned out only to be related, not, Thank God, the same), I flew on "screaming toddler airlines" to Paris.  "STA," as I like to abbreviate it, goes by many official names in order to conceal its true nature until it's too late to do anything about it.  Last night, a couple with two very young children sat in the row ahead of me, and they hadn't even sat down when the brats started crying.  I found out later, though, that the worst was an infant three rows ahead who had a pair of lungs that indicate a good career in auctioneering.

I took my sleeping pill, popped in my ear plugs, and closed my eyes.  Despite the intermittent crying I did manage to nod off and I think I may have actually slept for more than three of the four hours I had my eyes closed.

No problems at all navigating the airport or the RER or the Metro, and I reached my hotel with no difficulties.  The room wasn't ready, so I decided to start acclimating myself by going for a long walk through the neighborhood.  I found the post office, the laundromat, several banks and markets, and some cafes.

This is Place de la Nation; probably the closest thing to my hotel that might be considered a tourist attraction (it's about 6 blocks away).  I'm in the 12th arrondissement, which is pretty quiet and almost suburban.  As you can see, the sky is grey (and will probably remain so until next spring), and the leaves are turning and falling.

I walked as far as the Place de la Bastille to check out what was showing at the Opera.  Tonight's the last night for Rossini's Barber of Seville, but I'm pretty sure I would sleep through the performance if I went.

I noticed several times on my walk that this or that scene would remind me of an afternoon in Budapest or Prague, though I don't doubt those cities had copied the architectural styles of Paris in its heyday; but as I'm spending so much more time there than here, these are the associations I have.

My goal on this trip is to walk at least 2-3 hours a day.  This will somewhat replace all the bicycling I'm not doing while I'm here.  I walked two hours before lunch and then another hour after lunch.

For lunch, I went to a small cafe off Rue de la Roquette called "Cafe des Anges."  The food was inexpensive and tasty and it had a wide and eclectic clientele.

As I walked through the neighborhoods on my way back from the 11th to the 12th arrondissement, I noticed some quirky artistic expressions in this eclectic neighborhood.

First off was this highly unusual take on a scooter, with its own astroturf.

Then there was some fun graffiti:

 When I got back to the hotel a little before 2, they had almost finished making up my room.  After washing up I lay down on the bed and almost fell asleep (despite the kids at the nearby high school playing basket ball next door).  I really try to avoid going to sleep early when I arrive on an overnight flight as I want my body to adapt to the new time zone as soon as possible.

I decided to go out for another walk, this time through the Latin Quarter, but I soon discovered a problem with the hotel:  its elevator.  It isn't its small size; most European elevators are tiny. No, its biggest problem is its reluctance to come when you call it, go to the floor you want, or even stop at the floor when it does decide to stop (twice it stopped between floors).  I've decided to take the stairs for the rest of the trip (it's only on what in America would be called the fourth floor).

After about 45 minutes of walking I stopped for a cafe au lait and pain au chocolate.  It turned out that I paid less than I would have at Starbucks in the States for the same, but the quality was better.

With a little more energy, I continued my walk.  I ran across this lovely tribute to the ground breaking French naturalist, Georges Cuvier, by the Museum of Natural History where it worked.

By 4:30 it was getting windy and starting to drizzle.  My knee was also hurting, so I made my way back towards Notre Dame, where I could sit for a bit.  A long the way, I passed this cafe, all lit up in the evening rain:

After a short break in Notre Dame, I made my way to the Marais.  The wind was really picking up and turning my umbrella inside out.  I finally made it to Le Tartine, where I chose not to order a tartine, but, instead had French onion soup and a glass of Bourgeuil.

Even though it was only 6:30 pm, I had had enough for today.  I made my way back to the hotel and climbed the floors to my room.  All together, I think I walked 5 hours today.  I'll be asleep in less than half an hour.