HOOTENANNY has finally scored a true foreign correspondent. My brother Garth Teever. He's in Paris for a short vacation and seems to be enjoying himself.
Arrived after a somewhat horrendous evening on the airplane with a baby who had a rather loud scream. But I've made it to the bus headed for central Paris where I can catch the Metro to my hotel and after a shower I'll feel like going out again. My French does not seem to have deserted me, so no problems so far. Ricardo, you might find it amusing that Ann RR was on my flight, seated about ten rows in front of me. She's on her way to some conference here.
Okay, so I walked around a bit after I got off the bus on Rue Scribe. The directions were to go left after I got off the bus and then keep walking until I got to the top of the Place de l'Opera. Can someone define "top of the Place" for me, because I couldn't seem to find it. I did walk past a Bureau de Change so I took the opportunity to buy some Euros (they are not cheap, but who's counting?) while I was on the prowl. And then there it was, a huge gaping entrance to the nether regions with only a little sign saying, in French of course, "Keep your Metro clean.". Well, I figured that must be it, and so it was. I suppose one should expect the French to be subtle. A hop, skip and a jump and here I am at the hotel. A nice little room (with the emphasis on "little" but then I am paying less than a $100 a night, which would get me even less in New York), say about 6x10 with a bit extra for a bathroom. Still, they've managed to get a bed, a desk, two chairs, a wardrobe and a luggage table in while leaving me room to take a step or two. Well, out to see a bit of the city. And perhaps a pastry shop or two.
I'm not so good at following maps that don't include all the details, but I've managed to see the only Renaissance Fountain in Paris, the church where the funeral of Mozart's mother was held and Louis XIII had his first communion (then I managed my first bakery stop for a ham and cheese croissant, which I chased with about a half pound of the most crimson sweet-tart strawberries I've ever had [and the tiniest: no larger than the tip of a little finger] from a little fruit stand on the Rue Montmartre. Next, a stop at 54 Rue St Honore to see the balcony from which the painter David watched the cart taking Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. Then to the spot where once stood the house in which Moliere was born; then on to the street where Henri IV was assassinated. Then a second bakery, this time for a superb ficelle lardons and a pistachio eclair. Of course, I still haven't made it to any of the bakeries on my list - I still have three days. Now I'm just sitting in the park at Forum des Halles watching all the children and pigeons play - not necessarily together.
An hour or two of study in my book "Tune Up Your French" to finish off the evening (always useful to review the finer points of idiom and behavior) and I was too exhausted for dinner. But it's a beautiful morning: sunny and cool. I wandered over to one of the bakeries on my list on the Rue Jean Nicot for a croissant and a brioche flavored with the peel of bitter orange. I walked over to the park by the Maubourg Tower and reviewed yesterday's emails while I munched the croissant, shatteringly crisp bite by bite. I'll get to the brioche later. Then down into the Metro for a ride back over to Chatelet, where I was yesterday, only today I'll go in the opposite direction, to the Ile de la Cite. But first, I'm having my first coffee of the day in a little cafe looking out on the Seine, the Theatre du Chatelet and the fountain La Victoire, built to commemorate Napoleon's Egyptian campaigns in 1808. Before this area became the pretty little square it is today, it was the site of a notorious prison, Le Grand Chatelet, for about a thousand years. I wonder if there are any ghosts wandering around here at night.
I cannot read French handwriting. At least, not when it's written in light green lipstick on a mirror some 10 feet away and 5 feet up. I stopped at the Restaurant Paul on the Ile de la Cite this afternoon around 2 for a late lunch as it had been recommended by an acquaintance. That alone might not have sufficed, but it was absolutely overrun by lawyers and judges from the nearby Ministry of Justice (housed in the former palace first of the Roman governor of Paris [in fact Julian was proclaimed emperor of Rome there in 360] and subsequently of kings of France up to about the middle of the reign of Jean II, who was being held prisoner in England and whose son, the dauphin and future Charles V, decided to move to the Louvre when the provost of merchants, thinking he might be able to overthrow the monarchy while Jean II was unavoidably detained, burst into the palace where the dauphin was sitting with two counsellors and slaughtered them in front of the dauphin, getting plenty of blood all over the dauphin in the process, thus causing the dauphin to no longer appreciate the benefits of living on the Ile de la Cite), so I thought, why not give it a try? How's that for a long sentence? But everywhere I go around here is just layered with anecdotes from history; in this same complex is the incredible Sainte Chapelle built by Saint Louis to house the Crown of Thorns, which he bought from Baudouin II emperor of Constantinople, who was in desparate need of money and would clearly have been good at selling swampland in Florida, had he known it existed. Also in this complex is the "court" where the Revolutionary Tribunal met to send so many aristocrats to the guillotine, including Marie Antoinette, whose cell in the nearby prison was turned into an "expatiatory" chapel by Louis XVIII in the nineteenth century, and probably no fewer revolutionaries, at least until the primary prosecutor himself was sent to the guillotine. But back to the story with which I began. I'm ordering away in my not so good French and I order the "cuisse de porc" (leg of pork)braised Normandy style. Without hesitation the waitress repeats my order: "cuisse de poule.". Okay, that's a chicken leg, but what the heck. Aside from the embarassment of ordering pork and being corrected with chicken in a rather subtle manner, the chicken in France really tastes like the chicken I remember when we grew our own on the farm, and I had some more of those little tiny strawberries and some red currants for dessert. Notwithstanding the general impression of the French in America, to me they are some of the most polite people. Every single time somebody bumps into me on the crowded streets or the Metro, he (or she) says "excuse me, sir." Imagine that happening in New York!
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