Paris Journal, Part 5

6/14 Saturday

Went to Anne's concert at Ste. Chapelle, which will undoubtedly go down as one of the great highlights of the trip. As reputed, the stained glass here is gorgeous, especially with the sun pouring through the rose window. The trains were running less frequently since it was Saturday, so we were a few minutes late for our rendezvous with Anne before the concert, but she was kind enough to wait for us and shepherd us to the front row seats she had reserved. We were only a few feet from the chamber quintet for which Anne is one of the violinists, and this meant not only that we had a great view but also that the acoustics were fantastic (when I commented on this after the show, she told us that they get much more muddied toward the back of the hall). I remember reading an article a while ago talking about how concert hall acoustics are not nearly as well understood as one might expect, so that modern performance spaces sometimes end up with disappointing sound despite the best efforts of the architects--but apparently the medieval builders of Ste. Chapelle knew a thing or two. Some of the selections featured a children's choir and the sound was especially marvelous once the human voice was added to the mix. The swelling high notes in particular were rather sublime. Even more particularly, there was a boy soprano of about 11 who came forward for a solo that actually did send chills up my spine. He was right in front of me, singing with both great power and marvelous articulation, and I could hardly believe his slight body could produce such sound. When he was done, Suzanne and I gave each other a stunned look. I joked with Anne afterwards that it almost makes one understand the medieval tradition of castrati. Nicholas enjoyed the concert (only beginning to slump in the last fifteen minutes or so) and agreed that the boy soprano was amazing.

6/15 Sunday (Father's Day)

Suzanne's brother Scott, and his wife, Sue, arrived today after the same sort of all-nighter we pulled two weeks ago, and looking just as dazed as we were--but also happy to be in Paris. They hung out at our place for a while waiting to be able to check in at their hotel, and we fed them baguette sandwiches with bread from our favorite boulangerie (even in Paris, not all the bread is good, we have found).

After they headed off to catch a nap, Nicholas and Suzanne and I went for a Father's Day outing to one of the local parks--next to the Observatoire de Paris--that Nicholas had been waiting to show me (he also made me a sweet card at a pre-Father's Day arts and crafts session at the American library). One nice feature of this park is that it has several clumps of trees and bushes with room to move around inside--which means to Nicholas that they make great "forts" (and I can still pretty clearly recall the appeal a good fort had for me when I was a kid). We climbed around on some trees, ran around foolishly, gathered a few rocks, stirred up some "dust storms," and watched the French kids running around doing pretty much the same things American kids do. One little girl even helped us with a dust storm for a minute or two, before getting shy and running off.

For dinner, we met up with Scott and Sue for dinner near their hotel in Montparnasse (they have a great location near the famous cafes Le Rotund, Le Dome, and Le Select), at a place called Montparnasse 138, which comes highly recommended by Pudlo for its large menu, good prices, and comfortable atmosphere. It was a lovely meal, with the mussels in cream sauce with leeks standing out as an especially tasty appetizer. Everything Pudlo said was true--the food was good, the staff was friendly, and the prices have remained very reasonable (as was not the case at Les Olivades). I certainly expect to pay them another visit before we leave.


6/16 Monday

Sick day. Stomach bug for all three of us, but especially Suzanne. With a big effort of will I used some of the down-time to catch up on the journal for the previous days.

6/17 Tuesday

Today we were still recovering from the bug, especially in the morning, but managed to venture out for a return to Isle St. Louis with Scott and Sue. We enjoyed introducing them to one of our favorite places, and we ate some great ice cream. They had had a big morning, with lots of walking, so they eventually headed back to their hotel for a rest before dinner. We decided to stay out, giving Nicholas a chance to run around in the great little park by Notre Dame, where we also enjoyed the playing of a couple of pretty good young jazz musicians (sax and guitar) free-lancing for tips (I gave Nicholas a Euro to drop in the guitar case). Then we met back up with Scott and Sue for a wonderful dinner at Bistrot des Pingouins on Rue Daguerre. They really enjoyed their dishes, and it was fun to be able to take them to one of our neighborhood favorites.

6/18 Wednesday

Big day at the Louvre with Scott and Sue. We spent most of our time checking out the ancient statuary and relics, since these (rather than the paintings) were what Nicholas was most interested in seeing. He felt a particular affinity for the ancient Egyptians, noting their admiration for the big cats (many lions were in evidence). After a few hours, I was ready for fresh air, so I peeled off and ended up taking a long walk along the Seine on the Rive Gauche, perusing the many blocks of book stalls as i went. I had in mind a copy of Henry Miller's Quiet Days in Clichy (in French) that I had spotted the day before, far down the line, past Notre Dame. Wouldn't you know, when I finally found the place the book was gone, but along the way I snapped up a couple of Simenon's Inspector Maigret mysteries, including one that is mentioned by Hemingway in A Moveable Feast as possibly the first Simenon he ever read. These were a couple of cheap paperbacks and I hadn't quite sated my book-buying lust, so I returned to Shakespeare and Co. (which we had visited for the first time the day before with Scott and Sue) and picked up a nice copy of Hemingway's Collected Stories, making sure they impressed it with their coveted "Kilometer Zero" stamp. Then, since Nicholas and Suzanne were picking up Asian carry-out for dinner, I decided to take the opportunity to walk along St. Germaine Boulevard until I found a brasserie where I could stop for "les moules" (mussels). Suzanne and I had done this on the previous trip, and I had been looking for the chance to repeat the experience ever since we arrived. To my surprise, none of the many brasseries and cafes I passed seemed to have them, so I ended up walking west (after already walked east from the Louvre to Shakespeare and Co.) almost until I hit St. Germaine de Pres church. On that stretch of the boulevard, across from Les Deux Magots and Cafe Flore, and a few doors down from Brasserie Lip, I located the brasserie (La Taverne St. Germaine) at which we had originally had our moules, and sure enough they were still on the menu. By then I was hot, thirsty, hungry, and foot-weary, so the stakes were high--but they delivered with a tall cold glass of beer and big black pot of mussels. As a bonus, I had an enjoyable and extended conversation (after I recommended les moules) with a couple of visitors from Quebec. They were an older couple, with the hardy, rumpled look of habitual hikers and campers (as it turned out they were), who were having an extended vacation taking them to Greece, Vienna, Paris, the south of France, etc. She was also a poetry lover, and was quite pleased to find out I was a lit professor. We had a very nice exchange, agreeing that we liked forests and lakes, on the one hand, but also cities, on the other, and bid each other warm farewells at the end of the meal.

Paris Journal, Part 4

6/11 Wednesday

Suzanne took her students to the Musee D ' Orsay today. But Nicholas and I were pretty tuckered from the big expedition yesterday, so we took it easy . This gave Nicholas a chance to do some of his "work" at home. He plugged away on the "code" for his rock collection (he labels each rock with a letter, and has made a list of what the letters stand for), and also started on a list of French words and their translations. I also read to him from the Hardy boys book (The Clue in the Embers) we got from the American library--he's quite enraptured by the action, so the interval between evening story-times is proving too long.

Anne, who is a classical violinist, dropped by this morning and invited us to a concert at Ste. Chapelle this Saturday night. They will do Vivaldi (can't remember the piece) and there will be a children's choir. Sounds like it should be lovely.


6/12 Thursday

Tonight we met up with Suzanne's students for dinner at Cafe Delmas. The attraction here is not so much to the food (which is just average) as the location and the history. It's one of Hemingway's old haunts, in the Mouffetard neighborhood where he had an apartment with Hadley (the Rue Mouffetard is one of the old Roman streets, and some of the buildings date to the 12thC). Suzanne had assigned a group of her students to put together a tour for us, but because of a rainy afternoon (that ended up clearing by dinnertime) it was postponed. Instead, we just trotted quickly over for a glimpse of the building where Hemingway lived. The Mouffetard neighborhood has serious character, and I can understand why Hemingway liked it--though they lived in a cold-water flat with no toilet. Apparently, he didn't mind the accommodations (or lack thereof), preferring to save their money for travel rather than everyday living expenses, and making good use of the local cafes.

We had a nice relaxing dinner (sort of a relief to be in a more casual place without a haughty waiter overseeing things), with a large-screen TV off to one side showing the Germany/Croatia football (soccer) match. I enjoyed meeting Suzanne's students--she lucked out with a very nice group of kids, smart and amiable, and clearly reveling in the opportunity to spend five weeks in Paris. And Nicholas really liked meeting them too, especially Tania, a dark-haired beauty with whom he kept up an animated conversation for much of the meal. She was a good sport, explaining that she really likes little kids and has two much younger siblings at home. With me as go-between serving to elucidate some of Nicholas's more obscure allusions, they covered all the Disney movies they had both seen, all the books they had in common, the names of the rocks in his rock collection (Asteroid, Skeleton Face, Baboon Face, Crab Claw, Arrowhead, Rotten Wood), etc. etc.


6/13 Friday

Julia came to take Nicholas to the park for a few hours (they had a great time again). And Suzanne got to do some further exploration of the Mouffetard neighborhood on foot--it's a really funky, interesting place, with lots of arty cafes and shops, narrow winding streets, charming buildings, etc. It's simply astonishing how many great--and different--neighborhoods there are in Paris. It has to be the best city for walking in the world. I went to the Musee D' Orsay for a couple of hours. Quite apart from the paintings, the place itself is fantastic, a renovated 19thC train station featuring a huge central space with a ceiling of glass and steel. There are a couple of observation decks from which you can survey the the people wending their way among the sculptures on the first floor far below. But the paintings, too, are marvelous, the main attractions being the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists on the upper floors. Many of the canonical works are here--Whistler's mother, Van Gogh's bedroom and self-portraits and "Starry Night," Monet's water lilies, Cezanne's apples, and the list goes on and on. I also came across many gripping paintings that were less familiar to me, or that I hadn't known at all. We've been here nearly two weeks, and today is the first time I've made it to a museum, so I was really hungry to take it all in. We're planning a family trip to the Louvre soon, and I'm hoping Nicholas will like the Picasso museum as well (it's fairly small, for one thing), but in general it's just trickier to get to the museums as often as we once would have.

We have a fairly restrained plan of going out for full meals, but tonight was one of them. We went to La Cagouille, which is one of the restaurants designated a true "temple of seafood" by our guidebooks, and it certainly lived up to its billing. The day's menu was handwritten on a white board (no English translations) and, except for dessert, featured nothing but seafood. They automatically bring you a bowl of tiny, delicious clams before you order your meal, and both the entrees and the plats were seafood--mainly different kinds of fish in one form or another. One appetizer was rather salty mackerel on a bed of greens, and wasn't a favorite with me, but the other appetizer was a tasty little fish (I've forgotten the name) accompanied by a little boat of truly mouth-watering sauce that all three of us enjoyed. My main course was filet de mulet (red mullet, I think) and was very good, as was Suzanne's salmon. Both of the main dishes came with wonderfully prepared vegetables--potatoes in butter in my case, and mix of potatoes, haricots vert (French green beans), carrots, and potatoes for Suzanne. Nicholas held on valiantly through the long meal to be rewarded with two scoops of glace (ice cream), one vanilla and one chocolate. The ice cream here seems to be pretty consistently fantastic--the vanilla in particular tastes less "processed" than our version, with a much richer flavor of vanilla bean. Suzanne and I (and Nicholas) shared the mille-feuille des fraises, that is, layers of puff pastry with custard and fresh strawberries. Wonderful. It was after 10 o'clock by the time we made it home from the restaurant and got Nicholas in bed.

We've been resisting, since we have to keep on schedule for Suzanne to teach a 9am class, but it's almost impossible not to shift later here. The restaurants don't start serving until 7:30 and it doesn't get dark until after 10. Little by little you get seduced into later and later bedtimes (a seduction to which I am especially susceptible anyway).

Paris Journal, Part 3

6/8 Sunday

Fresh market. A different rhythm.

Went to the neighborhood fresh market. We visited this on our first day here, and it was nice, but today we weren't so tired and we got to see more of it. The whole scene is tremendously bustling and French (but also fairly friendly), with fresh veggies, fruits, seafood, and cheese, all at good prices. Open every Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, until 2pm. We had a lot of fun today, and came home to make a delicious lunch. I had brie with tomato and basil (basilic, I now know to call it), all perfectly fresh. I took our little Larousse electronic dictionary with me, and that came in really handy for things like figuring out that fletan is halibut. Again, there weren't too many kids around, and the vendors kept offering Nicholas free goodies. He was happy to munch an apricot and a cherry, but shied away from the shrimp, which was cooked, but still sporting its head and legs. I ate the shrimp, which was quite tasty. I'll pick some of those up soon, but tonight I'm going to try pan-frying the halibut (we don't have an oven or I'd bake it). I was pleased to manage the shopping pretty well with my limited French. The language already feels a lot more familiar to me than it did a week ago.

We're trying to find a rhythm for this longer stay, which is a lot different than a week-long vacation. We have a much longer stretch in which to see things, but we also have to handle laundry and shopping and the business of daily life, and Suzanne's summer course carries a fairly serious work load, since the schedule is quite compressed.

6/9 Monday

Today a we had a sitter for Nicholas for three hours. Her name is Julia, and she is the twenty-something daughter of Francoise, another of the Yale professors in the summer program. Suzanne went with them to the park, but used the time to get some reading (teaching prep) done, and Nicholas and Julia hit it off nicely. That's great, since we'll definitely need some more sitting so Suz can get her prep done and I can do a little work too. Today I got to go off solo for this first time. Took a book and headed up to St. Germaine, where I secured a cafe table at Le Rouquet (less famous but also less mobbed than Cafe Flore or Les Deux Magots), ordered a cafe au lait, and got some actual work done when I wasn't rubbernecking.



6/10 Tuesday

Big day today. Went on the bateau-mouche with Suzanne's class (a nice bunch). It was an exceptionally sunny afternoon, which had us broiling on the top deck--but it was nice to see all the famous sights along the Seine framed against blue sky. Suz and I took this tour last time we were here, but it really is remarkable how much you can see from the Seine. The guide books don't exaggerate when they call it the central "artery" of the city--it does somehow seem like the city's life force flows through it.

Nicholas started off grumpy and disinclined to be pleased in the morning, after not getting a great night's sleep, so he and I had a distinctly bumpy morning with much wrangling and a few melt-downs while Suzanne was off teaching. He didn't want to go the fresh market, didn't want to go on the bateau-mouche, etc. But in the event, he enjoyed the cruise a great deal, and also got a kick out of meeting Suzanne's students. By the end of the day he said, "You know daddy, you don't really need a camera. I've got a hundred pictures in my mind, and 130 sentences!" Moments like that are pretty great.

I also had some almost giddy successes with my French today, including another successful trip to the fresh market, where I was again taken for Italian. And then, even better, we went to the seafood market at Rue Daguerre (to pick up the Paella Royale, a mix of Spanish rice, shrimp, clams, mussels, etc.) and I got in an extended conversation with the woman behind the counter. She asked me quite a few questions, and as long as she didn't speak too fast (I'm not afraid to say "plus lentement, s'il vous plait," which means "more slowly, please") I was able to follow most of what she said. And I was also able to explain, in decently acceptable French, that we had been here six years ago for a one-week stay before Nicholas was born, that we had returned for a five-week stay because my wife was teaching a summer literature course at Cite Universitaire, etc. etc. She complimented me on my accent, and then launched into the familiar complaint about how Americans don't articulate their words (she thought at first that I was British). We were both clearly pleased by the conversation and she tossed in a tasty mayo sauce to go with our crevettes (shrimp).

I was so intoxicated by this success that I struck up another conversation when I came across a neighbor in the hall. She was looking for a book on the little communal bookshelf they keep there (nice touch, that) and I used the opening (Vous cherchez un bon livre, n' est-ce pas?) to get things rolling. She spoke much too quickly for me to get everything, but I told her a little about us and gathered that she has aunts and uncles in San Francisco whom she has not seen for a long time. I'm curious to know what she does for a living, since she was looking for the second volume of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which is not exactly light reading. She didn't compliment me on my accent, but she did think I had been living here for a while.

Paris Journal, Part 2

6/5 Thursday

Suzanne taught today, and Nicholas and I went off to Le Jardin des Tuileries. The main reason for this destination was that Nicholas wanted to go somewhere with rocks and sticks, so he could experiment with fulcrums, and so he could look for rocks to collect. Not all that many kids in evidence, except for those on class trips. No play structures, and as with the Jardin du Luxembourg there were none of those little sailboats in evidence--though they are mentioned in all the guide books, and we remember them from our last trip. All in all, it was a rather tiring expedition. We've been walking our feet off since we got here, and had an especially big day yesterday. Also, the Metro is proving to be extremely crowded almost every time we use it, and we have to use it--often changing trains a couple of times--to get to most places.

We end up putting together a quick dinner of whatever was left in the fridge or the kitchen--some bean salad, some pasta, baguette and goat cheese or butter, some fruit, etc. Nicholas was pretty excited about this "scavenger hunt" approach to dinner.

6/6 Friday

Shopping at Place d'Italie. Writing. Bistrot des Pingouins.

Suzanne and Nicholas went shopping at Place d' Italie to get mugs, an umbrella, a toy for Nicholas (promised during yesterday's tiring excursion), and some other odds and ends. I stayed home to do some reading and writing. I write to clear my mind and sharpen my wits. Even the merest jottings serve to establish some perspective and impose some organization, however minimal or haphazard. This morning I woke up burdened by a sense of the accumulation of large chunks of undigested experience. In the five days we've been here we've been on the go, scrambling to figure out the business of living in a foreign city, to get Suz up and running with her teaching, to see some sights, etc. And before we came I was pushing as hard as I could to get my Oppen manuscript to the press, finish up the academic year, write my annual reports, get ready to leave the country, etc. By now I'm feeling a pretty serious need to slow down a little, get some rest, and do some thinking of a more meditative and less hurried sort than I have managed lately. But at the same time, I also want to "make the most" of my Paris experience. That latter urge sounds benign enough, but it can turn you into one of those crazed tourists hurtling from one monument to the next if you're not careful.

We went to Pistro des Pinguoins for dinner (I successfully made a reservation by phone in advance). This place was recommended by Pudlo as a friendly, simple restaurant, and that's exactly what it was--very relaxed (though also very busy), with a strong neighborhood feel. Despite the latter, they also had menus in French and English (we looked at both, and they were the same--not different as we warned they can be at some places). We will definitely return. I was disappointed at first that there was not a range of fish offerings (I was hoping for the cod mentioned in Pudlo), meaning that I had to order salmon, which I eat pretty often back home. But my filet was moist and delicious, accompanied by very simple greens and potatoes. Struck me as a French version of down-home cooking, very satisfying. Suzanne also had salmon, baked in a fillo-like pastry, with green salad. I had escargots for an appetizer--quite tasty in an herb sauce (definitely featuring basil). These came with a special little implement perfectly sized and shaped to hold the shell as one works to prize out the snail. One snail wouldn't come out and I was happy to get a laugh from the waitress with my attempt at a small joke in French: "Cette escargot a gagne. Il reste dans la maison." Or : "This snail has won. He remains in his house.")

6/7 Saturday

Return to the Marais. Le Colimacon. Place des Vosges. BHV. Notre Dame on the weekend. The crushing crowd (la foule).

Today we made our much anticipated return to Le Marais, the district that was our home base (we stayed at Le Caron de Beaumarchais) during our week-long Paris fling before Nicholas was born (I took a picture of Nicholas and Suzanne in front of our old hotel). We got off the metro at St. Michel and walked past Notre Dame--and with the weekend crowd, there was a line to get in today. In fact, there was a fairly crushing crowd (we learned the name for this: la foule) just about everywhere we went. Still, we had fun walking the ancient and picturesque cobblestone streets (very different from the wide avenues of the neighborhood where we're staying now), even if they were full of tourists like ourselves. Walking up Rue Vielle du Temple we passed first Le Caron de Beaumarchais, then Les Philosophes (a cafe), and then Le Colimacon, our beloved little restaurant. Suzanne is planning to take her class out to dinner here, so we stopped in and found out that she could reserve a special room for the class, which would have its own waiter and an earlier than usual serving time to accommodate their schedule. The "events" person for Yale hadn't been able to set this up by phone, so stopping by proved to be worthwhile, quite aside from the pleasant shot of nostalgia. While Suz and Nicholas checked out the dining room, I made conversation with a young chef and his friend, who were having a smoke outside. My French kept the exchange limited, but I did manage to explain that we had frequented the restaurant on a visit six or seven years ago. The chef and his friend complained that the area had gotten "plus doux," that is, softer and calmer than it used to be, with too many tourists on the scene now. That reminded me that one night we had gone to the restaurant later than usual--to realize that in addition to be a charming neighborhood restaurant it had a thriving gay scene.

Placed des Vosges was full of tourists too, but still possessed its remembered stately beauty. After so much negotiating of narrow, crowded streets, Nicholas was thrilled to be able to run free for a bit. We had bubble-blowing paraphernalia, so he chased bubbles like a happy fool.

Heading back, we were getting pretty tired, and were also in need of a bathroom. Here and there they have some little public toilet cabins, but the one in this area was broken, so we were happy to find out that the big bargain department-store BHV, near Hotel de Ville, had rest rooms on the fifth floor. We were also pleased to find an eatery, also on the fifth floor, where we could get double scoops (deux boules) of ice cream for 2 euros, rather than having to pay three times as much at one of the chic local cafes. That recharged our batteries enough for the ride back home, or rather to Place Denfert Rochereau, where we sought out the sushi restaurant on Rue Daguerre, as we had promised Nicholas we would. The sushi was just okay, but the food was relatively inexpensive, and N. chowed down on his California roll until he was nicely sated. It was good to get a solid meal after another big day of walking and metro-riding, and even more so because we had to spend a foot-weary, belly-grumbling half hour waiting for the restaurant to open at 7 o'clock, which seems to be the earliest possible serving time around these parts.

Paris Journal, Part 1

Paris Journal

6/2 Paris! (Monday)

Got in yesterday after one of those all-night flights with a time change that pushed us from 1am to 7am by the time we arrived. No sleep for me and Suz, a little for Nicholas. When we got to the apartment we were greeted by our very gracious hostess, Anne, who took us around to the local grocery store and also to the very lovely fresh market, where we picked up a few fruits and veggies, including some excellent French strawberries. Also got a cheap but good bottle of Chardonnay from the corner store, and even managed to read a little of my Philip K. Dick novel last night--but the whole "day" (or whatever you call it) passed in a strange blur of fatigue. We did manage a few hours sleep in the afternoon, but Suz had to run off to Cite Universitaire to meet her students and Nicholas was a bit of a basket case by evening, when we went to the local pizzeria.

Everybody's cheerier this morning after getting at least a bit of sleep, and starting to break out of the jet lag. Nicholas just had his first bath in our Paris tub, and came out to show me a silly new dance he just invented, smiling, rosy, and clean. I had strange broken dreams last night and popped awake at 6am to the light through the curtains (a bit too bright for me) and the unfamiliar street noises (not used to being in the city--any city--any more). Right now a siren is going off, and kids are pouring out of the school across the street. Looks like a fire drill. Sun's trying to come out.

Ok, time for some ablutions. And Nicholas has been promised that he can watch some more of Cars, which means I have to give up the laptop for now. A class of young kids--probably kindergarteners--is going by on the street. An old nun gives one of the teachers kiss on both cheeks (but didn't she kiss her on the forehead first?). The kitchen staff is standing around on the corner in white chef's coats and those grey-and-black checked pants. Lots to see out the window.
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6/3 Tuesday

Notre Dame. Hugo's Notre Dame. Isle St. Louis. Hemingway. Allergies. Faster-than-light vehicles. Shopping at the supermarche.

Rainy off and on yesterday, and that's what they're calling for the next couple of days, but we made an expedition up to Notre Dame yesterday and got things off to a nice start. Nicholas was excited to see such a famous building, and we even got inside without waiting (I seem to remember a line to get in last time). Read in the guide book that the building was nearly torn down in the 19thC, but that the popularity of Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, along with a revival of interest in Gothic architecture, saved it. Last night Suz read out a bit of Hemingway's Sun Also Rises, where he talks about the cathedral "squatting" on the island. That's a good choice of verb--makes me think of the building itself, with its ugly beauty, as a larger version of one of its own famous gargoyles.

After walking around the dark interior, looking at the stained glass, the statues, etc. we moved on to the Isle St. Louis, a favorite of ours from the last visit. We found the spot where we had our (to us) famous picnic of wine and brie and baguette. There was a steady shower by this time, which forced us to seek the expensive shelter of an awning at one of the local cafes. We had a pricey but delicious treat of glace vanille and sorbet fraise. Nicholas first thought the glace was the best, then the sorbet, then the glace, continuing back and forth in this manner the whole time we ate, in an exquisite agony of indecision. At one point, he said, "You know what this place is to me?" The answer: "Paradise!"

I had bad allergies all day, and they culminated in an uncontrollable fit of sneezing and weepy eyes by late afternoon. Same thing happened on Cape Cod last June, and also the year before. Apparently I'm now destined to be beset by killer June allergies wherever I am in the world.

~

Today Suzanne taught her first class, tackling Hemingway (manly metaphors seem appropriate in this case) and finding her students eager and bright-eyed, the natural vitality of youth working to counteract their jet lag. Nicholas and I went off to the Jardin Luxembourg, where we gazed at the palace, watched the old guys playing chess, fed the birds some of our daddy-packed pb&j picnic, looked at various intriguing sculpture installations (including one whose title translates roughly as "pot of legs, bouquet of feet"), inspected the various varieties of palm tree on view, gathered rocks, etc. Nicholas got particularly excited about the rocks, which were not the usual sort we find around home--especially when I told him I was pretty sure they are volcanic (which seems to me likely, given their waviform smoothness).

Before we went out, I had N. occupy himself for a bit by drawing faster-than-light aircraft, having explained to him that--Star Wars aside--we had conquered the sound barrier but had not yet topped the speed of light (I didn't get around to explaining that we would have to do so with space vehicles, not planes). After producing several fierce-looking designs, Nicholas wanted me to draw one. I conjured up something I thought was pretty sleek and impressive, but when I showed it to N. he smiled tolerantly and said, "Let me show you a model." After scrutinizing several models, I grasped the need for extra sets of wings and a plethora of guns, and thus managed to turn out something acceptable.



~

I didn't like the soy milk we picked up yesterday, so I went to the supermarche tonight to try to find another brand. It was difficult to locate, so I ended up inquiring "Avez-vous soja?" First I was shown a can of soy beans, but with the clarifier "a boire" I did eventually obtain the desired beverage. A small success in the on-going transatlantic negotiations, but I'll find out tomorrow morning if this one tastes any better. We haven't gone to a restaurant for a real French meal yet, which means that so far the usual food inconveniences faced by travelers are hanging in the balance with the compensatory treats (excellent strawberries, some good street-vendor crepes, mousse from the supermarche, good cheap wine plentifully available, etc.)



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6/4 Wednesday

Eiffel Tower. Les Olivades. Vagabonds. The "lucky" ring. American library.

Made our inevitable trip to the Eiffel Tower today. The three of us are starting to get the hang of the Metro (sometimes a bit challenging with Nicholas in tow). On our last Paris visit, Suz and I only gazed at the tower from a bateau-mouche, so we didn't know about the carnivalesque scene at its base--crowds from the world over, street performers, ice cream, sketch artists (we got one done of Nicholas and the Eiffel tower, which was sort of fun, but the result was, alas, a poor likeness), a carousel, etc.. The lines to go up and take in the view were long, and Nicholas wasn't so sure he liked the idea anyway, so we confined ourselves to taking in the atmosphere and taking the usual pictures of ourselves against the backdrop of the tower. Not unlike Notre Dame, but with a modernist twist, it has a strange way of oscillating between beauty and ugliness when you see it up close. I'd like to see it lit up at night, but it stays light so late here--that is, so far past N.'s bedtime--that I don't know if we'll be able to manage it.

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We also went for our first real French meal of the trip--at Les Olivades--selected from Pudlo's as one of the best bets in the 7th (the chef is Bruno Deligne, for those who know about such things). But the 12 Euro prix fixe lunch mentioned in the guide (which is 2007-2008) is apparently a thing of the past. It had gone up to 25E, and all told it was not by any means a cheap meal, but it was an experience. Pudlo's ratings ascend as follows: simple, comfortable, very comfortable, luxurious, very luxurious. Le Colimacon, the Marais restaurant we liked so well on our last visit, is listed as "simple." Les Olivades is listed as "comfortable," but we found it both as expensive and as formal as we are likely to be able to handle. The younger waitress who served us was very precise and very French, but friendly enough and game to shepherd a table of Americans through the ritual of a French meal. We went through only an attenuated version of this ritual, skipping the aperitif at one end and coffee at the other, and we expended a good deal of effort behaving ourselves, keeping Nicholas in line (he was actually very good), and summoning our very best French. With only a few rough patches we were able to understand and to be understood. The older matron of the establishment also participated in the service, and she was more formidable, but we succeeded, I think, in not provoking her full scorn. The meal was initiated by the waitress bringing us each a large plate bearing a tiny sort of scoop-like dish containing a small white disk. After placing these on the table, the waitress said to us repeatedly and emphatically, "Ne mangez pas!" (Do not eat!") Then she returned with an elegant pitcher and poured a few drops of water onto each of the white disks, at which point they expanded into white towers several inches high and revealed themselves to be wet naps for cleaning the hands before the meal. Suzanne and Nicholas had some marvelous, tiny, cheese-filled raviolis in pesto, served with shavings of fresh cheese (probably some variety of parm, i guess). I had the Black Tiger shrimp with finely minced papaya, pepper, and sweet onions, one of the dishes mentioned in Pudlo's. There were three, or perhaps four, of these good-sized shrimp, and then a thin line of the minced accompaniment along one edge of the plate. All very spicy and tasty, but though I am not a meat-and-potatoes sort of guy, I did find it a bit minimalist. Dessert was surprisingly unsweet (and therefore spurned by Nicholas)--a whipped "fromage blanc" with a layer of rhubarb sauce underneath, both a bit sour, but nevertheless delicious. For a touch of sweetness there were some sugar crystals sprinkled on top, and these turned out to fizz in the mouth--the "pop rocks" effect that is apparently popular these days (or so I have gleaned from reading the occasional food column in the Times). Nicholas did think that part was pretty cool.

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The Indian fellow who did Nicholas's portrait was not much of an artist, but had the knack of seeming friendly and honest. Of course it was a smart line of his to say that Nicholas was so handsome that he really wanted to sketch him. Later, as we were leaving the scene and on our way to the American library, a slightly scroungy looking fellow of some non-French but European origin (possibly Italian) found a "gold" ring on the ground as were passing by. He made a big show of finding it, and of reading some initials on the inside that he took to signal that it was genuine gold. Then he tried it on his fingers but it was too small, so he tried it on mine (he had captured my interest) and the ring fit. He then gave me the ring, saying it must be my lucky day, bid us a cheery "Ciao," and headed on his way. After a minute, though, he trotted back to ask if I might perhaps spare the money for a sandwich. I obliged, in a mix of Euros and dollars (he almost didn't want to take one of the bills, which had a slight tear), and he took his farewell again. Later, it occurred to me that the whole thing had the aspect of a show (especially when he tried the ring on his fingers in a bigger-than-life, nothing-up-my-sleeve sort of way), and was most likely a well rehearsed scam. Anyway, if it was a scam, I don't really mind. He did look rather down and out, and probably could have used the lunch. I have a soft spot for vagabonds, and I don't really begrudge those who try to put their wits to use to fill their bellies. I got to know the street culture of Washington, D.C. way back when I was a bike courier, and I tend also to think of all the hungry artists--first and foremost, Henry Miller--who have written so sharply of trying to scrape up the next meal. Hemingway claimed to have gotten many a dinner out of the fat pigeons of Le Jardin du Luxembourg, waiting for the moment when the gendarme went off for his glass of wine and then sneaking up on his victim to wring its neck (whether true or not, the story has made it into our guidebook). But neither Hemingway nor Miller, it goes without saying, would have spurned a nice meal at Les Olivades, given the chance.

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We also signed up for membership in the American Library of Paris. We got some videos for Nicholas (including Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame, of course), and a couple for ourselves as well, and Suz was able to get some books she needs for her teaching.