Musee D'Orsay

If you go to Paris, try to include a first-Sunday-of-the-month in your stay. That, we found by chance, is when admission at the Musee d'Orsay is free. When we went, November 7, 2010, there was a colossal show of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works. Some works were from the now-being-remodeled fifth floor, others were borrowed from other museums.
By the way, every picture I have of the Musee d'Orsay was taken on a previous visit, when I was amazed that picture-taking was allowed. I must have snapped the entire top floor, and I'm especially glad now that I did. Photography is now forbidden.
We couldn't have chanced on a better day!

Trying Yet Again to Post Bernard's Photo

Thanksgiving

In Paris, every day is Thanksgiving. The Parisians don't necessarily know this, or experience it, but that's my own prevailing state of mind. In fact, I carry with me at all times a little notebook in which I list each day's items for which I'm particularly grateful. This is how I do my post-trip reports -- sent to friends who humor me to a touching extent -- with such acute recall!

When I return to New York, I copy them more legibly to attach to the pages of the calendar that's devoted to each day's gratitude list. The main difference between the daily Paris lists and the daily New York lists is that there are more numbered items in Paris.

The photo I just tried == four times! -- to upload failed to appear: of the gentleman for whom I'm most thankful! This was taken on my birthday at the I-Love-You Wall in Montmartre, behind the Abbesses Metro: "I love you" appears in over 300 languages. Enough of that torment. I'll try, in a separate post, another photo, taken previously, with the other camera that had had a greater success rate in the uploading department.

Book: DESSINEZ-MOI UN PARISIEN by Olivier Magny

While dawdling in the St. Germain bookstore La Hune (next door to Cafe Flore) until it was time to keep an appointment, I happened upon the above-titled book which began with a blog, Stuff Parisians Love. Turns out they love New York-- images of which they get from the movies You've Got Mail and Sex and the City -- and speaking Englsh. This is a great consolation! Now I know that when a French person switches to English with me, it's because they want practice speaking English, not because my French is lousy (although it may well be!).
A bientot!

Movie: "The Age of Reason"

On the flight to Paris last night I saw "The Age of Reason," an obvious choice since it's about a woman's birthday, and I'm here to celebrate Bernard's (November 8th) and my own (the 6th) birthdays. On her 40th birthday, Margaret (Sophie Marceau), is visited by a now-retired provincial notary who has come to deliver to her a series of letters written to her by her 7-year-old self. It's seven that's "the age of reason." Forty, "your age, dear Me," is "very silly." Little Marguerite, as she was then called, offered the then-young notary who'd just started his practice, her life savings --which amounted to slightly more than 1 Euro-- to deliver her mail on her 40th birthday in 2010. She wrote about the various paths she might have pursued and about other important things in life such as "all-chocolate meals" and finding buried treasure. One thing that stuck with me was the notary's quoting of Picasso: "Become who you are." This is the kind of thing that can make you wish (a) that you had received letters from your kid-self, and (b) that your mature self could have written to your kid-self to benefit from hard-won experience, and spare said kid-self some of the grief encountered along the way.
Whether I'll get to post again before we leave Paris on the 11th remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the fun on Day 1 involved a visit to Bon Marche (where I got some gorgeous, silky-soft multi-colored yarn for a scarf), and the search for La Ruche, a house where free lodging was given to such artists as Amadeo Modigliani and Chaim Soutine. It was a very long search, there was no access to the building (I was hoping there'd at least be exhibit rooms we could see), and the even longer search for a Metro, but we were still thrilled to be in Paris.
Dinner was at the ever-wonderful Le Bosquet. Sorry Jean-Francois wasn't there tonight.
A bientot

Incroyable -- We're Leaving Tomorrow

You've heard of a red-letter day? Well, this is a red-picture day! The picture is of the Palais Royal, snapped through a colored filter in a fence.

I doubt I'll get to post from the hotel computer, as there's so much competition for time there. Will I ever catch up when I get back!

Au revoir pour maintenant.

It's Sarah Bernhardt's Birthday!

10/23/1844 - 3/26/1923
More amazing than this incredible woman's genius on the stage, or her continuing to tread the boards after a leg was amputated, or her ability to faint dead away when bored (I wish I could do that!), was her humanitarian creation of a hospital.
During the Prussian War's Siege of Paris (1870-1871), inspired by the Comedie Francaise's turning the theater into a hospital for war casualties, Sarah Bernhardt turned the Theatre de l'Odeon into a hospital. Getting a permit, and his fur-lined overcoat, from the Prefect de Police (who may have been her first lover), the twenty-six-year-old actress was completely focused on tending the wounded herself, assisted by two volunteers and instructed by a Dr. Duchesne, whose services she commandeered. Sarah Bernhardt, "the creature of fragile health, worked with the vigor of ten peasants."* Her richer friends were cajoled into supporting the hospital, donating money and supplies. One example: the chocolate magnate M. Meunier, who donated five hundred pounds of his nourishing product.
The raids at night made it necessary for the staff to move their patients to the cellar, where flooding and rats prevailed. Forced to close the hospital, Bernhardt moved the more serious cases to the military hospital at Val-de-Grace. For the twenty remaining convalescents, she rented at her own expense an empty flat in the rue de Provence, where she and her two stalwart volunteers (including a Madame Lambquin, an older Odeon actress) nursed them to recovery. All told, more than one hundred fifty solldiers and two civilians were cared for at the Odeon hospital.
*Recommended reading: MADAME SARAH by Cornelia Otis Skinner, particularly Chapter 4, "Sarah's Field Hospital."

Jean-Pierre Duprey (1/1/30 - 10/2/59)

In the course of researching a book, I was cruising around the ever-wonderful Wikipedia today and came across the name of this poet and sculptor. This was the first I'd heard of him. Wikipedia didn't describe his poetry or sculptures but did mention that he'd been arrested for having urinated on the grave of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. It didn't say what year that happened -- how close chronologically was it to his suicide?
Three days before he hanged himself, he said to a friend, "I am allergic to this planet."
This has been a Cultural History Moment.

On Parle Francais

Last week when Bernard and I were headed downtown on the Second Avenue bus, five French-speaking people got on -- a man who appeared to be in his seventies, with four women of various ages, from about 60 to 30.
The man got a seat in front of us, while the women sat on both sides of the aisle nearer to the driver. As a subtle way of letting them know that help in their language was close at hand, if they wanted to ask for it, I began to speak French to Bernard. (If they didn't want to ask for it, I wouldn't have interrupted their conversation.) It worked. By 6th Street, the man turned around and asked me how to get to "Hooston" Street. In a sort of Franglais, I told him the bus would turn left, and "en face et a gauche," was "votre arret." He said, "If you speak French, why didn't you speak French to me?" "I did -- I said '...a gauche.'" He asked if it was far. "Moins et moins." When their stop came into view virtually immediately, I pointed and said, "Voila votre arret." All said "Merci" as they went toward the door. I wished them "Bonne journee," and the man shook my hand. How I wished I had been able to talk to them sooner! Wouldn't you have wondered about such a menage?
I don't always have with me someone to whom I can speak French (or anything else) when there's the possibility of helpfulness combined with language practice nearby; a sandwich board saying "Ici on parle Francais" isn't an option! The next best thing: the $1 buttons you can get at the reception desk at French Institute: Alliance Francaise (fi:af), so I bought two that I put on the handles of my bag: "Ca va?" and . . .
. . . "Tout va bien." Oui -- tout va bien.

September 7 & 8, 2000

September 7th – On this, our last full day, we went first to the Musee D’Orsay to see the Impressionists and post- Impressionists. I like everybody but Gaugain, though some of his palettes were less muddy than others.
In their bookstore, I resisted the temptations in particular of a book about Metro stops and a French translation of ELOISE IN PARIS.
Lunch was across the street at a café called Les Deux Musees.
Then we went in search of two bookstores Bernard had noticed listed in a magazine about Paris: Tea & Tattered Pages, in what turned out to be Montparnasse, and W.H. Smith, a large English-language bookstore across from the ferris wheel we’d ridden the night before. The latter was more fun. T&TP was as cramped as our apartment, and didn’t have anything we particularly wanted.
After the bookstores, we went to the Marais district to see the Place des Vosges, the oldest residential neighborhood in Paris, and the surrounding Jewish establishments.
For dinner: the place where we’d had our arrival-night dinner: Le Bosquet. It gave us the illusion of beginning our stay, although all too soon we’d be flying back. We had the unexpected pleasure of being greeted as old friends by the chap who’d served us the first time, although he wasn’t our waiter the second time. The man who was our waiter then, upon hearing that another customer would be leaving Paris the next day, planted a loud smacking kiss on her forehead.

September 8, 2000 – On our flight home, a little boy who probably isn’t two yet kept coming over to Bernard, he being in the aisle seat, and giving him the cap of his bottle to hold. I was so relieved later, on landing, that the suitcase Bernard was getting down from the overhead compartment didn’t completely fall out of his hands and kill the kid! I shouted to him to watch out! One corner barely grazed his temple.
Already we’re homesick for Paris, if that isn’t too weird a thing to say of a place where I’d been for only one week. There wasn't an instant of culture shock going froml New York to Paris, only from there to here, and it’s a strain to remember the English for what had come so snappily in French.

September 6, 2000

At the timeI'm posting this, ten years to the day later, it's almost the New York equivalent of the appointed time for our Arc de Triomphe meeting.

Champs-Elysees Day. Bernard insisted that it begin by going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. As I climbed the nearly 300 spiral stairs, I hated that bastard Napoleon with a passion. And, at that moment, I was none too crazy about Bernard either! At the very top, the stair railing doesn’t go all the way up to the topmost couple of stairs, so, afraid to stand the whole way up without help, and see that dizzying view, I was, in effect, on all fours until a kindly stranger gave me his hand so I could clear those last steps. I looked around at the different avenues below but refused to go all the way to the railing, afraid that I’d lose my grip on my camera, drop it, and it would kill someone below! Eventually, we made the downward trek. I was never in my life so glad to set foot on solid ground!
Then we walked along the right (looking from the Arc toward the ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde) side of the Champs-Elysees. First: Le Drugstore Publicis, which has varied departments and a lot more to offer than the drugstores here. I bought an Edith Piaf CD: I had to get at least one in her city! Coincidentally, it reached the top of the stack in time to listen to as I’m writing this. (“Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.”)
Next: Citibank, where I had the scare of seeing on the screen that my savings balance was only 1/8 what my notebook of transactions says it ought to be. The teller called someone on the phone who said that their record of my balance agrees with mine; there’s just some glitch preventing it from showing on the screen! I should try again in at least an hour.
Going further along, we saw a lovely café called Le Paris, where we stopped for lunch.
Further along on that side we saw the only movie theaters we’d seen since arriving in the city; it’s as if they’re ghettoized on a single avenue. None had films we’d want to see, though.
Across the street there were numerous arcades full of various stores: as busy as malls but much classier. In the third of them, Bernard succeeded in getting for a lower price than at the previous places, a tiny gun that fires blanks and makes a very large noise. We also went to a favorite store of mine that originated in Paris: Sephora. Got, of all things, a Maybelline mascara, some bath beads, and two lipsticks. Pouring rain made us wait for quite awhile. We hoped it still wouldn’t be raining when it was time to meet Rita.
It wasn’t. We had a cold drink in the arcade, went back to Citibank (no change on the screen) , and to the Paris Tourist Office. I bought numerous postcards for my office wall rather than for mailing, two souvenir pens, and a guidebook for future visits: PARIS IN YOUR POCKET.
We were early at the Arc de Triomphe, but glad that Rita found us easily. The crepe place she recommended, Les Ecuries on Rue Washington, she had first (and last) visited as a 19-year-old. Fortunately, it’s still there and in business. The people there were flexible about letting us combine ingredients, so we were all happy. After some picture-taking, and lots of eating and talking, we continued to the Metro to Concorde for the ferris wheel. I felt less phobic about that because we’d be enclosed in little glass compartments the whole time: no stair-climbing and no parapets to walk toward. We went around on the wheel twice, to prolong the pleasure of one another’s company, enjoyed fabulous views of La Ville Lumiere at night, and saw Rita hail a cab.
Une bonne soiree was had by all.

September 5, 2000

Our second stop of the day was the Gare St. Lazare to get the train to Vernon for the visit to Giverny. (Our first had been the post office to mail home to myself my new bag, with four worn blouses tucked into the pockets to make room in my suitcase for goodies I had yet to buy). After considerable difficulty finding the right ticket window, and a hot dog that was boiled rather than grilled, we were on our way. Giverny is gorgeous!
At first I thought that people who were buying tickets only to the garden, rather than to both garden and house, were missing something, but that was before we saw how extensive the gardens were and how tall the flowers. Then we were similarly enchanted with the house, pleased that we were doing this after rather than before Versailles, to which this is a good antidote with its human proportions and bright, cheering colors. That yellow kitchen is so homey it’s my ideal!
I was very thrifty in buying a postcard only for Alexandra Stoddard – who writes about Giverny and Monet every opening she gets! – and two magnets for the fridge. Then we had something cool to drink at the stand, and caught the bus back to Vernon. Fortunately, we both had naps on the train (which I’ve never done on a commuter train before!).
On our way from our hotel to find a restaurant, a young man standing in the lobby – someone we’d never seen before – said, “Isn’t it wonderful just to be in Paris?” He told us he’d soon be twenty-seven, had rented an apartment for a month in Paris, and was seeing to his mother’s reservation at her favorite hotel.
Dinner was near the Eiffel Tower at La Tour Royal.
Walking back to our hotel, we saw blinking sparkles coming from the Eiffel Tower, which we later learned were hourly for ten minutes each, just for the millennium celebration.

September 4, 2000

After another bad night of coughing, Bernard urged me to have the hotel call a doctor. More medical French! The doctor who came, Thierry Belitti, didn’t look a day over twenty-five, and wore a cute beret just like that drawing in my French book pointing to marginal notes cautioning about pronunciation. Once we were assured that Bernard’s ailment wasn’t serious, I was inordinately pleased that he said my French was very good. He prescribed three things, wrote out the instructions, and charged 600F – no mention of insurance.
Once the medications were picked up, we went on to the Eiffel tower, which is in walking distance of our hotel. A sign said that due to technical difficulties the elevator wouldn’t go up to the top, so I thought that the first etage was all we could get tickets for. I asked at the window if the first etage was the only thing for which she was selling tickets, and she said yes. Bernard felt cheated that we didn’t go up to the second, which I’d been told wasn’t possible. . . until others in our elevator went there. They didn’t get off the elevator where we did! Nevertheless, I was satisfied enough with the view, and wouldn’t go all the way to the railing to get my shots. We walked around the circumference and then went down.
We soon crossed a couple of Seine bridges in search of the booking office for the line of boats called Bateau Mouche, which Bernard pointed to. All we ended up finding was the dock for Bateaux Pairsiennes (52F per person), but enjoyed the cruise enormously. We were amazed at the detail of the buildings visible from the river. The ear phone gave eight choices of language. The British-English narrator of the English-language track pronounced Pissarro PISS-aro, to our amusement.
Back on shore, we had lunch at the river end of the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, at a restaurant called La Tour Eiffel, then went back to the Metro (to Opera to get the #7 toward La Courvoise to get off at Havre-Caumartin) to go to Galeries Lafayette to see the gorgeous stained-glass dome in the rotunda and to use my 10% discount (which I applied to a red purse to be mailed home the next day). The discount wasn’t applicable to perfume, which we chose for three friends and me (3 Rive Gauches and 1 Paris). They accept travelers’ checks on purchases, and have a bank that converts to francs those travelers’ checks you don’t use for purchase. Their bank is open as many hours as they are! I cashed all my travelers’ checks, to give me a “backup fund” I was determined not to need. Also while on that mezzanine where the bank is, I bought some candy for the people in the office, and a tote bag bearing the names of Paris neighborhoods/attractions all over it; not to show off to others that I’d been there but to convince myself, when back amid my work, I didn’t merely dream the trip.
Later we went to dinner at a place called Café du Marche on Rue Cler, whose liveliness we liked when we passed it on our walk Saturday night. Our waiter was a cockney (“burgy for the lie-dy. ‘Ow do you like my English, mate?”). At last I got beef bourguignon. The dessert both of us chose: profiteroles to die for!

September 3, 2000

Today was our day to attend to that particular bit of unfinished business that Bernard had saved from his previous trip as a “reason” to come back (as if he needed a reason!): Versailles.
We took the RER C line, but where we connected with it doesn’t matter as we won’t be repeating that day trip. Looking at the surrounding area was more fun than waiting in line at that colossal heap of dark, depressing overdone rooms (not a one of which had a bookshelf!). I’d describe Versailles as EuroVegas, 17th-century Donald Trump, and for the same reason: a man who apparently feels teeny-weeny and has a lot to prove . .. and does so with glitzy excess. I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find the front of the building emblazoned with the klieg-lit words ‘Trump Versailles.”
We walked along a nearby street in the town, eventually having lunch at the first café we’d seen on our walk from the train, St. Claire’s. That was our first experience with bathrooms that aren’t free but require a 2F piece.
Back to Paris – love those words! – for dinner, which we had at an Indian place near the hotel, after some walking around and finding that most places are closed on Sunday.

September 2, 2000

First stop: the post office, to get a largy jiffy bag to mail home to myself used clothes. An American woman waiting her turn told me I had to get a number from the machine. Even when she was the only customer there, another time, the clerk wouldn't wait on her unless she had a number!

We were especially touched by the French politeness toward their young. Two women made way for the little girl (2 or 3?) with them, pushing a doll stroller. One of the women said to the child, "Excusez-moi, madame."

I had originally wanted to take in Montmartre on Sunday because of the song "The Morning Music of Montmartre" (from the show Oh, Captain)

The morning music of Montmartre

Creates a certain feeling,

And Sunday morning in Montmartre

Is when it's most appealing,

but a guidebook said that many things are closed on Sundays so we chose the Montmartre trip for Saturday. Got our first carnet, or week's supply, of Metro tickets, and the young woman in the booth gave me a map, which she marked. Take "our" purple line, #8 in the direction of Creteil and change at Concorde for the #12 (green) line toward Porte de la Chapelle and get out at Abbesses. The Metro sign there is one of the original ones designed by Guimard. We took the Funiculaire up past the famous steps of Montmartre toward Sacre Coeur. Unfortunately, there were still more steps up beyond that! Quite a challenge for height-phobic and stair-phobic me! I envisioned taking a wrong step and hurtling down the steps and the huge hill to the bottommost plateau of Montmartre! Bernard patiently held on to me, and we went inside the beautiful church, including down in the crypt. I noted the small sub-chapels dodwn there, each devoted to a single saint; as in medicine, there are specialists!

After we went back down on the Funiculaire, it started to rain, so we waited out part of it in a pharmacy. To express our appreciation for their hospitality, I bought a lipstick (which I called forever after Montmartre Red), and toothbrushes. [As a result, it became our tradition to always buy our toothbrushes in Paris, going from, "Now that we're in Paris, let's do the traditional thing and buy toothbrushes" to "We're low on toothbrushes, let's go to Paris." "Sounds good to me!"] Then we went to lunch at the nearby Le Ronsard. By the time we finished eating, the rain had stopped. Out for some souvenirs, another disposable camera, and some exploration of the area, I was amazed at how many fabric stores there are in rapid succession in the streets below the church.

Back to our hotel to rest, especially in view of the bad cough Bernard has had since before we left. He got more rest than I did. I had to rush off to a nearby pharmacy to see what remedies I could get, realized I'd left the francs back in our room, returned to the hotel, then back to the pharmacy before they closed at 8! In the midst of this, I got some unexpected practice in French, medical French to be exact. Once we were both rested, we went to dinner at a place across the street from the Metro entrance, Comptoir 7e.

September 1, 2000 - Yes, You Read that Right!

The following paragraphs were taken from the journal I kept at the time, all the better to wallow in the joys of the trip long after my return. As mentioned on yesterday's post, this picture was taken by my friend Rita in 2005, the first year I had a digital camera.
Now for September 1, 2000: Our all-night flight on Corsair Airlines was surreal in that they woke us up at 2:45 AM for a chicken dinner which (the chicken part) was unchewable. We reached Paris 7 hours after takeoff, local time 1:52 PM. Customs/Immigration involved filling out a brief yellow form. Then we got an Air France bus to Invalides, from which we got a taxi to our hotel, where we were given room 304. My first sight of French buildings, once we got past the outlying airport area, produced feelings I can't quite articulate. I thought I'd be crying the entire time, and have no idea why I wasn't. I was vaguely disappointed, thinking it just doesn't look foreign. Maybe I'd lived there in a former life.
Curious coincidences in the book I'd bought for the flight, PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU by Adreana Robbins: The heroine's arrival was on September 1st, as was mine, she gets a hotel room in the 7th arrondissement, as did I, and she sees from her balcony the Champ de Mars, which part I read the day (arrival day) I first was there!
After getting some rest in our room, we walked around in search of a place for our first Paris meal together, and my first ever. Eventually, we agreed on a place where the people seemed especially happy, Le Bosquet, on the corner of Avenue Bosquet and Champ de Mars, where they don't require reservations. I had steak and fries ("steak frites") followed by chocolate and coffee ice cream, my favorite combination. When Iasked for whipped cream they gave me a side of sour cream. N'importe -- I still love Paris.
A demain!

Ten Years/Dix Ans!!

It's hard to believe it's been ten whole years today since I first boarded a Paris-bound plane! Therefore, the week that follows is going to be full of "tenth anniversaries": Our first visit to Montmartre, Versailles, Giverny, the Eiffel Tower, the Marais, the Champs-Elysees . . . Speaking of the Champs-Elysees, September 6th is the 10th anniversary of our climb (200+ stairs) up the Arc de Triomphe and our meeting at the Arc de Triomphe later that day with my friend Rita, who has commented on this blog from time to time. (That's Rita on the right. As I didn't have a digital camera then, this picture was taken the one evening our 2005 stays in Paris overlapped.) Bernard, Rita and I went to dinner at Les Ecuries, a crepe place on the Rue Washington that Rita knew, and then we all rode the ferris wheel -- my first ferris wheel ride ever! -- at Place de La Concorde.

I also wanted to upload the photo Rita had taken at the same place, same evening, of Bernard and me, but the system isn't cooperating.

As it'll be a couple of months before our flight back to Paris, I especially appreciate Rita's StayatHomeTraveler blog. Travel is one thing, but keeping its joys alive in your everyday life is another -- and this is where this very helpful blog comes in. Check it out.

The joys of Paris are highs on a par with meeting and marrying Bernard, and getting published in print in the pre-blog days. Most amazing is that such intense highs are legal!

We're Going Back!

Between my previous post and today, I hadn't felt much like writing for this blog until such angels as our wonderful tax-return preparer and the folks at the IRS who agreed with him, made possible our next trip: October 29th.
Today is a particularly French day: Jean-Paul Sartre would have been 105, and Francoise Sagan 75.
Speaking of Francoise Sagan, last week at French Institute Alliance Francaise, we saw the 2008 biopic Sagan, starring Sylvie Testud, who makes the author seem more interesting than she was in real life.
As plans for our stay become clearer, I'll get back to you.