Sullivans' Travels

Paris Christmas lights

2011-12-06T03:31:00.001-08:00

Well, so, we are in Paris for Christmas this year.

The decorations are not bad, but they are clearly done on a budget. It is easy to see why. The crowds are not out, in the way they have been in previous years. I'm sure things look fine, if you have never seen them before. If you have, though, maybe it's a matter of "chin up, hope for the best." We have no choice, really.

Big demonstration in Paris today

2011-09-14T06:50:00.000-07:00

There is a big demonstration going on in our neighborhood this afternoon. UNESCO is having a conference which is being attended by some African presidents. Local Africans, notably the Senegalese, are taking their chance to express their displeasure. But you can see how cool this is. Forget the megaphones. They have banners, and they do a little sloganeering, but that's not all. Look at those clothes! There are busloads of women walking around, all dressed in these amazing colors. Folks are singing and dancing. It is all really very cool and, apart from the significant police force, rather like a big party.

Locks on Solferino Bridge, Paris

2011-08-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was walking around the other day and found myself crossing the Solferino Bridge, the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Seine, linking the Tuileries Garden and the Musee d'Orsay. There were all these locks. You can see what is going on. Romantic couples visiting Paris -- they have to be visitors, really, this just doesn't look French at all -- commemorate the event by buying these padlocks, writing their names and whatever on them, then attaching them to the bridge. What does it mean, What does it mean? Do they throw away the key? Do they keep it, for the (probable) breakup, at which point I guess one of them detaches it and puts it to work or, more cynically, saves it for the next paramour? Who knows? Well in any case, Paul, Laurien, the rest of you, I wish you the best in all your relationships.

Allons enfants de ma patrie...

2011-08-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

We were out the other day and noticed guys with flags, having ceremonies at one of these plaques that we see around town -- you know, the ones that blame every bad thing that happened in France during WW2 on the Germans. Who is doing this, I wondered. Well, now I know. The city of Paris must hire these retired soldiers to go around with flags and musicians and everything to commemorate these deaths. I can see these little ceremonies being cut in some future budget squeeze, but for now, the ritual is alive and quite well.

Moses and Zachary in Boston

2011-08-16T01:59:00.000-07:00

The boys wanted to go to baseball camp. I didn't see that we had any choice but to set things up for baseball camp in the ultimate baseball destination, Cooperstown. There is at least one very good camp there, run by Ali Cepeda. He has a team of coaches who run a terrific program. They give excellent, supportive coaching to both boys and girls, gifted athletes and total klutzes. If I had ever done such a thing, I'd have been one of the girl klutzes, so I very much appreciated the idea that I could have done well, too.

At some point I'll post a bunch of photos to my Picasa album, but in the meantime I just wanted to show you what those kids look like after a week of hard mattresses and hard work in Cooperstown, a weekend in Lenox that featured a Mahler symphony at Tanglewood, and a long walking tour and wrap-up lunch in Boston. No question, those boys are good travelers.

St. Sulpice organ music

2011-08-16T01:48:00.000-07:00

So, my friend Ginny is in town. She gave me a call and said, "There is this guy, Robert, who will be playing at St. Sulpice tonight and he has invited us to go up to the organ loft to listen. Want to go?" Well, what do you think?

It is great to hear music up there, especially when you sit with your back resting on one of the pipe cases, which vibrates when the music plays. I took a lot of pictures, but I chose this one to share for the obvious reason that it features both Robert, a most gracious young man who lives in Long Beach, and the actual, fabled St. Sulpice organ.

How strange to be in the States for the Fourth of July

2011-07-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Of all the strange things, we were here in the States, right in our own home, for this Fourth of July. So what better to do than mix with the locals. Here are some. Do you love that Central Casting Uncle Sam? Doesn't he look great on his stilts? He was organizing hula hoop events for the kids and, as you see, posing for photos. It was a fine event: food, booths, kids, music, everything. My favorite thing was the cops, who for once were like French cops, hanging out together and laughing about stuff, not trying to look coplike at all. I don't have cop shots, but I do have a couple of other nice ones.

Ring at the SF Opera

2011-07-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we travel, sometimes we stay home. Sometimes I love my Nikon but, more and more, I love my iPhone camera app.

That's what I used the other night to get this shot of the curtain at the San Francisco Opera's production of the Ring. As you can see the plan this evening was to go straight to hell. You see, Siegfried was being raised right next door. His job was to get right in there, to hell, you know, thought they called it something else, to get the Ring. Then he got the hell out and went looking for Brünnhilde, who was trapped in a circle of fire. There is a lot of fire in this opera. It took him four hours.

I'm no opera critic, so I'll just give you my opinion. I like the production. I like some of the singers. I do not like having, essentially, a week (four opera days plus two break days) taken out of my life, nor do I like the late nights or the many hours stuck in that seat. The new house rule is that I do no more Rings unless we get tickets to Bayreuth. I live in hope that this means just plain no more Rings.

Lerab Ling

2011-05-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

I just spent the weekend here, just about an hour north of Montpellier. It looks even better in person. I may have to go back some time.

Ponies, ponies!

2011-04-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

It is spring, therefore Paris parks have ponies. These little guys were working the Parc Vincennes.

Water in the Paris desert

2011-04-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Look at this. It's a closeup of my planter. You can see why I just couldn't take it any more.

My apartment here is tiny. I really depend on the balcony to make the place feel bigger and to be a pleasant escape from the cramped indoors. Planters that look like this just don't make it. It is that kind of thinking that dropped me down the rabbit hole of another French adventure.

I found great bamboo on line. Right size, red foliage in winter, and not all that expensive. But could I get it delivered before I leave in three weeks? No. Not even if I ask nicely? No -- that got me a suggestion that I wait to order until September.

I shopped around. The competition wouldn't estimate a delivery date at all. These companies wouldn't last a week in the States, but here "no customer service, no way" is pretty standard. I had no choice. I was forced, forced, to make a run to the nurseries at the Ile de la Cité. If I could find my bamboo, I could carry it home.

They have bamboo, all right, but no dwarf varieties. I got halfway around the place and was about to leave when this nice lady accosted me. Hard to believe, but she wanted to help. She told me she didn't have dwarf bamboo in that "therefore it doesn't exist" kind of way, then, of all things, she asked this other guy if he knew of any. I was immediately thrown off balance.

Before the guy, Lionel by name, could really get going, but after he had switched the conversation to English, he was interrupted by another woman with a question. I was still browsing and happy to keep on doing so, but he sent her to someone else and said, "No. She can go somewhere else. She is rude. She is French and therefore she is rude. You know it is true. Be honest."

Lionel knows how to make me laugh, that's for sure. So, you know, I had to buy something. Then, still in English, maybe so no compatriots would laugh, he swore that bamboo can't take full sun or Paris winters. "Nothing lives through winter. You must replant every year." I have seen otherwise, but I was hooked. Would Alice have turned away from the rabbit? Lionel knew just the thing: this stunningly lush, crimson bell-shaped flowered, flowing but elegant, just the right height, absolute delight. And hey presto, in stock, free delivery day after tomorrow -- especially in light of the fact that my planters are so big and need so many plants.

And within budget? No. In France, as in the States, when it comes to good, fast and cheap, you can get two if you are careful, but never all three. But, come Thursday afternoon, this place will look a whole lot better. And if Lionel's "big sale" happy dance looked a little too happy, well, that's fine by me.

weird new toy

2011-04-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

This is not a good photo, by any stretch of the imagination, but I have become fascinated by the strange effects I get with my iPhone camera. Notice the streaks in the darkness above the building -- it's the Ecole Militaire, by the way. My good camera edits all that stuff out, as it should, but sometimes it's fun to leave it in. You can see my actual, decent photos at http://lmsphotos.blogspot.com/.

The Laos photos are up!

2010-12-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

Don't let the cover photo fool you. Behold the weirdness that is Laos...

Laos

It's Intense, Man

2010-11-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

So here I am in Can Tho, in the middle of the Mekong Delta.

I spent too much (it wouldn't have been too much, except that I think it was ineffectual) of my college time marching around chanting "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win!" for this to do anything other than resonate big time. The dissonance between the images from that time, of the bombs, the napalmed children and all, and the images from now (I am looking out of my hotel's Cyber Corner at its lovely blue pool as the staff sets up for breakfast) are striking.

We have been shown where the bombs destroyed the temples and palaces of old Vietnam. One of my guides is a niece of the man who interrogated John McCain. Most of the people here are too young to remember the war, so the US is, to them, a mythical land of opportunity; many are openly envious of the Vietnamese who came to the US in the wake of the conflict.

This past two weeks will take some time to process.

Vientiane

2010-11-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

My shorthand summary of Vientiane is "Graham Greene country with cellphones." And really, that's about it.

We hired a terrific company, Exotissimo, to organize our tour. Our guide is really very good, but he got us around the whole tourist part of the place in about half a day. And that half wasn't all that hot.

I liked having lunch at Mak Phet, a restaurant run by the Laotian government and an NGO, Friends International. The purpose of Mak Phet is to rescue, basically, street kids. Some have been living on the street and others have had to drop out of school very young to work. They get the kids back in school. They shore up the family by setting up home-based businesses. Some, maybe all, kids are trained to work in restaurants -- cooking, serving, whatever. Those kids go on to make a good living. Lunch was good and cheap, plus I picked up a couple of cute items for the grandkids.

Blessedly, our hotel, the Settha Palace, is good. I don't know how they do it in this dusty town, but good on them. This place is our own refuge.

Tomorrow, on to Luang Prabang.

Bali Blues

2010-11-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

Oh, man, I feel like I dodged the bullet, getting out of Bali. Last year it was touristy but nice, anyway. This year it's just touristy.

I think our hotel overbooked, but instead of admitting it, they ginned up some excuse about a landslide and said they had to stick us in a regular room for three days, instead of the pool villa we requested. From SF, who knows, so instead of trying to find another place I said okay. Needless to say, when I got there, and found that we really didn't like the regular room, I went looking for the landslide. There wasn't one, but those pool villas were full up. Yes, I was frosted. The whole stay went on like that. If you are really curious you can read about it at Trip Advisor. Look for the Kupu Kupu Barong.

The fixed price era is hitting Bali, which I think is to the good. The thing is, now you've got to wonder what is up with the stores that still negotiate. I think I did all right, but you never know.

The only remaining hassle is the Balinese habit of asking really intrusive questions about where you have been and where you are going during your stay. Now Elizabeth Gilbert says that this is the Balinese way of placing you in the world -- they do it in relation to what is and who are around you, so they ask. What gets me is the way they morph seamlessly into a sales pitch. If you haven't seen a place, they want to charge you to show it to you. If you have a free moment, they want to fill it with a pricey service. At the airport they won't let you near the free carts, so they can commandeer your luggage and charge you to haul it out the door. On the way to the airport, they want to sell you food before you get there -- and that was the taxi driver! I swear, anything to empty your wallet.

Will we go back? I used to think maybe every year. Now I think no, never again.

Cordon Bleu Class

2010-06-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm going to complain, so let me start right out by saying I enjoyed my class and look forward to attending another one.

One of the many advantages of this apartment is that it is a 20-minute walk to the Cordon Bleu cooking school. It is not in the exact same location as it was when Julia Child went there but still, I admit to a bit of a shiver as I headed up the steps to my class.

They have gotten over the evil matron thing that you may have seen in the movie. Everyone was quite friendly. And every student in my class was a native speaker of English.

This morning's class, my first but not my last at Cordon Bleu, was "Summer Vegetables." We made an eggplant tart and a tomato salad. There was a French chef/teacher and an American assistant/translator. I thought the whole bilingual thing went well, but I understand French pretty well. One of the women who spoke no French said she was a bit confused, but that may just have been due to the rapid pace of the class. We had lots of supplies and two other assistants to provide food and do the washing up. I believe there were 8 or 10 students and the class was sold out.

One of the great benefits of this class is that you bring the food home. That eggplant tart was a great lunch and will be a great dinner. The tomato salad is yummy, but they had us chop up the ingredients so finely that mine will never see the little molds that they used for the demonstrations. I see some phenomenal gazpacho in my future.

So what's to complain about? The equipment. Dull knives, for a class where everything gets chopped so finely a Cuisinart would be proud of the job done. A vegetable peeler that was completely flat -- replaced by a second peeler that was pretty flat. An old electric stove that took forever to heat up. The staff is used to it, so they made it easy to work around all that, but next time I think I'll bring my own knives and peeler.

And, well, there was a bit of the shameless French sexism. Chef had to demonstrate on someone's food. It was amazing how naturally he moved halfway down the class to demonstrate on the stuff belonging to the prettiest girl in class. And when she had to leave to catch a train he moved on to the only other student who was pre-menopausal -- and no, they weren't right next to each other. I had to give myself a little talk. They have prettier food, but they didn't have the opportunity to learn by doing. So there.

Bruges Experiment

2010-01-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

Bruges, Christmas 2009

Let's see if this works.

Bruges, Christmas 2009

How do you say "the worm turns" in French?

2009-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it had to happen. I must be settling into Paris, because I'm starting to get snarky about it.

I could feel the snarkiness hit the other evening, when Robert took me to a Michelin-recommended place over by the Etoile. I think it even had a star, though I can't figure why. There was a big noisy business dinner happening at one end of the room -- always a sign that a place is on life-support. So when they gave us a bad table I thought well, maybe they want us to be away from the party. Over time I realized that yes, they did want us away, but they thought we were the liability.

They refused to speak French. This happens pretty often, really. Folks hear us talking to each other in English and hey presto, English it is. I have been told numerous times that they will insist, that they make more money if their English is good, so dammit, if they are of a mind, they're going to practice. And they sure did need the practice; French would have been so much easier. So, noisy party, bad table, English even on the menu, well, maybe Michelin needs to start hiring English-speaking tasters, to get the tourist's eye view, which too often isn't pretty. Then it happened.

The waiter offered us bread. I had a choice of four varieties, so I asked what they were. Then I chose the baguette. "Oh, yes," he said breathily, "It's so French!." I couldn't believe it. A direct insult would have been better. But then, maybe that is a direct insult. After that we could barely get him back to the table.

Our truly mediocre meal was followed by a truly big bill and then we were out of there, never to return.

We have gotten impeccable service, in the language of our choice, in many fine restaurants in this town -- at all price ranges. So I choose to believe that this is not typical. Just in case I have added a couple of blogs to follow, one of which is snarkier than I will ever be. But then, the writer knows the place better than I do...

Clochard Imagery

2009-07-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

I want to photograph the clochard. He has a great profile, for one thing, very photogenic. Besides, I admire his abilit to be so solitary. He is truly a hermit in the city.

I'd like to do some environmental portraits. I'd want some with the regular lens, others with the wide angle. Then, maybe shots just of him, of that incredible Barrymore profile. I could take those from farther away.

I'd have to get to know him, at least just a little. Now he doesn't like me. He turns away when I pass. I don't know. Maybe I can introduce myself and ease that. He shouldn't have to take any special care just because I'm around.

I don't think there is time on this visit, not for the photos. When I come back, in November? I'll have to see.

Allons enfants de ma patrie.....

2009-07-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Yep, yesterday was Bastille Day. When I get back to the States, I'll post some kind of picture. Right now I'll just tell you that it was packed beyond belief, what with Johnny Hallyday playing and all. I missed Hallyday, somewhat to my disappointment. But I had to brave the crowds to see the fireworks. Seriously, there must have been close to a million people there. Folks were packed into places where I don't think they could see a thing. They didn't put the fireworks on the screens and they didn't even have that many screens. But I, canny regular that I am, I knew the one entrance to the basketball court, way at the back of the Champs de Mars. I was able to wedge myself into a spot where I could actually see most of the tower, from about the first platform up.

Oh, the fireworks were spectacular. I think they are the best I have ever seen there, but if you haven't seen them yourself, that won't mean much. Think the Y2K display, which was shown all over the world, with less splash but more sophistication. Very nice, very much worth braving the crowds.

Mirmande

2009-07-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

We are just back from Mirmande, where we visited our friends Frank and Sharon Romero. Next month they will have a show at their local town exhibition space, Eglise Sainte Foy. Don't tell them, but I really like the show that is there now, featuring the painter Bernard Lefebvre. This is his web site: http://www.atelier515.fr/.

Velib

2009-06-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get excited about this Velib thing, the Paris rental bike system.

On paper it looks good. If you have a Navigo card, the rental is cheap: 1 euro a day, five for a week or, get this, 29 euros for the year. There are Velib stations everywhere. There are a fair number of dedicated bike routes.

Ah, then the reality. Many, many bikes are vandalized. The bikes that are left are often in dubious condition. Three speeds might really only be two. The brake might drag, just enough to truly suck. That kind of thing. You might rent a bike in one place and have no parking posts where you want to drop it off. Now multiply the "no post" scenario by a few; you could have quite a walk after your ride.

From what I have found, most of the available bikes are along commute routes. Imagine riding a bike along, say, Market Street in San Francisco, El Camino in Palo Alto, Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica -- you get the idea. No matter how dedicated the bike route might be, how fun is that? When you go to places where it would be seriously wonderful to ride a bike for recreational reasons -- the Bois de Boulogne, the Champs de Mars -- well, look at that, hardly any bikes at all. I don't mean available bikes. I mean posts for the possibility of parking bikes. The system is just not set up for it.

The focus is really on supplementing the buses and the Metro, on bikes as plain old boring transportation. Bikes as recreation, as fitness equipment, nope, they really, honestly, don't care.

So, I don't know. The weather is good. I do need exercise and the Velib is cheaper than any gym. I'm working on liking the Velib. I'm just not quite there yet.

A good day in Paris

2009-06-04T06:04:00.001-07:00

My French is lousy. My San Francisco French teacher, when she heard that I was learning French so I talk to folks here in Paris, just laughed. No way, she said, too many Parisians speak English.

She was so right. It has been four years now that we have had the apartment and my French is still rusty as all getout. The other day, when the upstairs neighbor's bathroom pipes burst, causing a waterfall in my apartment, I went up to talk to him about it. In French -- I looked up "leak" in my dictionary and everything -- but then it turned out that his English was fine, thanks. He's been translating for workmen and all ever since. It used to bother me. Now I think well, whatever.

As I say, the French is bad. After four years, I'm okay with that. I have learned that being okay with that is really the best strategy. Actual verbiage is not all it's cracked up to be.

So there was the waterfall. That was the other day. Today I had to get some information from the guys at BHV. I couldn't figure out how to unscrew a light bulb from a fixture that I bought there. That sort of thing is embarrassing in any language, but there it was. So in I marched. I really tried to explain in French, but then the sales guy took over and explained the whole thing, step by step, in English. So okay, I haven't tried it yet, but I will. We wound up with my thanking him, him apologizing for his English and me for my French. Off I went.

Then it was lunch time. I was at Lavinia, this truly great wine store on the Boulevard Madeleine. They have a terrific restaurant which sells wine at the store price -- if you buy the bottle. If you buy just a glass, hold onto your wallet. It doesn't take very complicated math to figure out that if you want more than one glass, you buy the bottle.

The guy next to me did just that. He was one course ahead of me, so when he paid and left, he left me the rest of his bottle. After all, it was what I had ordered a glass of anyway. I was pleased. That was nice. I could only drink another glass or so, though, which left a good glass or more sitting there, in that bottle. It was time to go. I had no choice, I think, but to pass on the bottle to the man sitting a couple of seats down from me -- the one who was in the middle of his cheese course and had just asked for the wine list. The last I saw of him, he was smiling and topping up his glass.

Countdown

2009-04-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

Well it's real, now.

So one day, out of the blue, Erin's French boyfriend dumped her. There, it's out. They are back together, and from all reports, now that he has wised up and realized what a treasure she is, they are good to go, but for a brief moment he was the SOB that dumped my sister.

What's a Machiavellian sister to do? I'll tell you what I did; I downsized him. I put on my best sympathetic voice and said oh, that jerk, well I tell you what, you come to Paris with me. He may be French, but he doesn't own France. You get over here and get your share.

She said yes. I was amazed. We put a plan together. The boyfriend came back and immediately started kibitzing, but I restrained myself. I mean for me, this guy is on probation, definitely Red Alert. But, after all, he not actually joining us. And to be fair, go boyfriend; he could have pulled some faux-romantic controlling behavior, like asking her to wait until he could go. After all, it would be "so much more romantic." So okay, I'll improve his status to Orange Alert.

As I write, she has left her little California Central Valley outpost, so she is committed to the trip, even though she is sitting in Dallas/Fort Worth Airport waiting for her connecting flight.

I have to straighten up this apartment. Very soon, I have a plane to meet.

Mapplethorpe

2009-03-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

Robert Mapplethorpe said it: "With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing."

He's right. That's just what it's like. I'm no Mapplethorpe, on all kinds of levels, but it is a great feeling.

Paris: Last Eiffel Tower for Three Months!

2008-12-26T14:12:00.001-08:00

If I were you and I read that last post, I'd be wondering what the Eiffel Tower looks like, all blue and covered with EU stars. Well, it looks like this.

We leave in the morning. We had a wonderful stay and a spectacular Christmas lunch.

When I return in April I hope to have a sister in tow. She'll keep me from nattering about jet lag and the state of the geraniums, when I should be out seeing the city. I haven't left for San Francisco, much less landed there, and already, I can't wait to come back.

Paris at Christmas

2008-12-25T02:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the quality of the photo. Right now I'm just not able to edit the way I'd like. I had to include it, though.

This was one of my many Michael Moore moments. You remember, in Sicko, where he kept carrying on about the French government doing the laundry for new mothers? Little did he know: that was just the start.

I headed down to the Eiffel Tower to take some pictures. Just for the six months that France is in charge of the EU, they have added the EU stars and light it in blue. And with the twinkle lights, oh, irresistible. So I got my photos and headed back home, which means a walk down the length of the Champs de Mars. I found this at the end of it, right across from the Ecole Militaire, where it doesn't actually compete with the carousels that charge money.

Can you believe this? Free carousels at Christmas? It gets better. The next night I went to the Hotel de Ville, sadly without the camera. The building itself is lit up with twinkle lights. There are two free carousels, one a double-decker.

They have a skating rink out there, too. It's only 5 euros to rent skates and then to skate, apparently as long as you want. It was packed. There were a bunch of Arab kids out there. They were pretty good. I think they had their own skates. These were tough kids, no question, and spent a fair amount of time trying to use their skates to carve divots in the ice. But then a Japanese girl, clearly a beginner, kind of lost her balance right in front of them and it was clear that they were blocking her access to the rail. That broke it up. They parted for her, like the Red Sea for Moses, and got back to skating around with the rest of the folks.

If you're in Paris at Christmas, you have to take at least one walk down the Champs-Elysees. It was actually not as full as usual. Again, there were a lot of Arabs out there, this time older men meeting at Starbucks for coffee and families, clearly excited about the lights.

I wandered from the Rond Point down toward the Arc de Triomphe. Just as I was was about to reach the Metro, I heard the sounds of a major, Sarkozy-sized, police escort. They do them big here, no question. So, okay, I had to look, especially as folks were kind of lined up along the sidewalk, as if for a parade. It was big, all right, but there was kind of a dip where the car should be. Weird. I waited. The escort got closer and then I could see: right in the middle of the escort was Santa Claus in a sidecar -- okay, be that way, a guy in a Santa suit -- waving at the crowd. They took him down the middle of the Champs-Elysees, around the Etoile, and back down the street, lights, sirens and Santa all going like mad, all along the way.

I love this city.

Paris: Simon Rattle at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees

2008-12-24T02:18:00.000-08:00

We went to this great concert last night, one of those things that would be a major event in San Francisco, but here is just another pleasant night out. It might not even get reviewed.

It was at a theater on the Avenue Montaigne, which is where all the designer stores are, very fancy, and the weather was nice and everything was decorated for Christmas. So instead of turning right to go to the bus stop, we turned left to walk past the Plaza Athenee Hotel and that Harry Winston's that got robbed a week or so ago and caught the bus up there. On the way home we rode past the Eiffel Tower and scored. Since it was on the hour, we got to see the 10 minutes of twinkle lights.

That's the way life is here. Tickets start at 5 euros. The bus is about 1 euro, included if you have a pass. The walk was free. Housing is expensive, but if you can handle that, life is reasonably priced and very, very good.

For us, Mumbai was a year ago

2008-11-27T02:45:00.000-08:00

During that long break in the blog I was traveling; I just didn't feel the need to write anything about it.

One of the things we did was spend two weeks in India.We hated India, mainly because of the dirt, the pollution, the indifference to suffering that we saw in the Indians and the corruption. That's a long enough list, don't you think? By the time we got to Mumbai, we were happy to sink into our room at the Taj -- one of the few good rooms on the whole trip -- and left basically only when our guide dragged us out.

Looking back, I think I actually preferred Mumbai to the cities in northern India, where we spent most of our time. Up north, folks were often utterly destitute. They did backbreaking work and really had no hope. In Mumbai they were poor, all right, but there were also many small entrepreneurs. Among those I include the professional beggars, with their staked-out territories
and various props.

So you can imagine my shock when, yesterday evening, I turned on CNN to see the view from my hotel window, except that there were police all over the street and a blown-up taxi. They were taking a guy down the steps of my hotel, using a luggage cart to transport him to a car. My wing of the hotel was in flames.

When I was in India I was a target, all right, but they wanted my money, not my life. I would never have expected this. If anything I would have laughed at the idea, suggesting that the Indians were too disorganized to pull it off. I am truly sorry to have been proven wrong -- and sorry for the many Indians who make their livings from tourism. For years to come, they will pay the price for the acts of a few terrorists.

Rome: Baroque Monday

2008-11-21T07:40:00.000-08:00

Monday Susan took us on a walk through many of the churches in this very neighborhood. Did I mention that we are staying at the edge of the Spanish Steps area? If you want to find us on Google Earth, we are just across the street from the church of San Andrea della Fratte.

If you are looking at Baroque Rome, the architecture runs in a continuum from Borromini at the most introverted and hermetic end to Bernini at the most extroverted and politically savvy. Who is the more talented? Artistically, I'd say Borromini was the more talented architect, Bernini the more talented overall, since he could also sculpt up a storm. To me, they needed each other to be their best. Bernini needed Borromini's technical expertise. Borromini needed Bernini's rainmaker capabilities.

It's a shame they didn't get along. We got a glimpse of what might have been in a church that Borromini renovated. It has the geometric discipline that characterized Borromini's work, combined with a couple of angels sculpted by Bernini; they were moved into the church after the two men had died. Bernini's work always gives you a psychological lift, but to see those two angels soar through that tightly angled space was all the more effective for the contrast, the element of surprise.

Similarly, there are two churches near one another, San Carlo alla Quattro Fontane by Borromini and --uh, well, you know -- by Bernini. They are both in very tight spaces. Borromini went first and worked out the good solution, to shape the nave as an oval. Bernini tacitly acknowledged the master by doing an oval, too. After that, it all changes. Borromini's oval is happy with its fate. It feels womblike. You can simply settle in and follow the curves, which have a meditative effect in the way they lead the eye around the room forever, if you can stay that long. Bernini's oval wants to burst out. It wants to be bigger than it is. The point of his room is the church service, the social interactions that take place there. Would you want to stay after the service? No, probably not for long.

Rome: Baroque Sunday

2008-11-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have put off writing much about what we have actually seen in Rome. That is partly because I was tired at the end of each day and partly because I had not yet digested a pretty rich visual meal. Fragments and asides were about all I could manage. I think it's time to get started, though. Our last day is about to end. Our last visit, last meal out, last errand, last gelato, over. Well, maybe not the last gelato. But after a week of great weather, it's raining. All there is left to do, really, is put off packing as long as possible. Time to blog.

We bookended the week with a couple of dives into the deep end of Baroque Rome. Sunday Robert saw his first Borromini church, St. Ivo. We wandered over to the Piazza Navona for a coffee and a long look at the Bernini fountain, now undergoing restoration. Then we wandered through a lovely courtyard, past huge, impatient tour groups, to St. Ivo, only to find that the priest was having a bit of a fit of passive aggression. He was extending his service beyond even the most pessimistic estimate, rather pointedly Letting the Tourists Wait. We were just two, though, so we sneaked into the back, coughing up a little when the collection plate came around, so Robert could peek discreetly into his guidebook and then around the church. St. Ivo is pretty small. It barely held the 100 or so people that were crammed into it. He could see everything he needed to see without moving from our little hiding place in the back. After about 15 minutes, with the priest still droning on, we were able to take off, leaving the big groups to pace the courtyard.

St. Ivo is in bad shape. Wherever that collection money goes, it's not into building maintenance. Borromini is all about the geometry. His work does not take well to decrepitude. It was sad to see the paint look so worn, even peeling in some places. Fortunately Robert was able to see beyond that to the proportions, the play of forms and the symbolism in the decoration.

Rome: actually, you do need a guide

2008-11-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

I have been to Rome. Robert has been here a few times. I have degrees that largely focused on the art and architecture of Rome. Robert is a walking encyclopedia on its military history. We are both more familiar than our doctors would like with its food and wine. So why did we hire a guide for three and a half days?

Well, as it turns out, sometimes you need a local. Our particular local is Susan Sanders, who is a partner in a little business called The Institute of Design and Culture in Rome (http://www.idcrome.org/). To our general knowledge of events, she adds specific dates, names, gossip. She knows how to navigate the town to make very specific, clear points about how Rome got to be the way it is.

For example, Robert and I have seen Caravaggios from Munich to Malta. We know his life story, pretty well. Now Susan may not be able to tell you all about the Caravaggios in Valletta, but in Rome, stand back and listen up. We found out where the major commissions came from, how they were phased, whether we were looking at the first or second version of a painting -- and exactly why a second version was necessary -- who the clients were and what they thought of the product and pretty much anything we thought to ask about.

Another thing I like about her is that she is very specific about her area of expertise and the structure of her business. For example she knows food, but she also knows folks who know it better. So she subbed out our market tour to a cookbook writer and our wine tasting to a woman who does nothing else.

These tours are pricey, no question, but remember, we are staying in an apartment. My guess is that what we have saved by renting an apartment, rather than a hotel room, pretty much covers the IDC Rome bill. When you figure that our little crash course in Rome has saved us years of discovering all this on our own, well, you could make the argument that Susan has added years to our lives. Sort of. And what kind of price can you put on that?

Rome

2008-11-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

After 24 solid hours of travel, we landed in Rome. Blessedly, our ride was waiting for us, since we had no clue where our apartment was. Prostitutes, yes, right outside the airport, right on the street. So much for those sweet little Singapore women who try to look like someone's dream date. Shabby buildings, yes, everywhere, some of them almost new. Very third world, which I could have sworn we left in India.

Rome is different. It seems to require a certain amount of street savvy just to get through an ordinary day. We paid for our apartment and our guide in USD, sent to addresses in the USA. Our guide tells us she tries to avoid dealing with her Italian bank. She just never knows what is going to happen. Yesterday I bought a t-shirt, clearly priced at 10 euros, but the guy wanted 12 euros. When I pointed out the discrepancy, he just laughed it off and took the 10. Street lights and lane markings are suggestions, which are generally more or less accepted. Our guide joked about cars stopping for short skirts and from what I have seen that is not a bad strategy but really, what stops the cars are nuns. The city is rife with earnest demonstrators, complete, I just loved this, with props, videos and chairs for anyone who wanted to stick around. Most people just laugh and keep on going.

The city seems to be a weird mix of charm, elegance and beauty at one end of the spectrum and dirt, danger and dishonesty at the other. It seems you just have to walk into every situation to see what you get. So far, it's mostly good.

Singapore: China that works

2008-11-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

I had never had a Singapore Sling at the Raffles Long Bar. Chinese friends spoke of Singapore as the Valhalla of Chinese life. I had to see this place.

It's good. It's affluent and clean. Changi Airport is my favorite in the world. The city is genuinely tolerant and multicultural. It has attractive, well-maintained buildings separated by huge green spaces. I couldn't live there; housing is very expensive and I'd get island fever within a year. I could see, though, that a person could be quite happy there.

We were there for an afternoon -- Sling Time -- and a day. We used the day to take a tour of the island. We got to visit all the different ethnic towns, which are there for cultural celebrations and for tourists. Nobody really thinks of Chinatown as where the Chinese actually have to live, for example. We got a general sense of how the town was laid out. We made a stop at the orchid section of the Botanic Garden, which is completely manicured. Among the gardeners was one headscarf-wearing young woman, so I guess even the Muslims are relatively tolerant. In the evening we went to a zoo that features noctural animals. I love that stuff.

Usually when we see prostitutes, they are basically streetwalkers. In Singapore, they look like nice young ladies. It's just that they are leaving the hotel at 7:30 a.m. in evening clothes, or at the bar with a euphoric man who clearly doesn't know them and is three times their age. In Singapore, drugs mean death, ill-advised sex, well, whatever, I guess.

Our guide mentioned that the cultural life in Singapore is improving. They have a new performance hall. Singers and all who are building their presence in Asia now make Singapore a routine stop. Maybe I could last 18 months, if I had a nice apartment and a pass for the Botanic Garden. But that's it.

Hong Kong! That's China!

2008-11-17T20:26:00.000-08:00

Oh, I hate that ad. Besides, Hong Kong is only sort of China.

They have pots of money in HK, while China is really only well off compared to how it used to be. HK residents can travel freely; the Chinese can travel, but not freely. They can have demonstrations, while Chinese dissidents are locked up. They can watch CNN everywhere; in China you only get it at the hotels. They can buy a Herald Tribune; in China, no, not even at the hotels. And the food? The pollution? Don't get me started.

When China took over Hong Kong, our friends there had escape plans. Now they are more or less turning Chinese. I was surprised at the depth and ferocity of their defense of the country. Really, it was along the lines of Democracy is Overrated, that kind of thing. The friends are doing okay, though I now think of them as Robert's friends. They don't have to live with the rules imposed on the mainland Chinese, so they don't consider them relevant. It's like, if they personally aren't drinking the melamine, it isn't there.

And our Chinese friends who do still have escape plans? They live in Shanghai.

China for a week

2008-11-16T17:57:00.001-08:00

Well, Andreas, my apparently sole reader, it's great to hear from you. Great to be rid of that other guy, who knows who he is, who used to read every word, and wrote every time to tell me how dull it was. Yikes, buddy, just tune out already.

We are in Rome after a bit of a death march across Asia. It was pretty frustrating to be in Shanghai the day after the election and not be able to web surf. We got CNN, so we got the basic story, but I had gotten hooked on The Huffington Post and the rest. Funny thing, you can't read those in China. Wonder why. Another odd thing is that, at least in its Asia version, CNN seems to be pretty toothless, as does the BBC. Both channels are really News Lite. So I spent a week in a sort of news vacuum.

We just hunkered down for a couple of days in Shanghai, where Robert had his meeting. Shanghai is busy jettisoning its past for a fairly crass future. They are keeping a fringe of 19th century buildings along the Bund. Everything behind that is apparently being torn down to make room for very tall buildings. A similar thing is going on in the old French Concession, once the most charming section of the city. In general, there are a few old buildings, saved for restaurants, shopping and tourism. The rest is new and anonymous. The infrastructure to support all that building doesn't exist so, for example, traffic jams are more or less constant. My perception is that folks don't much like Shanghai any more.

At our next stop, Beijing, we spend just one full day. We took a walking tour of the hutongs, which I enjoyed. I have read lots of complaints about the tours and about the hutongs and Beijing, for that matter. I didn't love Beijing, but I was more favorably impressed than I expected to be. I am told that the preparations for the Olympics improved Beijing in many ways that will be permanent.

Beijing residents are fairly affluent. Our hotel was near a pedestrian shopping area. It was full of people, mostly Chinese, shopping and eating out, well-enough dressed, a little tubby. There was an English-language bookstore. The selection of books was light on current events -- none of Obama's books, for example -- but still, you could get a good basic grounding in Western civilization by reading what was available. Again, most of the shoppers were Chinese.

The hutongs are, as advertised, surely much quieter than they must have been. After all, people don't live their lives and conduct business on the street, as they once did. I think that's just a fact of life -- no need to slam the hutongs for that. The lady whose house we visited got paid for the visit, so I don't think she felt that we were invading her space -- since I had read this rant about the invasive tour groups, it was nice to see that. Our guide told us he doesn't even get those toothless BBC and CNN programs I found so annoying, which put my complaints into perspective.

In the afternoon we walked over to Tian'an Men Square to visit the Forbidden City. We were about the only non-Chinese in an area that was packed with Chinese. The actual sites were big, but pretty much stripped of character. I have little idea of how it would have felt to be in the Forbidden City when it was used by the Chinese emperors, much less idea than you get of how the French kings used Versailles, for example.

Okay, it's not a week. It's four days. More in the next post.

Anybody out there?

2008-10-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well? Does anyone still bother with this blog? I sure don't.

We are about to take off again, though. This time we head to China, then Singapore, then Rome, then home to Paris.

If you have the slightest interest in hearing anything about it, please leave a comment. This is a test.

Too Much Travel!

2008-08-21T00:11:00.000-07:00

We may be hitting tilt on the travel plans. Right now we're sitting here in lovely SF, but we're making plans for China, Singapore, Rome, Istanbul, France, Israel, Ireland and, well, more France. It's starting to feel like enough, already.

Photo Disaster

2007-01-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

So, I was riding along in the car, on my way to the airport for the final leg of my journey, when the driver said, "There will be extra security today," because of the bombing in Madrid. Made sense to me; there had been extra security at Heathrow the last time I was there. So, when the check-in clerk looked at our carry-on luggage and said, "I don't think they'll let you take all that," I believed her, even though I had taken those same pieces on several flights in the last couple of months. Thus it was that I checked the bag that contained my camera.

I was a dupe, friends, a gullible fool, and I paid the price. The camera got through, and it even seems undamaged, but the photos? Well... The photo stick that was actually in the camera emerged unscathed. The other two, which contained no less than 1000 photos of who knows how many countries, including all my photos of the pyramids and the best parts of Petra? They are blank. They must have been zapped by some bleeping security device. And did I mention that everybody else I saw got through with plenty of carry-on luggage? I can't believe I listened to her.

I'm still in shock. The only record of all but the last couple of days of my trip are the photos that I providentially uploaded to the blog or to Picasa. Robert's photos seem okay, so there will be something to look at, but we deliberately try to take different pictures, so it's not like we're going to find duplicates or anything.

The lessons? Keep the memory sticks with you at all times; those puppies went through the regular scanners just fine. And, even though she does this stuff for a living, don't trust the check-in clerk.

Dubai

2006-12-08T12:32:00.000-08:00

For some reason I didn't get any photos of the construction that is going on everywhere in Dubai. I liked the desert, but just couldn't get interested in indoor ski slope and all. We had lunch next to a huge aquarium at the Burj al-Arab and ran all over the Wild Wadi Water Park and all, but I really only liked the desert. So here it is.

Chiang Mai

2006-11-28T06:33:00.000-08:00

We stayed at the Chedi. It's the best place right in town, no actual complaints, but I think there are better values around. Next time I think I'll try Yaang Come. It's half a block away and much lower key.

The hotel is near the Night Bazaar. To my mind, it's worth going to Chiang Mai just for that. There are stalls by the mile, selling every kind of cheap tat. Wonderful! You can also try some street food, I think of the more reliable variety. Toward the center of the chaos are a couple of buildings with permanent stalls. That's where I got a lovely cotton nightgown (no, sorry, no photos of me in that!) and some indigo and bark-dyed fabric pieces.

If I can find a place in some house or another for more furniture, I'm going back, and I intend to hit the antique shops. Well, probably they are repro shops, so maybe I'll ask Jimmy to take me to places where they are honest about that.

Jimmy? I'll tell you in a later post.

Bangkok

2006-11-28T06:21:00.000-08:00

Well, Bangkok is a fine way to escape from China, but it's hardly serene. When you check into the Oriental, as we did, it's hard to leave the premises.

As the loyal reader knows, I was a sick puppy, so I went to see the hotel doctor. Ah, she fixed it, at least for a while. The things she prescribed made me sleepy, though, so I used that as an excuse to just stay in our great big split-level room and lounge. The occasional peek at the Chao Praya (I'm convinced it's Thai for "Big Muddy") was all the touring I wanted to do.

Robert inisisted that I move every once in a while. He rented a long boat and we were steered through some canals off the river. I recommend that; there are so few peaceful options for activities in Bangkok. We went to Jim Thompson and picked up a great red silk bedspread for the apartment. There were a couple of temples to see.

I actually volunteered for a morning cooking class. Across the river from the main hotel, the Oriental has a small complex of traditional-style buildings, one of which is used for cooking classes. We made some terrific food, much better than the stuff I've been getting in Berkeley Thai restaurants. It was good. Now I want a kaffir lime tree in the back yard.

Oriental, yes, for sure. Bangkok, I don't know, not when you can catch a puddle-jumper to Chiang Mai.

Hong Kong

2006-11-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well, we had dinner with Don and Marguerite Hess at a terrific restaurant. We had lunch at Hutong, which was fabulous. The Mandarin Oriental has been renovated and looks stunning. And then there was the rest of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is changing, not for the better. It is becoming more like the rest of China, which is to say more crowded, more polluted, more corrupt. They moved the mainland Star Ferry terminal to some bland-looking new docks, which I gather are more difficult for the pilots to use. Folks have protested like crazy, but no one listens. And why? Well, someone decided to do an infill project, so they could build a road and a couple of malls. No matter that the bay cannot shrink without some real environmental problems, including interference with the shipping lanes. No matter that much of the city's character comes from the mainland shoreline. There is money to be made, so every other consideration is ignored.

There is money to be made by maintaining and developing a city's character, and by making sure its major industries are supported, too, but maybe not so much of that money lines a few key pockets.

Well, we were there for only a few days. We don't need to go back.

Shanghai

2006-11-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Well, we're off on our wild, round-the-world adventure. It started off okay, actually, with Andy Roddick sitting just behind me and Jimmy Connors just behind him. They were going to Shanghai on business, too, the Tennis World Cup Masters Tournament. Yes, they are both nice guys, very polite to the flight attendants. Connors had a nice chat with Robert. I'm not surprised Roddick didn't do well, though, and it had nothing to do with him. The air in Shanghai is polluted beyond your wildest dreams. If I could hardly breathe, how could he or anyone play tennis?

We toured the plant of one of Robert's clients, DSG. They are making some sort of ultrathin, ultra-absorbant material that we will probably soon be seeing in every sort of diaper and fluid-absorbing medical supply. It was fascinating to see the manufacturing process and hear how DSG is using it. That night we went to dinner at a dumpling restaurant; the featured item was a sort of Shainghainese dim sum. It was terrific, much better than any other Shanghainese food I have tried. The next day the plant manager, David Lee, sent a car and English-speaking young woman to show me some of the major sights of Shanghai.

But first, I hit the spa. I will never do this in China again. The masseuse, who had worked on George Bush -- father and son -- well, I don't know, maybe she was getting revenge. I am only now beginning to recover from damage she did to the blood vessels at the base of my skull. Headaches, dizziness, owie.

So, after brain damage at the spa in the morning and lung damage all over town in the afternoon, I reconnected with Robert and his other clients for a truly grand feast at night. The tummy is fine, thanks, and I was pleased to see so many people whose company I enjoy.

With the main part of Robert's business over, we took a tour to Hangzhou. It is a lovely, for China, city on a lake, a very popular destination for Sunday outings. The day after that, we headed for Hong Kong.

Thierry visits San Francisco

2006-10-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, here he is, Thierry Saint Germes, at Point Reyes. He's been spending all day, most days, at museums, studying their drawing collections and making a few drawings of his own. I took this on a day when I was able to get him outside for a while. I need to find out how he eats so much and stays so thin. Below is one of his drawings.

I'm Taking a Photo Workshop

2006-09-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'm very excited about the photo workshop that I'm going to be taking. The National Geographic offers workshops taught by their photographers; they take place in a few locations, I think in the States, in Mexico and in Italy. The photo above is the one they use to advertise their workshop in Santa Fe, which is where I'm going.

I've been dreaming about taking one of their classes for years now, though I think it is good that I waited. Previously the workshops were open to folks with either a film or digital camera. My guess is that instruction was along the traditional lines of aesthetic quality, with technical training geared more toward the issues faced by folks using film. The new classes are for digital classes only and they promise to be intense.

We have been warned that classes will run from early morning until after dinner. My trusty Sony was going to be replaced, anyway, by a new camera; now it turns out that this is mandatory, because we must be able to shoot in RAW format, which the Sony doesn't do. Also each student must have his/her own laptop with photo editing software. This tells me we're going to learn a lot about photo editing.

With this news, Robert backed out. His 14-hour days are in the past, thank you. Also the cost of the additional equipment just made this too much of a time and money investment for him. I'm glad he worked that out now; it would be awful to gear up for the class and then drop out, or stay in and hate it. So, eew, I'm going to Santa Fe one week ahead of him, so I can take the class. Then he'll join me and we'll see some opera.

I have thoroughly enjoyed photographing our travels. My digital camera has made me feel comfortable taking many images; with film, I weighed the cost of each picture. Also it has allowed me to review my work on the same day that I take the photos which has, in turn, allowed me to improve my technique in all kinds of ways. I feel, though, that I have reached the end of what I can do on my own. I only wish I could take the class before our round-the-world trip, which I haven't told you about yet.

We Visit Vaux-le-Vicomte

2006-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Vaux-le-Vicomte is not quite as easy to get to as Versailles, but it is well worth the extra hassle. Not only are the building and grounds incredible, but it doesn't have anything like the crowds of Versailles.

To get there, you take the train from the Gare de Lyon to Melun. From there, on weekends in summer, you can catch a shuttle that runs every couple of hours between the station and the house. If you're like me, every couple of hours doesn't make it. You might want to rent a car or simply catch a cab at the station; the cost of the cab is about 15 euros each way.

We went on a weekday, which we loved. There weren't many other people there. It was easy to find a seat in the very decent cafeteria. We didn't have to wait for a golf cart, or for people to step out of the way for our photos. The taxis are convenient and they will call one to take you back to the station. It worked out very well.

My little camera can't convey to you the difference in scale between Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles. They are both pretty big, no question, more like luxury condos than a house. You have to go there to feel the difference. You can take in the whole of Vaux, all at one time, while you experience Versailles in sections. Inside, Vaux has the feel of a house, with owners and servants; Versailles has the furniture, the anterooms, etc. for the court life that Louis developed at such ruinous expense.

I realize there is nothing in my photos that will convince you. Go. Summer afternoons, on the second and last Saturdays of the month, they turn on the fountains. Also in the summer, on Fridays and Saturdays, they have candlelight evenings. They have golf carts anytime, which are definitely the way to see the gardens. And, unlike Versailles, you don't find yourself wishing you could take that golf cart inside, too.

How I Decided to Visit Vaux-le-Vicomte

2006-08-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

Today we take the Wayback Machine to my college years, the early 1970's. I was at UC Santa Barbara, not quite Berkeley, in terms of political militancy, but we tried. At least some of us did. Others of us would show up for the occasional bank burning, but our hearts weren't in it. You see, we were art history majors.

Back then, male students at Santa Barbara wouldn't go near an upper-division art history class. The straight guys just wouldn't, even to pick up their girlfriends. The gay guys, I don't know. Maybe they were in theater or maybe they were all at Berkeley.

Anyway, to steer back in the general direction of the subject, for one quarter, twice a week, about fifty women, no men, would gather in a darkened room to watch and listen as Corey Walker showed us slides of 17th and 18th century French palaces, and give us all the court gossip. What a wonderful woman; she knew everything.

Vaux-le-Vicomte was the high point of the class. It had intrigue. As you surely know, Nicolas Fouquet was Louis XIV's Finance Minister. He had a rival, known as "le grand Colbert." Well, Fouquet decided he needed a really nice house, so he hired the best designers and contractors he could find and went to it. Colbert, surely a direct descendent of Iago, sat back and watched. Over time, within the hearing of the king, he'd ask questions, generally on the topic of how Fouquet managed to get the money to build such a place. Every once in a while he'd find a document, falsified, perhaps, but a document nonetheless. The king was thus primed for the housewarming.

On the big evening, the king went to the party and checked things out. The next morning Fouquet was arrested for embezzelment. He was more or less cleared, but Louis still kept him in jail until his death. Louis went on to hire Fouquet's entire crew to design and build Versailles.

So, as Professor Walker said, you have to go to Versailles, but you really should see Vaux-le-Vicomte. It's just as sumptuous, but the scale and the story are better. For an art history nut, that really does make all the difference.

I Got from Heathrow to SFO in One Piece. Amazing.

2006-08-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

So, there I was in the hotel fitness center, firing up the elliptical machine, when I noticed some serious drama on the TV screen. You must know the story. A bunch of Brits had run off to al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan (tell me again, why is it that the US gives Pakistan all that money?) and had learned how to make bombs out of Gatorade and hair gel, I think, and were about to test out their new skills on nine or ten flights between Heathrow and the States. This includes, I gather, the United flight that connects London and Los Angeles, not on the day I was to fly and not my city any more, but still. They got far enough to have started filming the suicide notes when police swooped in and arrested some two dozen of them. At the same time, partly because a few guys escaped the net, they cancelled all the short-haul flights and pretty much took away the long-haul travellers' hand luggage.

Well, we were warned. That helped. Actually the TV, especially the BBC, helped a lot, as they made it pretty clear how we were to prepare for the security checks. The packing process was much easier than it would have been, had we been required to shift things around at the check-in desk. I think they went a bit overboard with their cautions -- the roads were not tied up and liquids were prohibited in carry-on, rather than checked, luggage (the maids almost got a very generous tip). By and large, though, they did well.

Robert was determined to be on the plane. I realized that if the plane flew, we'd have a terrible time trying to reschedule, plus there was the small matter of where we would stay, if we stayed (the hotel staff was happy to keep us, but not at the rate we had gotten through Expedia). So, we packed for the new regime. I put my wallet, passport and house keys into a little opaque shopping bag I had on hand. My purse and everything else went into my bags to be checked. We left the hotel about half an hour before we ordinarily would have.

As I say, the roads were clear -- everyone else was avoiding Heathrow completely. "Don't come to the airport unless it is absolutely necessary" was interpreted in the strictest possible way by many, so the airport wasn't even as crowded as I would have expected. The Red Carpet Room was fully stocked with goodies. People looked a little wary, but not too concerned.

About a third of our overbooked flight must have decided their trip was what was to be absolutely necessary and didn't fly. There may have been another kind of self-selection, too. When they checked us in, they took our boarding passes to check against a list or to create a list or something. I noticed that every pass I saw was gold, the "frequent flyer" color (normal ones are blue). It's an insight into how bad air travel has gotten, I guess; even terrorists are just one more thing, a little worse than cramped seats and bad food, but not enough to keep us away. First class was completely empty; the staff used it as a staging area and rec room, settling into those cushy flat beds themselves and watching all the movies. Somehow I don't buy the story that the first class passengers, every last one, spontaneously decided to stay home. I think it is more likely that Security wanted a buffer zone between the pilots and the passengers. Anyway, as I say, about a third of business and economy was empty, too. Once we got into the air and yes, past Lockerbie, everybody settled into a very civilized flight.

It was a mess, all right, but it was handled very efficiently. Now that I'm safely home, plowing through the mail, it doesn't have anything like the miserable feel of, say, being stuck in Munich, as I was after 9/11, delegating the euthanizing of my beloved and terribly ill 14-year-old dog because I had no clue when I could get home to be there myself. My compliments to the Heathrow staff (and eternal gratitude to Ian and Andreas). They were thorough without being officious. Their decisions were clearly communicated and, from what I could tell, the staff was consistent in carrying them out. Today may not be so good; today folks may be settling into the usual cranky business as usual. But yesterday, given the circumstances, was fine.

Finally: Visit to Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye

2006-08-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

One of the great icons of modern architecture is the Villa Savoye, a summer home designed by Le Corbusier in the late '20's, now a French national monument. I saw it in the art history classes and saw it again in architecture school, always in those sad photos from the Henry Russell Hitchcock books -- the Germans left it in pretty decrepit shape after the war -- and always described in hushed, reverent tones. Machine For Living. Purity of Form. Visionary Clients. Great Architect.

Well, today my ever-indulgent husband and I went out to see it. From Paris it is actually not all that difficult to go there. A regular commuter train, the RER A line, takes you out to Poissy, which is a decent middle-class suburb with one of those ghastly ghost-town modern plazas at the station that I hope French urban planners have learned don't work. There you catch the 50 bus and in about ten minutes you're there. Altogether, door-to-door, it takes about an hour, one way.

The visit will probably take you considerably less than that. The house is a short walk from the bus stop ("Lycee Le Corbusier" coming, "Villa Savoye" going). It sits in a lovely wooded lawn, which serves to frame the house and keep at least one awful modern apartment building at bay.

I guess it's pretty cool, in a theoretical sort of way. Corbu had the Machine thing down, no question. That curve swooping between the pilotis (that's steel pipes, to you) and the house itself is just where I'd like to play around with my Lexus, and around and around and around. It's echoed by a curving stair inside that is a visual delight. The long, low horizontal windows chop off the tops, bottoms and sides of enough parts of the garden that even a complete aesthetic dolt can figure out that We're Framing Views Here. Those little pilotis raise the whole thing on stilts, I guess to reinforce the sculptural quality of the work. Oh, and the sink at the entry: machine, pure machine, even if the sink, to contemporary eyes, could use a little updating.

However, once the Machine aspect is out of the way, there is the whole Living thing. It appears to be less comfortable than, say the apartments that Gaudi designed at the Casa Mila at about the same time. The bathrooms and kitchen, for example, are positively primitive. I know Parisian women are famous for stepping out of broom closets looking ready for the runway. I know the French are famous for creating three-star meals armed only with a hot plate and a really good knife. But do they have to do it every time? And with no privacy -- there are windows everywhere and not a lot of doors. And did I say no space? I think there is actually more space outdoors, on the terraces, than inside. And no heating? There are a couple of afterthought-type radiators and a little bitty token fireplace. And no soft surfaces? Much of the furniture is built-in. You wouldn't want your kid to knock his head against those concrete tables, I'll tell you, and there's no way you could take a nap on that spiffy pony-hide chaise. No way, at least not for me.

So, to me, in the end, it's kind of an upscale version of that Walt Disney House of the Future. When I was little, it looked wondrous. By the time I was a teenager and they took it out, it just looked dated and shabby; the Playboy Pad actually seemed a whole lot more futuristic. It's a good museum piece, worth a visit if you're looking for something different or if, like me, you spent too much time looking at those slides to pass up a chance to see the real thing. It would be great if they could put the House of the Future next door.

Pigeon Mama Goes on Wild Paris Sex Spree

2006-08-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. Sweet Mere Colombe seems to have become Shameless Hussy Colombe. Can't tell by appearances, that's for sure.

You remember a week or so a go, when I was gurgling about mysterious hatched eggs in my planter, with no babies in sight? And the sweet little dove in the adjacent planter that was sitting on a new batch of eggs? And then the little guys hatched and they were Just So Cute?

The little guys are not more than a couple of days old -- seem to be doing fine, by the way -- and they have been kicked out from under Mama by, yes, two new eggs. Unbelieveable. I can't believe I was so naive as to believe she was leaving them only to find food for the little guys. Hah! It was party party party and no babysitter at home, either. And all this time I've been enabling her, providing a safe haven and duping my own husband into thinking she was just visiting.

Who only knows what I have been doing to promote the Paris Pigeon Population Explosion. If the neighbors find out, they'll send me all their pigeon-poop-related cleaning bills, every last one. I can't deal with it. It's time to get out of town.

baby pigeons

2006-07-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back from the Ile de Re and guess what, those eggs weren't hard boiled. They have hatched. All I've seen so far is a couple of broken eggs and some downy yellow feathers, but there is a little cheeping and clucking going on. It's all very domestic.

Robert has figured out that we have a permanent pigeon, but I don't think he's worked out the nest thing. I hope the barley I put out for them doesn't tip him off.

We leave Paris in a week. It will be fun to see how they grow during that time.

It's raining and much cooler now. I do still believe we're cooking ourselves, but not just yet.

to Ile de Re

2006-07-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

We're going to the Ile de Re today. Our friends have not yet closed escrow on their place -- they are the sellers -- so it's sitting there waiting for us. Good thing, too. It's been so hot for so long that we have actually learned to sleep through the heat, the street lights, the street noise, everything.

Yesterday was about 90. It is predicted that today will get close to 100. We have a little dove, okay, pigeon, nesting in the geraniums. I think she must have hard-boiled those eggs by now, so she may be staying there just to get out of the sun. I left her a little bowl of water. It won't keep her hydrated for four days, but it's better than nothing.

Global warming and global dimming are real deals here; they don't debate it as they do in the States. I watched a weather guy in Ireland explain that the clouds on that day were dissipating vapor trails, so no one should expect any rain from them. Once you get the explanation, you can see it for yourself. We're cooking ourselves to death, kids, just like Maman on the balcony seems to have cooked those eggs.

Great Hairdresser in Paris

2006-07-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I have found my Paris hairdresser.

The other day I made an appointment to see Carole, at Michel Cathou. At the appointed time I was there, but Carole was not. Now in France, as you may know, this can ruin a day -- no Carole, no haircut, and you can wait or you can walk out with the shaggy mop you walked in with. However, this was no ordinary corner of France; this was Michel Cathou.

I was all alone in the shop with a couple of guys even older than me, who were clearly worried. I had asked for a hairdresser who spoke English, and they did not. Fortunately my French is sufficent that they were able to explain the situation and to offer to do my hair themselves. And so they did. One washed, the other cut. Fast. I got one of the best haircuts of my life in 30 minutes flat. They were gracious, skilled, and boy were they efficient.

Michel Cathou is in the 8th, across from the street from the Crillon Hotel, between Metro stops Concorde and Madeleine. The street is relatively quiet for that part of town. It has a cafe and a pharmacy and is lined with those exquisite little shops that have stylish wearable clothes and jewelry for a fraction of designer prices. It has other shops that cost the earth, but that just makes the affordable stuff more fun. In other words, one could make this a destination for a pleasant morning or afternoon.

Michel Cathou
15, rue Boissy d'Anglas
01-47-42-15-77

How to Visit Versailles

2006-07-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

Okay. This is what I've found out about how to visit Versailles.

This is one thing you'll want to visit in the summer on a weekend. That's when they turn on the fountains. Go to the train station, at Saint Michel, Invalides or Bir Hakeim, and buy a Forfait Loisirs. It's 25 euros in season (16 the rest of the time). I don't think there is any way to buy this in advance (comments, please, if you know better), so you'll have to pick it up at the station. This little toy provides access to the whole place, inside and out, plus an audioguide. It also saves you from a lot of long lines.

From the station, take Line C to Versailles Rive Gauche (Versailles RG). Not every Line C goes to this destination, so be sure you're on the right train. Once you reach the station (it's the end of the line, so if you're on the right train, there's no suspense), go out and follow the signs for your five-minute walk to the chateau. Hold onto your tickets and all, so you are sure to have what you need to get back on the train for the return trip.

Your Forfait Loisir gives you access to the gardens but no way, other than your own tired feet, to get around it. For that, you have two choices. So far I have always taken the tram. For a little over five euros, it's not a bad deal. It makes three stops before it heads back to the chateau. You can get out at the stops and get back on again, once you have looked around. They run about every ten minutes. Not bad.

Next time, though, I'm renting a little electric golf cart. You get them near the booth that sells the tram tickets. They are 28 euros an hour and you drive yourself all over the place -- way cool when the fountains go on. By the time I found the golf cart rental place, it was 4:00 and the booth was closed, even though the gardens were open for another 90 minutes or so. So French. So if you want one, get over there early. There is loose talk on the web site about them being available to folks with reduced mobility, but the people I saw in them looked reasonably fit.

Those horse carts on the site? I didn't see any of those...

Hungry? Lots of people take picnic lunches. If you've got a golf cart that can be nice, though it's a lot to haul on the train. Also the site says something about them being "authorised," without saying how one would obtain this authorization, which I have found is code for "you could be in for a lot of trouble." There are also restaurants out in the gardens. There is a cafe at the entrance. There are two outdoor cafes at the third tram stop. And, this was news to me today, there is a little restaurant, La Petite Venise (01 39 53 25 69). It looks quite elegant, and is also on my list for next time.

I wouldn't do the evening water show, though I do like the idea of being able to walk around the gardens in the evening. I wouldn't take a bus tour, or buy a lesser ticket, unless I didn't want to go inside the building.

If it were winter, I'd look into the Baroque music concerts they offer (http://www.cmbv.com/fr/event/event.htm). If I had been to Versailles often enough to want a little variation, I'd check out the horse shows (http://www.acadequestre.fr/index-35-horaires-fr-0-29-0.htm).

And that's it. Have a great time!

Metro Raspail

2006-06-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

One of these days, when my life slows enough that I am actually looking for a project, I'll start a new blog called "One Metro Stop per Day." Folks in Paris drive cars these days, but that is a relatively recent phenomenon. Historically, and still to quite an extent, they have used the Metro. They relate first to their immediate neighborhood around their Metro stop, then to their arrondissement and only then to the city of Paris. The area directly around the area of each Metro stop has its own character and it would be a wonderful project to document it.

Today's discovery was Metro Raspail. Chery wanted to see a special exhibit about manga at the Hotel de Solenn. The Hotel de Solenn is its own story, a whole government building for exhibits and programs for adolescents. In the States we fuss too much over preadolescents; they are, from what I have seen, totally protected from the realities of life. Then the hormones kick in and they get obnoxious and folks give them a computer in their bedroom and an iPod and walk away for five years -- not always, of course, but too often. Here they keep after them, make sure they remain a part of society and, while respecting their own culture, finish off the training they need to become responsible adults. Along with the manga exhibit there was one about good nutrition.

So. Metro Raspail. It's on Line 10 in a nice, affluent neighborhood in the 14th, right on the edge of the 5th. One of these days, I'll have time to explore it and write about it.

Togo vs. France

2006-06-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

Just a minute the whole neighborhood erupted in cheers. Odd. That happened just a few minutes ago. They are filming on my street, so I thought it had to do with that, but no. It's World Cup Soccer and France is playing Togo. And, yes, the score is 2-zip France. So there is something that brings Parisians together. Too bad the game is almost over.

Bad Day at the Bateaux Mouches

2006-06-22T03:07:00.000-07:00

I had taken the classic, totally touristy boat ride along the Seine twice before. I loved it. At 7 euros it's reasonably priced. You get a good enough explanation of what you see. You get a great and different view of the monuments. Really, it's fine.

So I'm here with a niece, wondering what to do, and I remember a French teacher's recommendation that I take the dinner cruise. The food is good enough, she said, and it makes for a pleasant evening. Okay, so Chery got the upgrade from the regular tour to the dinner cruise, which costs considerably more than 7 euros. Really, it was not fine.

We were held up because a tour group ran late. We were held up more because some satin-pantsed babe convinced them to wait for her boyfriend, then convinced them to do the tour in reverse, so they could stop back to pick up Mr. Wonderful. They sat some bleached blonde princess right in front of us, so we had too good a view of her pitching a fit, so she could have champagne with her dinner, instead of red wine. Then she spent the rest of the evening making out with her husband, or maybe it was someone else's husband, who knows. The food was not good enough; Chery and I spent some of the most amusing moments of the evening making jokes about who ate less at each course, what was the worst thing, etc.

The truly worst thing was something I should have anticipated. On the regular tour, one can sit on the roof of the boat where the view is great. For the dinner, everyone sits downstairs. Well, downstairs, you can't see much. We got a great view of the kids partying along the river bank and of their cute little hineys as they mooned us. We could see a few monuments from the second floor up. We saw the sculptures that were intended to be seen principally from the river. That was okay, but that was it.

Needless to say, the only people off the boat before us were the couple that couldn't even wait for them to put down the walkway and jumped on shore. For that money, we could have gotten good food and still had enough left over for a regular tour. Next time, that's what I'll do.

Back in Paris

2006-06-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm embarrassed. My last post was in mid-April. What kind of blog is that?

I'm back in Paris; this is my second day here. Robert has taken his son to China, so what was I to do but borrow a niece and bring her to Paris. Chery has just graduated from high school and was kind enough to invent a burning desire to see Jim Morrison's grave site, which I have been more than happy to indulge.

Pere Lachaise didn't disappoint. Everyone goes to see Jim these days, with surprisingly few peeling off to other parts of the cemetery. Chery's favorite was an attractive young man in his mid-20's wearing a "Jim" t-shirt -- not the one sold just outside the gate -- he came that way! -- and gazing soulfully at the grave when he wasn't gazing balefully at all us camera-popping philistines. He was with the film crew setting up 100 feet away, but never mind that; he was the real deal and we were not. We got our shots and giggled off to see what and who else might be laying around. I think she got some great shots of crows on tombs and the like.

Last night we got dinner at Alcazar and took a stroll around the Latin Quarter and the two islands. Notre Dame was closed, but we spent an hour looking over the sculptural program and were treated to the sound of a bit of organ practice.

And that was the day.

The Hameau of the Damned.

2006-04-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

This could be the true home of the French people, at least those who pushed Chirac to rescind the new labor law. It is, of course, Marie Antoinette's hameau, a playhouse where she and her friends would go to hang out with dyed sheep and carefully groomed cows and pretend, for a time, that they were ordinary people. Then she'd go back to Versailles and buy another fist-sized diamond brooch.

The French nobility were afraid of ordinary people, for good reason, given the way they were starving them. The thing is, they refused to deal with the problems. They thought they could just refuse to make any changes and folks would just continue to put up with the abuse.

Well, we know how that turned out. Eventually the people were so pissed off that Robespierre seemed to them like a reasonable guy. The rest, of course, was the French Revolution.

Now I don't want to go too far with this allegory, though maybe you can see where I'm headed and think I already have. But look at what is happening. The unions and others have pressed for more and more "labor protection" laws, to the extent that even our French friends describe the situation with disbelief. Business owners protest; the unions tighten their grip. The students pretend they are ordinary and take to the streets to protest a law that likely won't affect most of them. The actual regular people, the Arab kids, riot; since they have a little clearer grasp of who has privilege here, they are not above taking down a few unwary students (I think it is significant that when news accounts told of shocked little old ladies trying to get to their apartments near the Invalides, they never said the ladies were hurt by the Arab kids, while isolated student demonstrators were having their lights punched out.). The unions win; the law isn't changed. Things get worse for the Arabs, while the college kids go back to lives that proceed as normal and the unions, and politicians, rule.

Once again in France, the guys at the top are out of touch. The guys in the middle vote with their euros, by moving factories out of the country, or with their feet, by heading to England to find a job. The guys at the bottom seeth, for how long?

One difference is that there are guys in the middle. My grade-school civics classes taught that the middle class was a major force for stability in a country. That may be true and somehow it may save France. For now, though, much as I love France, I am starting to see it the way I see that hameau: pretty, but just a little scary.

Orleans

2006-04-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

When we were in Paris, even when we had Internet access, I wasn't able to transfer photos from my camera to the computer. That meant you guys didn't get to see any pictures of Orleans.

We have started taking day trips from Paris. We have books and maps and timetables and we sure do have cameras, so out we go.

Orleans was one of our first forays. Yes, it is the town where the French let Joan of Arc be burned at the stake. They have been making money off it ever since, as if it were some kind of very cool thing. Anyway, Orleans has a lovely old city center, very accommodating for pedestrians. There are a couple of town squares. One features the church, a side aisle of which you see here, and a very decent museum.

We were surprised to see that we were, for a time, the only people in this church. Orleans doesn't actually feature very prominently in the guidebooks. This makes us more interested than ever in seeing every last thing that we can reach within, say, two hours by train.

Edward

2006-04-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

It's time you guys saw a photo of Edward. Here he is.

Edward is Robert's younger son. He is about to finish high school, after which he will take a much-deserved trip to China with his dad, then head off to college.

He was just down here for a few days during his spring break. As you can imagine with a guy his age, he lives in fear of starvation. We spent quite a bit of time making sure he had basic kitchen survival skills. I'm sorry to say that Spam figured prominently in most of the meals which interested him. I think he likes it because it used to be military food, but it may well be that my evident horror of the stuff may be a contributing factor to his "more Spam" requests.

Anyway, we've got the Spam thing down. Maybe this summer we can move on to the barbeque.

New Comments Settings

2006-03-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to avoid having my blog spammed by requiring that commenters sign into Blogger. For a while, as in until I do get spammed, I'm going to try changing the settings so anyone can comment. You will still have to go through a letter-recognition exercise, but you won't have to spill your entire personal history on the web just, say, to ask me for another story about the cheese lady.

McMansions in El Cerrito

2006-03-31T09:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I am back from Paris, having my classic US first-day-back breakfast of whatever I can find in the freezer. Today it's Bud's ice cream and microwave shu mai. Mm, mm, good. Cafe creme, Krispy Kreme, it's all the same, right?

On the way back from driving Robert to BART, I noticed a couple of house projects that had just gotten underway when I left town. If they are part of a trend, they will really change the character of our little suburb.

One was being built on a lot where I guess a house burned down. For years there was just a foundation. Then there were some failed building attempts. Now there is a succeeding attempt. The other two are right next to each other, in a neighborhood that is pretty typical of what you find in the hills of Richmond and El Cerrito. Right after WW2 developers built these little, as in two-bedroom-1000 s.f., starter homes. The land was cheap because it was so far from San Francisco.

Well, lots of folks started and finished right there. Now they are retiring and selling up. And, yes, those houses are now sitting on prime real estate. They are no longer so far from San Francisco and anyway, there is lots of development in the East Bay these days; the commute might not be so bad. The views of the Bay are as spectacular as ever, but are no longer just a consolation prize; they add a bundle to the value of the house. But the houses are really too small to justify the price increase caused by that view. Also, the seller, probably that nice lady you've been dealing with at the post office, may have put in a dishwasher, but that's about it.

Word is out; small developers are moving in. It must be like the Pacific Palisades, when I lived in Los Angeles 20 years ago. The guys are buying those little houses on biggish lots and tearing them down to put up these gargantuan legal-maximum sized places, then selling them for what those views are worth.

In Pasadena, the Palisades, the Beverly Hills flats, a few other places in Los Angeles, folks went nuts. Eventually the zoning laws were changed so that the new houses had to be a little more in proportion to the neighbors and the lot size. The alternative, on busy streets, was simply to rezone to allow multi-unit development.

It is 20 years later and Conta Costa County is a different kind of place. We'll see what happens. For now, I'm glad to be in a place where the houses are nice enough that they still are bought and simply remodeled.

More on the demonstrations at the Invalides

2006-03-26T09:21:00.000-08:00

On the way to Orleans, I had time to read yesterday's Le Figaro.

In general, French papers are a little frustrating because they don't tell you much. They expect you to read every day, picking up one clue at a time, and piece the story together yourself.

The story on the Invalides demonstrations was different and I guess the demonstrations were different, too. This story was laid out in full. Apparently some of the more dubious elements of French society infiltrated the crowd and used the demonstrations as a cover for all sorts of mayhem. They vandalized shops and cars. They preyed on the demonstrators themselves. Apparently if they found someone who was there alone, they'd beat them up and steal their wallets and cell phones (why bother with a dirt cheap phone that will be cancelled immediately?). They were climbing on roofs and peeing on the police. Some of these guys were wearing the usual scarf-and-hood disguise, but others were just out there, probably rightly figuring they had nothing to worry about. It took hours for the police to clear the area.

It was bad, but today on the TV news I see no acknowledgement of what happened. There are plenty of demonstrations being planned and I have heard nothing about additional measures being taken to keep the bad actors under control.

We shall see. It may be a good time to get out of Paris.

Orleans

2006-03-26T09:14:00.000-08:00

We just got back from an afternoon in Orleans. It's an easy trip, just an hour from Gare Austerlitz. Compared to Paris, it was warm and dry down there. They have a lovely church and a fairly decent art museum. The old city is very interesting; I wish I had had more time just to wander the streets. The food? Well, try to go some time other than Sunday afternoon, when things tend to close up tight. Michelin gives Orleans one star. I can't wait to see the two and three star places.

An Hour from Paris

2006-03-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at Brentano's we found a fascinating guidebook called An Hour from Paris. The author, Annabel Simms, asked the question we have asked a zillion times, so where do all those trains go? Then she found the answer and turned it into a book. She discusses some two dozen places to visit, complete with a history of the town and a walking tour, with map.

Today's day trip, to Orleans, is an hour from Paris, but not in the book. There is room for a sequel. Hmmm.

Demonstrations? Huh?

2006-03-25T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I do get comments -- it's just that folks send them to my email address. Fine by me: just don't stop reading, okay? Since Ian asked, this is my experience with the latest demonstrations.

One day, maybe last Saturday, I was headed across the plaza in front of the Hotel de Ville, when I saw police cars and heard this huge racket. Damn, I thought, don't tell me BHV is closed! Lots of folks were walking toward me while kind of glancing back toward the noise. No, no, I thought, Must Have Hangers, or whatever it was that day. I asked a kid what was happening; he didn't know either, and he was French. Bad sign.

The police turned the corner and waited. That's when I realized it must be a demonstration. Really, I am so apolitical. All I cared about was getting across Rue Rivoli and into BHV before the marchers cut off my access to one of the truly great shopping meccas of the world. Once I was safely across the street, I stopped to watch a surpisingly small, given the noise, group of college students, walking along, shouting and carrying signs about that rat Villepin and their work contracts. The police were there to make sure they didn't get run over.

That is the sum total of my direct experience with the demonstrations. I gather from reading the paper that the demonstrations have gotten bigger and have been joined by kids who are using them as a cover, to allow them to vandalize businesses and burn up a few more cars. Some of that happened at the Invalides, within walking distance of the apartment. The unions have joined in, offering to negotiate with Villepin only if he totally withdraws his truly modest proposals. So if he does that, what is there to talk about?

You can probably read all about this by checking a web site for the International Herald Tribune or some other paper that reports on French news. If you don't have time for that, the deal is basically this. The French have strong legal guarantees that once you are hired, you almost can't be fired, even if you are caught breaking the law. My favorite example is the accountant who used his access to the company accounts to raise his salary; he protested his firing and the company was forced to keep him on. Well, duh, this means that many employers are reluctant to hire a single person until they probably need two or three. Villepin has proposed that, if you hire folks under 26, you can offer some OJT (the law also allows some loosening of the rules on who and how you hire) and you have two years to let the guy go without cause. He was on TV last Sunday arguing his case quite forcefully, though I doubt he changed any opinions.

Reactions fall pretty clearly into two groups. One is the group that is all for it. Good proposal, pretty modest, and it still offers French workers more protection than they would get anywhere else in the world. Then there are the French: not all the French, but a bunch of them. They have this guarantee and they will fight tooth and nail, will burn your car if need be, or burn down your newstand and therefore destroy your own livelihood, to keep it.

Well, I don't much care for Villepin, but I like his proposal. I hope he can carry it off. As for the demonstrations, honestly, I can walk to the Invalides in 15 minutes, and I had no clue that there was any trouble there.

Internet Access is Mine!!!

2006-03-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it. I am posting from my own apartment.

For those of you who don't know the whole sad tale, one of the first things we tried to set up here was internet access through France Telecom. It was a nightmare, of which the high points were that they took about a month and two tech visits to get the service running, only to have them make a clerical error which resulted in its being shut off almost immediately.

Well, when we moved back into the apartment, we knew we had to get access again, but we also knew that FT was out of the question. We decided to hunker down in front of our friend Thierry's computer to do some research, but were saved by a little thowaway called "20 Minutes," which we picked up at the Metro. That very day they published an article about which companies had the most complaints.

Believe it or not, France Telecom actually came in second, and by a wide margin (Free was first). We went straight to the bottom of the list and found Club Internet and Tele2, with complaint rates of 3% -- of those polled, of the total number of customers, who knows, but it worked for us. We combined that with a recommendation for Club Internet from one of Thierry's friends and hey presto, we had our company.

We had been warned that it could take two weeks to get everything set up, but within a week we had our service box and a letter with all the login information. The setup worked the first time.

We're all set. You can put us in that 97% of satisfied customers.

Thierry

2006-03-20T08:08:00.000-08:00

This is a pastel drawing of Gabriel. It was drawn by my friend Thierry. We are using it to show Thierry how easy it is to post to a blog.

I am in Paris and, some day soon may have my own internet access, just like the big kids. I can't wait.

In Paris in March

2006-03-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

I am closer to having internet access in Paris, which is truly no small thing. I just prevailed upon my friend Thierry to call Club Internet to try yet again to get this thing working. All is much better and one day I will be able to write more from my own home.

Back to SF

2006-02-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

Well, my computer is plugged in. I must be unpacked.

This is one of my most recent progress photos. I know, it is the kind of thing that can only be exciting if you have been waiting four months for signs of progress, please, and seeing only the same old rubble and mess. So, let me try to explain what you are looking at.

This is the wall that separates the living room from the kitchen. You have previously seen this wall with the old doorway partly demolished, with wires hanging out where there is now a little circle waiting for the light switch and green terra cotta where you now see only smooth, white wall. And that stuff leaning against this new, lovely wall? Gypsum board, just like home. You have no clue how relieved I was to see the terra cotta go, to be replaced by metal studs, sound batting and gyp board. Ah, sanity returns to my project.

What you can't see in this photo is how very cool that wall looks, now that it has been freed of the view-obstructing cased opening. It is at a diagonal to the other walls in the apartment, so it has this nice zoom to it -- really, very Jetsons. This apartment will be small, but mighty.

Winding Down

2006-02-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's true, I'm heading home in a couple of days. I'll have to post a progress photo on Sunday, just before I go.

There is no food in the house. The cupboards are bare, but the cave is filling fast. Tomorrow, just in time for the rugby games, I won't have a TV; time to find that Canadian sports bar, eh?

The contractors are doing fine. I am pulling together everything I can, before I take off -- all the receipts, contact numbers, everything.

I'll be back. This is a little traumatic, leaving before the project is complete, but I think that once I sink into those nice seats in Robert's car, I'll get over it.

Les Churleedairs

2006-02-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

The who? you must be wondering. Well, so was I until they ran out and did a little routine to Jumping Jack Flash. The cheerleaders, I think for the Steelers.

I am watching the Super Bowl, which is being broadcast live here on France 2. While you guys are glued to the ads, I've been getting a little lecture on the rules and strategy of football, a comparative analysis of American football and rugby, and a tip: they pick the Steelers to win. We got a guided tour of the padding the players wear and even a little philosophy lesson. "Is football a violent sport? No, it's a contact sport." There you have it. They gave us a history of great events in Super Bowl history, featuring "la soeur de Michael Jackson." The American guy had the grace to say, "Janet, her name is Janet."

This is all in French, of course. They have some rugby players explaining things, along with a guy who goes to college in Georgia, when he's not playing pro football on the French team. The announcer who is moderating it is clearly getting a big kick out of sheer uncool oversized Americanness of it all; he's going to go home in an Escalade, I just know it.

We just watched Aretha do her thing and watched some clips of great plays of the past. Now I'm watching the same old Wanadoo stuff while you guys are getting the good ads.

Enjoy. I'm going to go see if I can find a beer in the fridge.

La Mendiante Americaine

2006-02-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

So, I was on my way home from exploring some distant outpost of Paris. I had grabbed a quick lunch at the Louvre -- the self-service restaurant, where I got a chicken wrap with guacamole and chips, of all things. I was sitting at the Metro platform, pondering my fate, when a woman walked up and addressed me in French every bit as bad as my own.

When I asked the obvious question, "Are you an American," she said yes, then told me she was trying to move her family here from the States, but couldn't find a job and, how many times do I hear this in a day, could I give her some money.

Well it was worse than that; she asked for 5 euros. I'm a sucker for a new line. I'll always cough up 1 euro if the story is good, but 5, that's pushing it. Blessedly, the train arrived about then, so I pressed the euro into her hand and got out of there.

The experience has stayed with me. Is she really so misguided that she would move her family to Paris, which has a terrible unemployment problem, to support them on the financial basis of her panhandling earnings? Is there another, truer story, that she just doesn't want to tell? Is she a journalist, laughing all the way to her laptop? Weird.

In general, this city is getting strange, or maybe I'm just noticing it.

There were the riots, of course. They didn't happen anywhere we could see them, unless you count television, but they happened.

The unemployment problem is serious, and getting worse. Efforts to encourage folks to hire young workers by easing the rules on certain types of employment contracts have backfired -- the employers have a revolving door for folks on these contracts and have greatly reduced their hiring of regular employees. This has resulted in a big underclass of folks who are trying to make ends meet on 400 euros a month, just in case you were wondering why so many French adults still live with their parents. They are talking about revising the whole contract system again, but it still hasn't dawned on the government that maybe scrapping the whole system in favor of something more fluid might be the way to go.

Folks are poor. They sleep on the streets. Like everybody, they like the good neighborhoods, which are safe, so we do see them. They park themselves all over the Metro -- on the steps, on the platforms and in the cars. We are treated to guerrilla music performances, good and bad, hard luck stories, folks selling volumes of their own poetry, you can't believe it until it dawns on you, as it did me this morning, that the guy with the puppets is really getting tiresome.

Obviously these people are more visible than the many others who do have jobs and sleep in their own beds. Still, there is this feeling that things are getting out of control, that the have-nots are way too numerous and have too little reason to believe that if they engage with the social system they will be in any way rewarded.

The new French

2006-02-02T00:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I may have just seen the future of French. If so, I bet the French aren't going to like it. Me? I can't wait.

My new contractor, Drago, is Serbian. Since I speak no Serbian at all, we communicate in the usual mix of rudimentary English and French. The interesting thing is to hear how that works in practice.

Their English is fine. They can get a job on a lot of construction sites in the States with no better English than that. The French, though, is different. I struggle with sytax, verb tenses, subject/verb agreement, all that stuff. The contractors have simplified their lives by never leaving the present tense. Maybe once in a while a little subjunctive slips in (All those guides to how to avoid the subjunctive? Forget about it; it's easier to just learn it.), but in those simple ways, where you don't know you have changed from the present tense until the teacher tells you. Also, they use the great shortcut, much utilized even by the French, of putting everything possible into the third person.

Granted, these guys aren't exactly applying for admission to Sciences Po. However their kids will. Their kids will have learned their parents' simplified, straightforward French and are not going to be terribly excited about the convoluted turns of phrase that the French have created in their frankly rather ingrown, overthought language.

My command of French may have plateaued for now. More and more, though, it looks as though, if I can wait out this transformation, I might already know all the French I need.

Eiffel Tower

2006-01-31T11:59:00.000-08:00

So, I was walking back from the apartment this evening and just happened to have my camera with me and just happened to look at the Eiffel Tower, just as the twinkle lights came on.

This was taken as I was standing about a block from the apartment. I was standing on the Avenue Suffren, right near Avenue Segur and just across from the UNESCO building, a part of which you can see outlined here. The dome of the Ecole Militaire is just popping up at the bottom toward the left.

Old Kitchen

2006-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

You may have forgotten what the kitchen used to look like, so here it was. Note the doorway, now filled in; the half wall, which went about where the stove is, gone; the metal cabinets, gone; and the authentic, original-to-the-building avocado tiling, blessedly gone.

What a relief.

The marble is in!

2006-01-31T11:27:00.000-08:00

It doesn't look like much in the way of progress, but we have been waiting so long for something to look finished that this afternoon, when I finally saw the marble in place, I actually got kind of teary.

I love this marble; I think it is called Kashmir White. The overall tone is the sort of beige you see here, but it has light purple streaks and little waves of green. We gave it a square edge, to echo the square rims of the cabinets.

Now let's hope the new contractor can patch the wall and ceiling without trashing everything.

Out with the old contractor, in with the new

2006-01-31T11:13:00.000-08:00

After three full months of construction, this is my bathroom. See why I got impatient?

Yesterday we let the contractor go. He is an old-line, one-guy-with-one assistant kind of guy; his way of doing business seems to be typical of traditional French contractors. We replaced him with, yes, a guy from Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, to be exact. He has crews, and he appears to understand how to organize and schedule a job. Granted, his first day isn't until Monday, so we cannot yet be sure, but I live in hope.

To be fair, French contractors are changing too, at least in the cities. Our kitchen and window guys are both French and both terrific. I have posted a shot or two of the windows; just wait until you see the kitchen!

Barcelona-3

2006-01-29T23:16:00.000-08:00

This is my obligatory Gaudi photo. For some lucky soul/s this is their front door.

This is one of the apartment doors in the Casa Battlo. The residents of this 7-unit condominium cleverly bought the first floor apartment, which is cool in the extreme, but kind of lacking in privacy, especially given its location just one level up from a very busy street. They now charge a bundle to grant access to it and to the attic and roof. Folks are lined up down the block to go through this thing, just as they line up for the Casa Mila and Sagrada Familia . I am sure the proceeds totally pay for the maintenance of this impeccably kept building. And, when everybody gets home from work, hey, visiting hours are over, and they get their house back.

You might never guess, looking at this or at most of the photos of Gaudi's work, that this elaborate decoration, worthy of Captain Nemo's submarine, is laid over a totally rational design and structural scheme. I won't go on about it -- I risk descending into total architectural geekdom -- but the folks who do the displays at the Casa Mila do, and it is well worth taking an hour in the attic over there to thoroughly understand what Gaudi was getting up to. I'll just say that these spaces never feel claustrophobic or disorienting.

French Lessons - 2

2006-01-27T23:06:00.000-08:00

Here, in this sad little corner of my kitchen -- it's not that bad any more, really -- you can see my biggest obstacle to improving my French; everything is in English. This is a German washing machine, being sold and installed in France, and look at the language they chose to put first in their list.

I have been amazed and impressed by the quality of the English spoken by just about everyone, including the ladies at the Chinese take-out, for whom English is at least their third language.

Me, well, my English is just fine, thank you, and one day, me speak jolie, aussi.

Construction Progress at the end of January

2006-01-27T22:44:00.000-08:00

It's bad, isn't it? This is our kitchen, or at least it was our kitchen about a week ago. Now everything has been carefully removed from the boxes and put into place. The appliances are not hooked up and the granite countertop is not in place, but the kitchen situation is on its way to resolution.

Behind those boxes you can see parts of a couple of our new double-pane windows. We'll miss the noise and the nice breeze that used to run through the frames, but I'm sure we'll adjust.

Behind the windows is some bad news. In a move worthy of our role models, the Blandings, we decided to motorize the roll-up shutters. Sure, the window guys, said, no problem. When I expressed concern about the condition of the shutter frames, I got a sort "bah, you picky Americans," brush-off. Well, that's what they thought a couple of weeks ago. Last week they tried to install the new mechanisms and hey, guess what, everything fell apart. Everything. They left the shutters in the condition that you see and, next week and I won't tell you how much later, we will see all new shutters, properly motorized and, I hope, good for the next 30 years of this apartment's life.

Barcelona-2

2006-01-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Well, okay, the photo is of Barcelona, even if the post is really about Paris.

I am sitting here editing my photos, all for you alone, of course. This picture of a cafe at the Parque Guell is not great photography, but it looks great to me, basically because it was about 60 degrees in Barcelona on that day and it is about 25 degrees outside here in Paris right now.

If you ever have the luxurious decision of where to buy your second, or maybe your retirement, home, do not neglect the climate factor. I can easily bore you to madness with my raves about the food, the museums, the buildings, and this truly is my favorite city, but. Right now it is so cold that we do not want to set foot outside. Our life at the moment is all about dense bread, hot soup and room-temperature wine. If you go to a place where it snows in winter, as it is expected to snow here, be sure you either like to ski or have another home in a warmer climate.

Us? Robert is going home on Tuesday and I'll follow very shortly thereafter. The temperature is about 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer there than here. It sounds like heaven.

Barcelona-1

2006-01-27T01:04:00.000-08:00

So, one day we decided we were tired of wandering around in the sleet, sitting in our little cave-like apartment and waiting for the electrician or, yes, someone like him. It was time to get out of town.

We settled on Barcelona. It was about the temperature of San Francisco, which we were starting to miss. Also, Air France had these great flight/hotel packages that we had been wanting to test. This was our chance.

Well, not only was the package just great -- the flight was on time and our hotel, the Avenida Palace, was lovely and very well located -- but Barcelona was amazing. While in architecture school I had seen photos of Gaudi's work. I had heard of the Bofills, so I knew that Barcelona had some sort of contemporary architectural life. I had no idea, however, that Barcelona had been so affluent early in the 20th century, nor that it was so affluent today. I was absolutely bowled over by the rich cultural life of the city.

I guess I chose this photo for my first Barcelona post because it sums up my image of the city. The Mirador is nice, obviously, but it's the bistro version of the place where we had eaten the night before. It is located in a newly reworked concert hall; the architects managed to massively enlarge and improve the place while being totally respectful of the original hall and adjacent areas. As you can see, they neither turned their backs on the existing historical fabric, nor tried to copy it. Then the city government had the great good sense to lease the restaurant to a truly talented guy. On every level that the casual visitor could see, this project works -- as does the city.

Grand Palais

2006-01-26T01:17:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's a miracle. I can go on line, in my own -- rented -- apartment! So, let me get back to business.

Honestly, life hasn't all been French classes and apartment construction. Sometimes we do interesting things. Just after Christmas we went to the newly reopened Grand Palais. In the big exhibition space they installed a carnival for the kids -- well, okay, and for us. It was actually quite wonderful. They didn't heat the space, but it was still warmer than the outdoors. They had scary rides and spectacularly unhealthy food and those cheesy games and everything. Twice a day they had acrobats and clowns performing in a small arena. It was trashy and elegant, both at the same time. You probably missed it, but I think they should do this every year, mainly so I can take the ferris wheel up to see the Eiffel Tower again.

We've been doing a lot of great stuff. I'll try to get you caught up.

Post-Christmas post

2005-12-26T08:07:00.000-08:00

Well, 6 weeks between posts. Some blog.

As you may have guessed, we have no internet access at the apartment. Promises have been made, but they are not being kept. I will grouse no more.

Paris is lovely, but pretty much living on its past. Sometimes we will find something new and delightful, but not often. The good things, and there are plenty of them, are small. The food is great, even better than in San Francisco, which I think has the second best markets in the world. I am hooked on a children's show, C'est Pas Sorciere. It's a French How Things Work and it is charming and ingenious. Every day I zip home from my French classes, and plop in front of the set for half an hour of fun.

All those great fixtures that I found are being delivered to the apartment. Some day the contractor may stick around long enough to install them. You never know; every now and then promises are kept.

Finally, a post from Paris

2005-11-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

Hi guys. Sorry I haven't written before now. I've had a long tiff with France Telecom, which resulted in their saying that my mysteriously disconnected DSL access cannot be reconnected until two days after Robert leaves for SF and two days before I clear out to make way for the contractors -- then my saying, thanks, but let's call the whole thing off. Then I figured out that I have access to a pirate Wi-Fi connection. So here I am. I don't know how long it will last, so I'm posting fast.

We are here. The apartment is fine, apart from the lack of TV and legal internet access. I have met with the kitchen contractor and all is well on that front. Tomorrow morning I meet with the regular contractor. He has promised, promised, to get things ready for the kitchen guy, so, so far so good. We'll see how tomorrow's meeting goes.

To those of you who have asked, no we are not affected by the riots. From here, on my perch at the edge of the 7th, you would not think anything was amiss. The riots are in the suburbs to the north of Paris. It's pretty clear from the papers that things are not so good for the birds on the perches out there. Also, it's not so good for Villepin and Sarkozy. French government is so centralized that the two guys at the top (Chirac is out of it, let's face it) are being held responsible for a police matter. Well, also, it may not be so good for Western civilization. These suburban Muslims are not rioting, looting, and then going home to watch their stolen TVs. They are just plain rioting, full stop. I don't know where it will end.

I have begun my French classes. They are very intense. Not only do I have three hours a day of classes, but I have homework. Then I go out and deal with life in Paris. The more I understand, the more I realize I have to learn. Truly, it's exhausting. Now that I am done with France Telecom, maybe things will settle down a bit.

Today Robert and I went to the exhibit of medieval manuscripts at the Bibliotheque National, the new one. We had been looking for a reason to go out there anyway. The library is nuts, every bit as offputting as you may have read that it is. I'll write more about it later. The exhibit, though, was wonderful. It focused on animals in the manuscripts and we saw dozens of examples. It was truly a delight, one of the great reasons to be in Paris.

The language in the notes, though, the exotic verb tenses. It was almost like High French. I could be spending a long time at the Institut.

Shower Head

2005-10-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

Fortunately I can show you the shower head. This Hansgrohe Raindance shower head pushes air along with the water, which they say provides a softer, more rainlike, showering experience. In a few months I'll be able to tell you all about it. For now I can say that it got a design award and will look fabulous on the wall.

KWC Eve and Disko

2005-10-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

I wanted to show you the kitchen faucet I like, the KWC Eve. It's very cool. Not only does it have a sleek design, but there are LED lights at the end of the faucet, I guess in case you want to scrub your veggies in the dark.

The bathroom faucet, Disko, is equally minimal. I'd like the wall-mount version, which features a curved chrome pipe with a little toggle switch off to one side. Robert approves, so we could be good to go on this.

Unfortunately KWC's flashy display does not permit saving photos from the screen. You'll just have to imagine the possibilities.

Countdown to Paris

2005-10-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Look fast: in a couple of weeks this will all be gone. I'm negotiating furiously with Mr. LeRoux, our contractor, to get this peeling blue stuff replace by something that won't peel and won't absorb all the light in the room. That fluorescent bar? Gone, gone, gone, to be replaced, I hope, by halogen downlighting. The brazen display of personal care products? Sorry, they're out of here, to be hidden behind a medicine cabinet door. By and large the French don't seem to get the concept of the medicine cabinet, but I sincerely hope to prevail. I think Decotec might have something nice I can use.

Billy goes to Canada

2005-09-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

My friend Bill Herbst (www.billherbst.com) recently took a brief trip from his home in Olympia Washington to visit friends in oh, where oh where, I keep thinking Lilliput, but it's an Eskimo name, Lillooet or something, in British Columbia, Canada. He was kind enough to send some of us a brief video he made of the journey.

The Trevor half of this couple has lived in this little former mining town in the mountains his entire life. He has that quality of being utterly rooted to the ground on which he stands. His wife Sharon, and their daughter and cat looked pretty settled and at peace, too.

I must say, Billy did a great job of capturing the spectacular beauty of the countryside through which he traveled, and of the careless blight that seems to accompany every human action on public space (only people's personal homes had charm and warmth), without getting at all preachy or heavy-handed about it. To me this was the pinnacle of the home video heap. I feel inspired to edit our travel videos too, so they can begin to approach his general level of excellence.

Quote of the Day

2005-09-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction."
- Blaise Pascal

Sunday planning session

2005-09-25T12:45:00.000-07:00

Moses and Zachary at Citroen Park, July 2005 : So here they are, having fun. I don't think I'll be doing that, but I am planning for, and looking forward to, my return to Paris in a few weeks. That's it, quite enough blogging for a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Happy Birthday to Andreas

2005-09-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

I had a great lunch with Andreas today. I think his hair might be a little shorter now than it is in the photo. He has some really interesting things going on. Check out his web site: www.andreas.com.

Mostly we got worked up about the state of the universe. With my birthday yesterday, and his today, and with the weather as perfectly gorgeous as it was, you'd think we could do a little better than that. I did show him the floor plan of the apartment, but I think he's too busy to even think about running over to Paris to see for himself. Who knows, though? Maybe he'll make a big deal and reward himself with a few days at the Louvre.

Happy Birthday to Me.

2005-09-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

Isn't this amazing? I'm home for my birthday. Not only that, but I'm staying home. We have had some pathetic birthday meals, so this time we are not going out. Robert will be home any second now and he's going to make a wonderful feast, just for the two of us. All I know about it is that it involves a guinea hen. Life is good, unless you're the guinea hen. I might even share a photo with you.

Omaha Beach

2005-09-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

No, I am not in this photo -- don't even think about it! This is what Omaha Beach looks like these days. The American cemetery is just up the bluff from this spot. Folks park in a big lot to the right and pile out with kids and towels and lunches and have a great day at the beach. Someday I'd like to get back here, even though I'll probably be as covered up as Robert was.

Difficulties Explained

2005-09-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I could use this better if it covered a more global range of difficulties, but communication issues are probably a good way to start.

I sit around the house all day with my nose in books like this one, like some acolyte of the Cult of Francophonie. It must be driving Robert nuts. I watch game shows on TV5, listen to French-language internet radio, do grammar exercises on my computer, and then there is all the reading.

Paris Match comes every week. Robert is a saint. He actually laughs as I tell him, as if it mattered, "did you know Prince Albert of Monaco has a black son?" "Nicolas Sarkozy's marriage is falling apart." "Paris Hilton's engagement is off." Jeez, as if I really care, but I went to so much trouble to read it that I just have to share the news. I have these little workbooks, like a school kid, and I actually say things like "I have to finish my homework." I try to keep it low-key, but somehow I doubt that I'm any better at that than I am at speaking French.

French Lessons

2005-09-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

My awful French is driving me nuts; I can only imagine how it affects the French themselves. I've managed to scavenge a fairly large vocabulary from decades of watching French movies and all, but trying to string all those words together into language is something else.

When I get back to Paris, I'm going to try some classes at this school down the street from the apartment. They have intensive courses -- your choice of 15, 20 or 25 hours a week. I have been told that they specialize in teaching au pairs, and I could get stuck in a room full of giggly, anything-but-serious teenagers, but hey, it's worth a try. The school seems to take its mission quite seriously and the guy who warned me about being stuck in a room full of kids also said he learned quite a lot while he was there.