Paris

Good morning, you magical city! Thank you for this week of great weather! 

 

[Honestly, in Paris I don't usually complain about the weather: even rain can be charming here. Nonetheless, I'm starved for the openness that good weather provides. Go anywhere. Walk until you drop. They've had lots of cool and wet days this year so I am especially grateful that this week is slated to be totally dry. Temps go up to 60-ish during the day -- that's 16C -- and drop down to a brisk low 40s -- that's 6C -- at night.]

Breakfast at the hotel. Very spaced tables! And oh, that bread product!

I've used my downtime in the past days to try to sketch out some daily goals for my time in Paris, but I'm failing horribly at this. I want to be everywhere! I want to walk the city. Should I shop just a little? I can't! Not much room in my wee carry-on! I could send it through... No! No shopping! I have a museum pass. Should I use it? No, I don't want the stress of crowds. So, walk to the Right Bank? Stay on the Left? I don't know!

I am a bit overwhelmed. 

It comes from not having done this for a while and frankly, from not knowing what my travel routines will be like in the next few years. Will they change? Will the pandemic change? Recede substantially so that we wont have to think and worry this much?

Okay, I go out. Just that. 

 

 

 

Turn left, then right and walk. 

 

 

 

No goals for today. Well, there is a beloved by Parisians cheese shop a mile or two to the west of me. I've never been to it, so maybe that. Why not. 

But of course, it's all in the journey. It's in the people you pass (lots of kids today because it's Wednesday -- no school for most), and the shop windows that catch your eye. (I'm not much of a shopper, except in Paris. The small stores here are so interesting that you find yourself thinking -- what's so great about online buying anyway?)

Occasionally, I go inside to explore further. There is this bookstore: I just love it to pieces! (The fights between Amazon and booksellers in France are legendary. So far, the booksellers are staying afloat.) And when I go inside -- sanitize your hands first, please! -- I lose myself in the wonderfulness of all those colorful, beautiful childrens' stories. I wont be able to resist picking up a few. The kids better hurry up and learn French, Hawaiian preferences notwithstanding! (One I'll definitely get for the grandgirls...)

I'm in the neighborhood of the department store, Le Bon Marche. Those of us who maintain tight budgets should stay away from its temptations. Did you know it's the first department store ever built (1852)? With the help of the design efforts of Gustave Eiffel? I don't go in today, but I can't resist popping into its food halls across the street. The French do food so well that you can have a visual feast by going into any number of little shops. But at the Bon Marche la Grande Epicerie, it's just one sensual overload.

I'm also in the neighborhood of the current mystery novel I'm reading (All the Devils are Here, by Louise Penny)! This is a real bonus for me: I'm saturated with Left Bank imagery.

Finally the cheese store. I go in, but only for a second. This place is really serious about selling cheese and I am obviously not buying. Still, a two minute peek leaves me thinking that perhaps there is no better food on this planet than crispy bread with stinky cheese!

I've walked quite a bit away from the river. Indeed, I haven't even seen the river, except from the car window on the drive into town. On the Left Bank, the further you are from the river, the fewer the tourists you'll see. Or, to put it another way -- nearly all tourists stick to the Left Bank sights that are close to the river. So I can't really tell if there are many tourists in Paris. I don't see them, but it could be a reflection of where I am walking today.

Noting that the cheese store is very close to the Avenue de Breteuil, I have this idea that I might stop at the terrace of Cafe de Breteuil for lunch. Very long ago, on my daughters' first trips to Paris, we used to stay not too far from there and the Cafe, which was actually a restaurant, had good food and a spacious outdoor terrace. It was off the beaten path and we always found a welcoming waitstaff. Sweet memories! (Except when one daughter sat down and happened to squash a bee resting on her chair. Bee stings can be painful, but the waiter was very solicitous!) As I approach the spot, I see that it is no longer a brasserie, but a place specializing in Neapolitan pizza. The name? Central Park Terrazza! Well okay, it's a terrace and there are heat lamps.

Lunch starts at noon, but I see that even at 12:30, there are  just a few diners. That's fine. Crowds these days are scary. I order an Italian truffle pizza and a freshly squeezed lemonade. And I have to say this -- it belongs to that handful of best pizzas ever! The thin crust, the herbs and spices, the delicious cheese, and truffle slices of course -- they all blend magnificently!

 

 

 

I eat the whole thing and I think -- why can't I find a great pizza at home?

Here, I have to insert a slight digression: when a traveling writer points out the fantastic small and large habits, foods, sights, inclinations in the country they're visiting, the reader may recoil after a while. Is it that I think that they do everything so splendidly in France?? So I have to clarify: I don't think that. (Though I do believe they do food awfully well!) But, just as at home, I tend not to pay much attention to mishaps, misbehaviors, and misdeeds (unless they are so serious that you must include them in the narrative to be authentic), so, too, here, I tend to shrug off the shortcomings and notice the wealth of awesomeness that I really do associate with Paris. An American living in Paris wrote recently that people always ask him if there's anything he prefers in the US over what he finds in France and he said -- oh, that's easy! Just in the food department alone, perfect avocados and mangos, and, too, the wealth of well priced, copious amounts of berries. In France, the avocados tend to be rotten, the mangos -- non existent, and the berries come in tiny containers and yes, they are perfect! But they are incredibly expensive. More like something you'd decorate a tart with rather than pouring a bunch over your oatmeal every morning.

I would add a number of things to this list, were I in the complaining mode: I dislike the cigarette smoking here and the fact that it is still is permitted on the terraces of cafes and restaurants. And too, there is the compliance with Covid restrictions: I've marveled at the way the French adapted to the president's vaccination order. They grumbled at first. The French, like so manyAmericans, hate to have the government tell them what to do. But the matter is not nearly as politicized as it is back home, so after a few days of grumbling and a handful of protests, they got their shots en masse and in return, they were given the freedom that comes with plummeting infection rates and a return to the obsessive dining and socializing that the French crave so much. Still, every twentieth person will flaunt mask wearing. It's required indoors and in crowded outdoor spaces, but there will be the occasional man or woman (even shopkeeper!) who will pull the mask below the nose. People have been warned that if the Covid rates go up, there will be limits on gatherings again. The French hate limits on gatherings even more than they hate government orders on masks and so for the most part, even the reluctant go along with the mandate. But again, there are exceptions. 

So just this note of reassurance: the French certainly are not without their pesky habits!

Back to my pizza place: by the time I'm done, the place is packed. Teen girls meeting up for lunch. A group of thirties something friends (don't they work? no one is in a hurry...), couples, a three generation family. Inside, outside -- it's all full.

Time for me to move on. 

This is my Eiffel Tower moment. I am so close, though still behind the Ecole Militaire, so at a somewhat different vantage point...

And now a close up of the Tower. Looks like they are still doing renovations. I understand they're wanting to be done with this in time for the Olympics here in 2024. (Mostly French speaking people here as well. I hear that many non-Parisians are taking advantage of the empty tourists spaces. Now's the time for that long deferred visit to the capital.)

It's time to turn back toward the hotel. It's such a lovely walk from the Tower to my corner of Paris! But while I'm in this neighborhood, I'm thinking I should pop into the Rodin Museum and take a stroll through its gardens. My mystery novel's opening scene  takes place in these gardens. And even without having just read that intense chapter, I would want to pause here. The quiet, the scattered sculptures -- it's a beautiful combination! Ah-- I remember. You need the French vaccination pass to get in. But this is a tourist place and so they're happy to work with our unique scribbled vaccination cards (and guess what! when I return to the hotel, I check my email and find that my passe sanitaire has been approved! It only took a month. With the bar code belonging only to the vaccinated, I can now move around like the rest of those living in the European Union).

I see that there is a special exhibition at the annex to the museum: Rodin and Picasso. Focusing on similarities. On their obsession with nature. And with naked bodies and sexuality. Here's an example: the pictures are Picasso's, the models are Rodin's.

And here is a photo from the gardens:

On the continued walk back to the hotel, I pass (deliberately) Cafe Varenne. Anyone who has traveled with me here, in person or on Ocean, will recognize this as a special place for me. I nearly always eat a lunch here, loving the classic food, the incredible crowdedness of the restaurant. Of course, on this trip I don't find crowds to be so wonderful at all, which means no Varenne lunch for me this time around. But how about a dessert in the late afternoon? There are tables outside, mostly empty at this late hour.

Do you have the (infamous) lemon tart?

No, but we have a tarte aux figues...

(The waiters here are flawless at customer service. Without a prompt, he brings her her drink and also a bowl of water for her dog.)

And finally, I turn toward home. I'd been out since 10 and now it's 6. My Fitbit thinks I'm cheating -- it's never seen numbers this high. But I have one more pause -- at this tiny store that sells colorful cutlery. Weirdly, it's been on my mind a lot these past two years. I had purchased some spoons here on the day my younger daughter went into the hospital to give birth. Now I'm thinking I need a couple of extra spoons for my growing family. So I go in. It's like a dream -- I'm back here again. I'm back to traveling and I'm in the cutlery store. Amazing.

(Another Rorschach test for you: what do you focus on -- the display, or the reflected buildings?)

A short hour later, I leave the hotel again. I've booked a dinner at the Sauvage and it's a bit of a walk (I booked it before looking at the map!). 

I arrive at 7:45 and it is empty. There are maybe 4 little tables outside, but clearly the eating takes place indoors. The waitstaff assures me it's safe -- there's plenty of spacing and again, there's maybe one other occupied table. So I go in and sit down. And then I regret it. A few people start coming in. This doesn't feel good for me.

I'm sure the staff thinks I'm nuts. The outside tables? Oh sure, you can eat there, but they're mostly occupied by a smokers lingering over a drink. No heat lamps. The French don't like to be cold. They are all eating inside. I should stay indoors.

But I don't stay. I come from a country where infection rates are four times those of France (and vaccinations are so politicized that they are significantly lower than here). So I live with anxiety. They don't any more. I do.

I eat my beautiful dinner of clams, then fish and both are utterly magnificent, and they know it! (The French are not modest about their cooking talents: last night I eavesdropped on a conversation between a French woman and her Italian friends. She said -- I love the English countryside, but their food is so terrible! The Italians laughed in the way you do when you're in total agreement.)

Home at last. Dinner took two hours, the cold notwithstanding so now it's late, and I still have to write, to work on the photos. Tomorrow I'll be gentler with myself. Today was ambitious, but so worth every last step and last bite!

Paris

The flight route is always the same: you cut across Ireland, coming in on England's southwestern corner and then you swing south toward Brittany. This is your first sighting of France. 

(you can see it on my screen; and yes, it's breakfast time on the airplane!)

 

 

In recent decades, France has been like a lottery ticket that always has a good set of numbers for me. I'd gotten better at speaking the language, I'd mastered the public transportation system -- from the TGV trains to the rural buses that help you get to the most remote corners of this rather large (by Europe's standards) country. I'd walked, climbed, biked, kayaked, camped, rented, hoteled, airbnb's this place so much that honestly it felt like a second home, but one where I never had to do any paid work. Once, when a university proposed a faculty exchange, asking me if I'd want to teach there for a couple of months out of a year I said no. I never wanted to be obliged to be there. I traveled with the excitement of experiencing it on my own terms.

But this time it feels really different. France and the French went through what we went through back home and we are all changed as a result of it. But is it different here? We'll see.

Connections made, planes went up on time and landed in the correct destinations (that's not a guarantee!) also on time. I pick up my carry-on and walk out of the airport in Paris. 

There isn't a city that has pulled at every emotion in me as much as Paris has. And now, after all the drama of these two years, emotions are running high. I remember the songs and scenes from a Paris of yore...

 

And as we drive into the city, I can't take my eyes off of the streets of Paris. How is it now, from the backseat of a car? Yep, I'm coming in by car. I don't take the RER commuter train from the airport. It can be crowded. I don't want to be shoulder to shoulder. So I booked a direct transfer. One with a vaccinated driver. (The email discussion I had over that one was so... French. The people here like to see themselves as the ultimate protectors of privacy. Madame, we here value privacy. You cannot ask the vaccinated status of the driver. We there value privacy as well. But you can always ask. They ask. I get my vaccinated driver.) 

And now I am at my sweet little hotel, where because of my pandemic cancellations (there were many), I hold an enormous amount of credit. This time they put me in an attic room. I'd never stayed in it, always preferring a room just below with many big windows looking out on the street. But, they claimed this one was available and the other one was not and hey, I'm not complaining! Here's my room...

... with the view.

The ride into the city is strange enough. The arrival at the hotel is even stranger. Masks, of course. Also new protocols: new cleaning regiments (rooms stay empty for a day between occupants whenever possible), a staggered breakfast schedule. The goal here is to minimize people crossing paths in public spaces.

I'm tired after the long, masked flight, but still, I feel like this trip was a last minute gift. Stars were aligned: the Covid rates are way down in France, their vaccination rates are soaring, my own vaccination status is at its most potent moment. Having finally traveled here, I'm not going to just stay in the room. I go out for my first tentative walk in Paris. I'm hungry! It's 1:30 p.m. Soon the lunch window here will close. I stop at the nearby Breizh Cafe. The one with the buckwheat crepes (mine is with pumpkin and other "seasonal vegetables" and an egg and goat cheese; that's cider in the glass -- a Brittany fave).

This is my chance to really look around me. To take it all in. The eateries are all packed. Americans aren't traveling (much) yet, but other Europeans are and the Parisians, too, are making up for lost time. There's so much chatter around me! Everyone is eating, laughing, talking, inside, outside -- it's almost frantic in its intensity.

Restaurants, cafes and bars are fined if caught serving someone who doesn't show a pass sanitaire (proof of vaccination or documented negative COVID test within the last day). So everyone except me whips out their phone and has their code scanned in. But they are forgiving for Americans (for now). Our flimsy little vaccination cards with illegibly scribbled information on it is accepted with a smile. 

After lunch, I walk. Don't ask me where. In my neighborhood. In the park. To the pharmacy to see if they are still issuing substitute passes for Americans. They were, but they've stopped. To a bakery. To a clothing store, just to look. Bonjour Madame! Please disinfect your hands before coming in! Merci!

(definitely the year of the crazy velos (bicycles) in Paris!)

(the scarves are out!)

chestnuts are early leaf shedders...

(flowers that match the season)

Honestly, I think the French grimaced at the vaccination mandates but then bit the bullet and went for it and in exchange they were given back their social time over food. And they are using it!

Inside public places, masks are required. I am surprised that 95% of the masks worn by French people are the surgical ones. 

 

 

 

There are a few of the KN95s among some of the elderly, but for everyone else, young and old -- it's the standard white and blue disposable one. (Well, many of the high school kids favor the black version)

 

 

 

Back home, we've mostly gone the cloth route. They have not. For us, buying medical grade masks is a challenge. There are a lot of fake ones on the market. Here, there must be some Santa Claus leaving boxes of the surgicals at everyone's doorstep because they are all the same and everyone has one. 

So how does it feel to be in Paris?

So strange and so strangely beautiful too!

(and there is that incredible bread product!)

But it's a busy city and my idea of popping in unannounced to random eating places has to be revised. I stopped by one eatery that would have been good for dinner -- lots of outdoor tables, good menu -- and asked if I could book a table. Sorry, we're full tonight. Wait, it's Tuesday! Call ahead, the waiter says and hands me a card.

In the end, after walking so much earlier in the afternoon, I opt to go out and stop at the first agreeable place with outside tables and heat lamps. It's nippy here in the evenings! I didn't have to go far. Parisians do not like to eat dinner right at 7. If you head out then you may get lucky and beat the crowds. I found a lovely table at le Comptoir. My younger girl and I had once eaten lunch there after a snowstorm. Outside! Their heat lamps are that good!

And the food (pumpkin soup with chorizo and a fish over risotto) was very very good.

 

 

 

And now my dears, let me dig into my little bag of macarons and cookies from the bakery, then settle in for that famous first night in Europe, where your internal clock fights with you all night long, giving in to sleep only toward the very end.

leaving

It's all about the weather today. We haven't had very many storms this fall. But luck would have it that a big band of them is slated to pass over our state this afternoon and evening. With storms come flight delays and missed connections. And there is nothing to be done about it. Travel teaches you to be patient.

So I am patient when I get up to cloudy skies.

(The blooms are pretty much all annuals. They'll be with us until the first frost.)

I'm very patient over breakfast. There's no rush here. We take things slowly in the mornings. Besides, it's my last meal with this guy. Because of the pandemic and because of the way we live, we haven't been apart much (at all?) the past couple of years. Leaving family, leaving Ed -- these are never easy.

I pack. It's never the clothes, it's the other stuff you think you'll need. Gathering, sorting, dividing between suitcase and backpack. Ed says -- that's a lot of trouble for a good bread product in the morning... 

And I try to be patient as I study the weather reports. Will there be a window in between storm 4 and storm 5? If you don't hear from me today again, that means I made it out. So, let's hope you don't hear from me again today.

Off I go to the airport. Patiently and with love.

Sunday

Tomorrow I take off on a mini trip. Solo. My first one in two years. You could say it's also my first real movement outside of the safe spaces of family and home. Well, there was a night Mineral Point! And now this trip.

So much has changed since my prepandemic travels! Covid has added layers of uncertainty and also layers of needed protection. Who would have thought that the next time I planned to fly anywhere at all I would have to put on a highly protective mask (just cloth wont do for my airline of choice, and I so appreciate that!) from the moment I stepped into the airport until when I alight at my destination. That would be more than a dozen hours. I guess in there there will be some food or beverage option. We'll see how that works. 

And who knew that I would struggle to come up with required passes that would give me access to public spaces on my trip (still waiting on my application, which means that I likely wont get it on time and thus will have to go to plan B: find a pharmacy willing to issue me one on the spot). Two years ago such stuff would have been the makings of a sci fi story. No, you can't enter, because you might be carrying a virus that will threaten to destroy us all! Two years ago you could sneeze in public without feeling grossly embarrassed.

The other change is that I am older. I no longer think it's "no big deal" to lose a night of sleep in flight. I no longer sample wines as if they were water, skip meals when I don't feel like sitting down for one. Indeed, I no longer go for hours on end without feeling like sitting down! Who knew that your plans should figure in your age. Two years ago, I gave none of this a second thought.

And I packed differently then. I have always been a light traveler, with only carry-on stuff, no matter how long the trip. But on the returns, I would take a suitcase loaded with gifts and must-haves. Not this time. I'm keeping it light so that I can actually lift the bag into the overhead compartment. At 68, that's not a slam dunker.

In the past, I'd know where I would want to eat. This time I have no idea. Outside, for sure! But will it be easy to accomplish that? I wonder. On this trip, I don't particularly care about making the meals extraordinary. I just want to eat comfortably, safely. Fresh and honest if possible, but hey, I'm not going to go out of my way looking for an ideal. In any case, my view of what is ideal has shifted.

Two years ago the world was as crazy and confusing as it is now, but it was easier to put yourself in a travel bubble where peace reigned and beauty was within reach. Things are different now. And yet, the world beckons. I'm not ready to lose myself in stories of past trips. My head needs new material. So slowly, I'm testing the waters of travel again. Just a little bit at first. See how it goes.

But all that is for tomorrow. Today the skies are gray, the animals are hungry, the air is too warm for the middle of October.

The young family has something on their schedule and so there is no Sunday dinner. Just a quick Sunday visit on my part. Snowdrop has a play date (masks inside, more freedom outside). Sparrow wants to believe that it's also his play date. Sandpiper is just happy with a bigger crowd of young ones.

And then I come home, to review what I should pack for my trip tomorrow.

Sleepover, continued

It's really weird how a house can change in one minute: from rowdy and boisterous to absolutely quiet. Snap! I've left one life and reentered another! 

I am tired and happy -- a known to me state from all family visits. At night, the kids mostly slept and in the wee hours of the morning, they mostly wanted to be up, but for a visit that was just short of 24 hrs, it hardly mattered. 

(Misty morning skies outside... It's going to be a warm day.)

 

 

I got a chance to watch how the three navigate life together -- a rare treat for me. You get to understand what works well for them, and where they have had to learn to adjust, given the age differences. 

(breakfast: reaching for flowers which suddenly became in high demand)

What I also saw was a beautiful sweetness toward the youngest member of the threesome. Snowdrop had more of an older sib distrust of baby Sparrow, but with Sandpiper, she has relaxed, loving all his little baby gestures. 

 

 

 

Sparrow takes his cues from her on this. I'm predicting that Sandpiper will be the privileged youngest one here. There is something to be said for being the baby of the family! Sparrow, on the other hand, has to find a way to navigate the waters as the middle child. Sometimes it is so easy, other times, it's the toughest little ship to sail.

Art time.

(Sandpiper is trying hard to be upright. At 4.5 months, I have to make sure that if he falls, he wont tumble to the ground.)

(When Sandpiper naps, I take the two older kids outside. Familiar places: magic meadow, the secret pine house I'd carved out for them underneath the branches of the tall spruces -- all favorites from years of farmette play.)

And in the afternoon, the parents return and it's time to go home.

Evening in the quiet farmhouse. Instead being intensely focused on the kids, hearing their every worry, watching their every joy, I retreat to sitting back and thinking about their lives in their respective homes. Of course, thinking about them is beautiful too. Grandparents have the time to do that. To review, to process all that is unfolding in the lives of the younger families. To learn, to be amazed by it all. 

Having a quiet evening with Ed is grand too. Though I wonder if he misses someone thumping him on the side trying to keep him from taking a nap, or calling out to him to please remove a horrible 1 millimeter spider that has found shelter in a doll house. Eh, he's got me to remind him to chop up the compost pile or pop up some pop corn! It is never totally quiet here at the farmhouse!

Sleepover

Stand back, cheepers, move away cats, I have to get ready for the guests!

And while I'm at it, bringing up and dusting off colorful nick-nacks for at least some of them, I may as well bake up some blueberry muffins for the others.

(Ed and I can indulge as well: muffins for a late breakfast on the porch today.)

What's all this? Weekend guests? Who's coming?

Well, it's not really for the whole weekend, but I am hosting three energetic young ones today and tomorrow. We're giving mom and dad a break. I hear they packed their suitcases before school. After a day of learning, the three grands will come here. First Snowdrop, followed soon by her two brothers.

We've made plans: a (chaotic) pizza dinner...

Followed by a movie night. Flora and Ulysses. Film of their choice. Fine, Sandpiper does not get to vote. And Sparrow's arm can easily be twisted. Ah, the advantages of being the oldest kid on the block!

Snowdrop has had many a sleepover here and Sparrow, too, used to spend a couple of days in the winter and a couple in the summer while the parents went away. But all that stopped with the pandemic. Add to it the birth of Sandpiper (so now there's three of them and one of me!) and we had to reconfigure visits: they're still frequent, but usually just one child comes and most often it is the older one who is especially starved for quiet book reading time. 

 

Still, every once in a while, I get all three (or, is it all four?)...

 

 

 (he's trying to nap; she's nudging him so that he'll stay awake)

 

 

... and this time they are here to sleep. Let's cross our fingers on that one. (There was quite the protracted discussion as to who should get the big bed. You'd think both older kids would clamor for that privilege, but no: they both wanted the old crib-made-into-a-day-bed.) 

Later, much later: all is quiet. The little babe is asleep in the kitchen by the wine cooler. The big two are upstairs in the lemon room. Ed and I are barely awake on the couch. It was a fine day and a wild and wonderful evening!