when in Rome..

You eat gelato in Rome, risotto in Milan, pizza in Naples. You're in England, slurping tea with the rest of them, downing Guinness in Ireland, and maybe sipping a champagne aperitif in France. Each country and each locality within the country offer something that we tend to associate with that place. Sheep in Scotland, koalas in Australia. On and on, the list of associations is so long! And if we travel there, we add to it our unique pleasures experienced only in that country: seeing puffins on rocks jutting out in the North Sea, riding up a Welsh mountain rail car to a windy summit, strolling among teal blue potted plants in a Moroccan garden, waking before dawn to go to the fish market in Tokyo. 

You want to bring some of it home. You want the same thrill of eating what you ate there once you get back. You want to hike long hours, drink out of a mug with sheep on it, wear a French scarf -- anything that will transport you to a place far away, where for a few days you were on their soil, doing some of their things. Not that you don't like your own routines. You just want a seamless blend of what you had there and what you have here, so that it wouldn't be so compartmentalized and segregated.

Oh, I'm guilty of bringing home things as well. Rugs from Turkey, spoons from France. Even though I have long learned that if you eat a salad Nicoise in Nice, it's exquisite and if you eat it here, it's just eggs and beans and tomatoes and tuna (I like sardines instead) and a few other things if you're ambitious. Eating it here doesn't put you back in Nice. Walking on the Turkish carpet doesn't recall Istanbul much after the first few days. Now it's just a place where cats shed hairs.

What does stay with you from a trip are thoughts and memories and images, and you don't need stuff to remind you that you've been there. It's all within you and it will stay there so long as you live and breathe and think coherent thoughts. And maybe even that's not necessary. I can imagine being loopy and still having flashes of a seafront in Nice or sheep grazing on Scottish hills. 

I do like the fact that for a few days after a trip, I retain determinations. After this trip, I want to bake more, occasionally spray perfume on my wrists and take longer walks every single day. There! Is that ambitious enough? 

*     *     *

I am up before dawn. I never have jet lag on this end, I just need to be up and going at insanely early hours. Ed, too, is up early -- he has a very important Zoom meeting that starts at 6:45 and lasts six hours. So we're both moving around in the shadows of a still dark farmhouse. 

And then the same old routines prevail. Morning walk to feed animals..

And prepare something to feed us (even though Ed has to stay on his work call for all of breakfast) ...

The routines are a little off because Snowdrop is out of school with some bug or other, so I'm left with a long stretch of time to do exactly what I said I'd do upon my return: I take that long walk. And it's good, and I'm sure I'll keep this going for a few days, and my wrists will be smelling especially flowery today and tomorrow, but I fully expect that by the end of the week, I'll be completely settled into the here and now. My Fitbit will have to make do with something not quite as ambitious as walks from Paris to Versailles.

*     *     *

In the afternoon, I drop over some stuff for Snowdrop. She's feeling well enough, but still, here I am, with a mask on my face once more. She's not sick with THE virus, but now that we have discovered masks, it makes sense to use them for things that are not Covid related. (Sparrow is at school, but Sandpiper is bouncy and happy to see everyone!)

And then I do a very circuitous return to the farmette, pausing at the Arboretum just to see if the trees are turning yet. The answer is  -- not entirely. No surprise there -- it's a warm day in October! Just to give you an idea -- I'm wearing shorts.

(other Arboretum visitors...)

*     *     *

Toward evening, I catch up with my little grandgirl in Chicago!

And for supper I fix a salad Nicoise. For no reason except that we have many eggs and a bag of green beans and plenty of potatoes, tomatoes and olives. And a can of sardines that I'd brought back from some trip or other, probably with the hope of preserving a memory, even as over time, it has just become a can of fancy sardines, sitting on a pantry shelf, waiting to be used up for supper.

 

from Paris to the farmette

So I left Paris. 

But not until the afternoon. When you travel from Europe to the Midwest, you have two choices: take a wee early flight, so you're basically up and out before dawn, or take the late one. In normal times that late one is not the cheapest on the planet and it has awful connections to Madison. So in normal times, I set the alarm, I ignore the inconvenience, and schlep my suitcase to the RER station to get to the airport before Parisians are even thinking of wiping off the last croissant crumb and heading out to work. 

This time, however, I was lucky. On so many fronts, and one of them is that I was able to get a late (3:50pm) departure.

I wake up nice and late (because, you know, I had stayed up nice and late), I have my same old breakfast downstairs (and it's fine and it's free, but in normal times, I'd trot down to Les Editeurs at least for one morning bread product meal. The croissants and the people watching are both way better there).

And now I have two hours to be a flaneur again. Well, not really that: I need to find a big bag. I will never learn this simple lesson: however little you buy in Paris, there always will be something (books this time), and it wont fit in your little carry-on no matter how much you sit on it trying to get the zipper pieces to come together. So I have to do what I've done a million times here -- find something that is not expensive and not a waste of money (meaning it'll have a life after this trip) to carry on, while I send the suitcase through with the luggage. 

I hate sending stuff through because you then have to wait in Detroit to claim it and process it through customs and it takes time, but what are you gonna do... Either don't buy cookies and books and sweaters  for the kids or spend your last morning in Paris looking for a bag.

But you know what -- there are worse ways to spend two hours in this city! Especially since the weather is once again totally with me. 

I pop into the Jardin de Luxembourg where I dodge the occasional jogger and admire the fall colors...

And then I weave my way through familiar blocks, aiming for shops that have served me well before.

(Hey, do you know this sculpture of the Centaur? I pass it a lot, as it's on the way to the Bon Marche food halls. Do you see that it contains yet another Statue of Liberty? Bet you can't find it, though in all fairness, the monument is rather dark. Today is the first time that I spotted it!)

(Here, I'll help you with a close up. See it now?)

And just steps away from this I find my shop with the perfect bag. I will never leave home without packing it with me for the return. I promise.

And then I meander, pausing again at a cookie shop (because suddenly I have plenty of room!), looking into bakeries, taking big whiffs there, admiring everything. I have this unease about when there will be a return trip. These days you can't make plans. You really do have to learn to live in the moment.

(I must have gazed into a 100 pastry shops such as this one...)

(Boulevard St Germain, in a fleeting moment of emptiness...)

I love this last stroll through Paris, but, too, I'm thinking about those back home, and the farmette, and Ed's work on the farmhouse, and the mess I may find in the kitchen, and too many cats coming inside because there's no one to tell him that too many cats are coming inside. 

A lot to smile about!

 

 

*     *     *

At the Paris airport, there is the usual chaos. I cannot believe that this is called a light travel season! I have left over frequent flyer privileges so I can duck most long lines but still, it cannot be said that people are staying home. They are not staying home. I wear my super duper mask (thank you, maskc for supplying me with all those pretty colors!)  and stay away from people who think these things were invented to keep the lips shielded.

I have a bit of a wait and so I find a spot where the closest people are also wearing super duper protective N95s or some such. I notice that the woman is leafing through a guide book. She's my age and both she and her husband are American. From Georgia actually. They just arrived at CDG and and are heading out with a small group to Cairo, then Jordan.

I admire that. I ask them if they have any hesitancy at all -- they say no, not really. The trip had been long in the planning and cancelled twice already so they decided just to go already. I know many people, retired people, who feel this sense of urgency -- as if the window of travel is closing on them. Now or never.

I hope they have a fabulous trip! I know they'll have a fabulous trip. 

*     *     *

The thing about foreign travel is that it changes you. Perhaps this is the way it is most noticeably different from just watching a movie or reading an essay about a distant place. Those, too may shape your perspective, but going somewhere, across an ocean perhaps, really does stir things up inside you so that you emerge, well, not the same.

I don't know yet which moments will stand out for me, but there were many that already are percolating in my head. Down to the last elbow bump as I left my beloved little hotel and said a bientot (see you soon) to the hotel staff there.

*     *     *

As I arrive home, I get a text from Ed saying simply "I'm vacuuming." 

There is a moon, not quite full, over the farmette tonight. All is quiet, beautiful. Just as I left it.

Paris

It's the day of the Paris Marathon. 42 kms. The real deal. The winner ran it in just over 2 hours and 4 mins.  

Then there is my own Sunday marathon.

From my hotel at the Pace de l'Odeon, it takes 32 500 steps to get to the Chateau de Versailles. I do not know this exact figure initially, but I do know that it's just over 11 miles, because Google maps said so and Google knows everything. Wouldn't it be grand to end my week in Paris with this walk? Maybe a little insane, but grand nonetheless?

My new book of Ballades (rambles) in and out of Paris suggests this walk. I would not have thought of it on my own. But their starting point is at the edge of Paris, whereas I want to begin right here, at my little hotel. Right after breakfast.

 

I set out at 10:30. 

After leaving my neighborhood...

 

 

 

I walk through sections of Paris that I have never seen before. They're not splendid. This is where the metro goes above ground...

... and you'll find plenty of authentic and inexpensive Thai, Syrian and Lebanese food...

And then I approach the river and it all changes once more. 

Here's a view of Eiffel Tower from the less visited areas to the west.

You noticed the Statue of Liberty? There are a handful of them around Paris, but this one is the largest. Still, I better do a close up:

Right as I cross the Seine, I come across the racers.

People are cheering them on  -- allez, allez! -- and I pause and join in too.

(I also pause at a cafe to pick up an espresso. This is what you do when you are out the whole day and need bathroom breaks.)

And as I continue, I come across two things: the racers again (they made a loop in this section of Paris)...

... and a bridge over the River Seine! Like the racers, the Seine does a loop here and so now technically I am going to be back on the Left Bank, even though I'm to the north of everything. Are you confused yet??

But here's another technicality: I am no longer in Paris. I'm in a suburb -- Boulogne Billancourt. Very wealthy (though France has less disparity between the rich and the middle class, so it doesn't have the feel of big money). Here are rather pretty houses that I passed:

And now I feel like I am far from the city. I enter a park (Domaine National Saint Cloud) and it is at first formal, but really quite vast and in the further end of it -- quire wild. And for a great weather Sunday afternoon -- pretty empty.

And oh, the views! 

Note how in nearly every panoramic photos of Paris, you'll see the Montparnasse Tower on the left and the Eiffel Tower on the right. And here it's flipped!

That's what happens when you go to a strange part of Paris to take your photos.

It's already after 2 and I am hungry. The breakfast bread product wasn't going to hold me until Versailles. Too, I'm going to remind everyone once again that I am 68 and this has been a very long walk already. Sitting down would be awfully nice.

I'm so in luck: I come across a park restaurant, just when I need it most. It's called the Brumaire and it has a lovely terrace spilling out into the greenery. 

I have a broiled camembert with honey and a tarte tatin for dessert. The dragonfly remains undecided.

On Sundays, midday meals offer fascinating people watching opportunities.

But I can't stay long. I have one more hour to go. There are hills here. My legs are asking -- are we there yet? 

One town (Ville d'Avray)...

 

 

 

Another forest (Foret domaniale de Fausses-Reposes)...

And finally I come to the sign Versailles. The town.

And just minutes later (but really five hours since I left the hotel), there it is -- Versailles, the chateau. This is what excess looks like!

Another time, I would have walked the gardens. I never much cared for the chateau (mind boggling wealth), but the gardens are vast and quite lovely. But not in October, not when I'm tired. One quick look...

... and I turn my back to it all and head for the train station to catch the RER commuter train home. (I alight at the Boulevard Saint Michel, so you get to see Notre Dame, in progress.)

And now my final Parisian dinner. You'd think that I'd take great care in picking the place, but in fact, I don't. I've eaten far better this week than I expected to and I am completely walked-out, so I want to keep it simple and keep it close. And Sundays are tricky: the French traditionally eat a big meal in the afternoon and downplay the evening supper. Many restaurants are closed. So I go back to Marco Polo. Sweet and comforting, warm and satisfying, with an older staff that really seems to like the people who come to eat here. 

I order a dish I like a lot and can never find anywhere outside of Italy, and now here -- raw artichokes with lettuce and slivers of parmesan. I can't even make it back home because our artichokes are too old by the time they come to the grocery store. (The main course is pasta with porcini and for dessert -- panna cotta with red fruits.)

I walk back through a subdued square, with the usual Sunday night exhale. It's a beautiful evening. Really beautiful.

 

 

And now I'm back at the hotel and it's very late and still, I'm full of thoughts about everything. I know one must be careful about making generalizations based on breif experiences, but still, I am thinking that at a level of feelings, things have changed in Paris. I swear, everyone is gentler with me. There are big and small messages of kindness put forth. I think it's pandemic related. France, like the US, lost so many older people! It's as if there is a need to acknowledge that. And honestly, sometimes I see a solo person, like the one in the Foret domaniale de Fausses-Reposes (above) and I wonder -- is he alone because he lost his wife? And if not that, did he perhaps lose a friend? Or just his peace of mind?

 

Tomorrow starts the new work week, tomorrow I return home. I'll publish my next post from the farmette.