slowly heading home

My last evening in Paris. In Europe. So in Warsaw/Paris. But tonight -- in Paris.

It's Saturday evening. It's reasonably warm. Why stay home? Sometimes it seems to me that in Paris, no one ever stays home on a weekend night. Restaurants and cafes swell.

One last Parisian stroll for me...






Well, me and a million others.





I try a new eatery tonight -- the Restaurant l'AG (named for the chef Alan Geeam -- he has another brand new place in the reconstructed Les Halles). It's just across from the St Germain market and  there is a 40 Euro fixed price menu, all inclusive (but for wine), down to the fizzy water. It's creative, it's lovely, it's indescribably delicious.

(The soup is poured around a small bed of stuff. The culinary genius is in pulling together the right "stuff.")






Yes, it's a fine meal. Must return, must return. Oh, but returning means leaving. Am I at that quandary all over again?!


Morning. You'll have seen everything from this iPhone photo set in previous Parisian posts. Les Editeurs, the coffee shop that I return to ,because for one thing, it has reliably grand pain au chocolat and croissants. 






Too, on a fairly early Sunday morning, it's quiet. Almost staid. It's the kind of place that you're expected to read and people do read.






(My croissant and pain.)






(As I said, people read.)






And after, I have the benefit of time. I'm booked on an unusually late flight out of Paris (3:20 to Detroit). That means I can walk the streets once more. To the park, for one thing.

It's misty gray outside and yet the Luxembourg Gardens feel fresh and inviting. The green color hasn't quite disappeared. So much so that the green chair is lost in a field of other greens.






I come out at the south western tip and turn toward the Boulevard Raspail, a street that will take me back to the department sore (where I'm itching to pick up a toy for Snowdrop's birthday --- coming up!)


Once more, I fawn over the flower choices.






Too, it is the day of the Raspail market. They say Catherine Deneuve always shops here then, but I didn't see her. Perhaps I am too distracted (enchanted?) by the sight of wicker baskets at the veggie stall. Now where have I seen these before on this trip?!






I make a loop, pick up the small toy and head back. Such familiar blocks. To you by now as well. And the scooters! How many times have we seen moms or dads guiding daughters and sons on their scooters? (Or arguing about who should push the scooter...)






And now it's almost noon and I have many bags to haul up to the Luxembourg train stop where on this very foggy day I will catch my flight to Detroit.

I've taken this "Week before Christmas" flight from Paris to Detroit for more than a dozen years now and it is always the same: full of little children. Most often they're with families where one parent is American and the other French. This time, I help a young man carry his infant girl and luggage -- I marvel at how young she is. He laughs and tells me that she has been on many flights already. He works for the State Department and is stationed... elsewhere.

Almost always these young kids are coming to see their extended families for the holidays and it is at once a happy and an anxious group of travelers. My heart swells for them. How hard it is to be separated by an ocean from people you love!






During the flight, I should write. I should sleep. I should exhale. Instead I watch one of the most tear jerking films of all time ("Light Between Oceans"). Thank God I do not have a seat mate. I go through many tissues.

Perhaps it's just the emotion of going home. Snowy, cold, freezing cold but oh so very warm. Home.


I'd say that 90% of my travels this time were flawless. But the last few hours are tense. One flight comes in late and so there is a trickle effect. Suitcases, connections -- suddenly they're all threatened. And in fact I have to run madly (and shoeless... don't ask!)  to catch my last flight to Madison. And I'm glad I did. The doors closed just as I got on. There was no other flight home tonight. (The suitcase, unfortunately, is sleeping in Detroit.)

On the way to the farmhouse, Ed and I pull up to Snowdrop's home. It's on the way! I'll leave you with a photo of the girl running in circles of happy laughter. That's the way she described it: I'm running in circles!






And now goodnight, from a snow covered farmette!

the Saturday before Christmas, in Paris, without camera

There are many beautiful and notable things about this day. The sunshine! Oh, the sunshine (and continued winter warmth)! The hustle of Parisians as they strive to prepare for themselves, for their families the perfect Christmas on this last Saturday before the holiday (going to the food halls is an experience I wont quickly forget). And my own gallant attempt to do right by the holiday by filling lists and checking them three times (just twice didn't add up).

And then there is the issue of the camera. As dead as a doornail. (Still on warranty, but it is out for the rest of this year for sure.)

I do have my iPhone, but I am not used to using it for photography (I only take pics of Snowdrop, to send them to her mom when I'm babysitting) and oddly enough it's more conspicuous than a camera which I move around quickly so that no one really knows what's going on and it does not interrupt the flow of human traffic.

Oh, I do take out the phone now and then, but of course then I have to move all those photos to my computer, fix them and move them again to flickr. And the sizing! Why are some maxed out in their small state? Why are others not? Do I want to learn? Not today, not on this trip, possibly never.


So do follow along, but it will be a short journey if you measure it by the number of pictures posted.

First, breakfast. A late one again. (Late to bed, late to rise.) It would be terribly boring to launch into yet another analysis of why this time I eat at the hotel and with what bread product, so I'll just leave you with a photo.







After, I know I would like to touch on some stores, but I resist the urge to take the shortcut and get it all out of the way from the minute I step outside. I want to feel some of the Paris that is without its beautiful window displays. Endless store gazing can do damage to the soul. Too much lust and admiration. And so I head for the river.

(Passing lovely, colorful cafes...)






I never quite cross the river, making this one of those trips where I remain wedded to the Left Bank. But I do step out on the pedestrian bridge that always gives the best view of the tip of the island... And oh, that sky!






In winter, the bare trees reveal peaks at Parisian scenes that are uniquely enchanting.






And of course, everywhere, there are the flowers. I'm a real nut about having winter flowers inside the house and I marvel at the selection here.






Passing perfect pastry shops with very perfect looking pastries. If Snowdrop were here, we'd share this snowman for afternoon snack!






I pass the Cafe la Varenne -- perhaps my favorite lunch place in the city, and it is so lively, spilling out onto outdoor tables that are just perfectly touched by the sun! I am very tempted to plunge into that scene and order a good lunch, but honestly, I'd recently had breakfast and the meal here would not be cheap and so I walk on, enjoying just glancing at the happy eating of others.





From there it is just a hop and a skip to the food halls of the Bon Marche. It is, of course, chaotic today, but that makes it rather fun for me. I don't have much to buy here and I move around from one free sample (huge chocolates, cups of tea, dabs of honey, cakes, and perhaps perniciously -- sips of wines and aperitifs, so that you walk as if in a fog of delights, wondering what else to put into your basket, juts because). It really is a quite delicious hour of weaving from one beautiful food display to the next.

I've popped into stores here and there (Snowdrop always benefits from this, as do, I hope, other family members who'll find themselves with oddly colorful and perhaps not quite staid enough presents under the tree) and now I feel I can spend no more and carry no more and so I head for the park.

In that last warm glow of the late afternoon sun, it is all that I love about it.






People strolling, people chasing children, people warming themselves against the Orangerie wall to catch that last ray of sunlight...






Last night I posted far too late. I remember dozing in between sentences. Today I'll post now, early -- before the day is fully done. I'll write about my last evening tomorrow, en route home.

I'm sending the warmest of warm glows your way. Dazzling and gold, peaceful, beautiful, calm.

Friday in Paris

Madison Wisconsin is going to be pounded by a winter storm; temperatures are plummeting. The coming of the coldest season has not been a gentle matter there.

In Paris, it's sunny and 50F (10C).

My stays here are easy -- perhaps the easiest of any stays anywhere. There is nothing I have to do. No one to see, no imperatives for the hours ahead of me. (This could be a little disconcerting to a busy person, but I accept it!)

(It's dark when I wake up. The moon shines brightly, a lone figure seems to be sitting at a table, reading...)







Eventually I am up.

And then I agonize over where to eat breakfast and then whether to have a croissant with pain au chocolat or a baguette avec confitures. Strip a person of her essential problems and daily chores and she'll find something else to fret about. Nature made this mistake in programming the human form: she did not make it easy for him or her to just be.

Finally I decide that Les Editeurs is cheaper than my hotel and has better bread product than most cafes around me and so I head there.

(I pass a woman Parisienne walking her dog. You get the picture.)






And then I torture the waitress by going back and forth about which breads should grace my little table.






It's such a lovely day that afterwards,  I take great pleasure in simply strolling the streets of Paris. I do have goals: Christmas is just before me, Snowdrop is getting taller by the day, four family birthdays are coming up. So shopping sets the parameters for my stroll, but it's not a worried hassled shopping. I know what I want and where to find it. Everything about this day is easy.

Walk along with me!

(Passing numerous pastry shops. This cake. Yeah, I want this cake.)






(Okay. You say just a pastry? Then I take this one!)






(A buche de Noel? I chose this one!)






(Parisians will eat outdoors no matter what. Bad weather. Lousy views. Noise. Not important!)






(Much debate as to what to buy for Snowdrop. Not so much for now, but when she jumps sizes. Which is about to happen. This? Or this?)






(Honestly, in that particular store, she would have been happy to just take the paper penguins home!)






(A flower shop I would love to have back home...)






(Oh! Here's an even better one? Damn!)






(Park beauty again.)






(With the most lovely and soothing fountain...)






(The more quiet corners of the Luxembourg Gardens.)






(Preteens, out on the streets. Buoyant!)






(At the Bon Marche department store food halls, the job that seems fun: tasting the various champagnes that come in!)






(Outside the Bon Marche, I pass this waiting family of four: three girls, one mother. The car doesn't come. The youngest takes matter in her own hands. I so see Snowdrop doing this!)






Just this year, a new indoor market opened in "my" neighborhood -- the Marche Saint Germain. I'm sure to return to it in the spring, when I am here a tad longer and staying in an apartment. For now, what I really love are the small eateries that spill out at the sides. They're not set to France's ridiculously rigid eating schedule and instead, serve fresh and honest salads, soups, sandwiches, quiches all day long. It's close to 4 by the time I sit down for a snack of a wonderful salad with bits of smoked salmon.






I do have one touristy thing I've been itching to accomplish, but it turns out to be a bust.

 (On the walk over: a father with a beautifully fussy little girl! )






(I'm in the neighborhood of the Sorbonne, so I'm guessing these are students, doing what students do: talking.)






(A drop-dead gorgeous sky!)






The goal: the newly refreshed and just recently reopened Pantheon, just as the sun is nearing the horizon.






It's not that I'm drawn to the experience of communing with distinguished dead French men (well, out of the nearly 100 there, you will find two women -- one of them Marie Sklodowska-Curie), but I know there is a splendid view from it's cathedral tower and I'm quite willing to climb many steps to take a look. But it's closed for the off season. (And judging by the opening months, the Parisians consider the off season to be very long indeed.)

If I want to admire the Eiffel Tower, this is the best I can do:







On the walk back -- let's focus on grandparents.

(Oh, you make me feel so guilty! It's 50F outside and the child has more wraps than Snowdrop has on a day three times as cold!)






(Sometimes it's fun just to talk about grandchildren!)






Dinner. I've always had this great love of going back again and again to a favorite place in Paris. But you can't sit on your hands and ignore reality. Some favorite places lose imagination. Others close. It's a life's lesson: you can't sit still. So I've shifted again and now, after giving it four separate tries this past year, I'll call Semilla a favorite place.

(Setting out: it's Paris so... lipstick!)






(Walking over to the Buci neighborhood, just a handful minutes from where I stay.)






It's not that I arrive without issue. I wanted to sit there, they seated me here and even the smile of the cajoling waiter didn't soften my feeling of let down. I wanted to sit there!

But the fact is, here was better than there. I have a terrific place from which to watch waiters and chefs alike. And the food.... Oh, it goes without saying that the food is grand. Scallops with endive, a fish with spinach and gnocchi, an apple millefeuille. (Here's the scallop endive dish; in the background a most amazing waiter.)






I could have eaten silently without much attention to the people around me. I almost went that route. But the French gentleman on my right was engaging (he needed a listener for the hour before his wife or was it partner or was it girlfriend arrived) and it was between silence, or being his little sounding board,  or talking to the woman on my left who was a nurse from Wyoming. The nurse won.

It was her second time in Paris and on this trip, she had signed on to a tour-like situation (was it "Paris by Mouth?"). It seemed to be going well for her but what I especially liked was the way she tried to use French. She tried even with me. (She had only a high school knowledge of it and high school happened many many years ago.)

Her tour person came in toward the end of the meal and after having an argument with the French gentleman to my right (they're all habituees who have firm opinions about protocol), he came back to his charge, the Wyoming nurse (who, btw, loved photos of Snowdrop on my iPhone -- she asked!-- but this is not at all why I liked her... not at all!).

We (the tour person, the waiter and I) went through my usual malaise where I am appreciated for my accent but not for my vocabulary. But but, you speak so well! Quit saying that, French people. I'm just okay. I sound good and that throws you. Speak your rapid fire French at me and I am lost! Slow down and I'm good. So   just    slow   down!

The evening ends with my dropping my camera. Sigh. Bang and bust. Usually when I travel I bring along my back up, but this time I didn't. Sure, sure, I can use my i-Phone, but Paris is already very difficult to photograph. I don't need this added burden.

You know I'm not really complaining. I have no burdens at this second. (It will be a burden if I have to replace a camera, but I don't know that yet.) I have a (free) glass of champagne from the hotel before me and lovely holiday music on my computer to enjoy.

I hope you have at least that much to guide you through a beautiful evening!