morning

It’s warm, it’s lovely, it’s all the things you’d want of a week-end day. And I am inside, at a conference, from morning ‘til dusk.

I could post photos of rows of tables. Of water bottles with the printed labels of the UW Extension Conference Centers. Of serious faces. And a folding table with the usual hot water, decaf and caf jugs.

I wont do that.

Instead, I’ll take you for a quick sunrise run to the Westside Community Market. It’s been a while. And the colors in the morning light were pretty near perfect.



red squash, green squash



hen of the woods




my flower vendors




catching the first rays


Tomorrow is the last day of autumnal warmth and terrifically sticky and soothing sunshine. Not anything and not anyone will keep me inside.

story writers

We’re that. Mercilessly spilling it out.

So there I am, biking to work. The long way. Ten miles plus.

It is the underbelly of autumn now in Madison. Brown rather than red or golden. And really, mostly still green. With a rare burst of color.





I bike and I come across the geese. Always the geese. Fly south already! (I’m much less scary than I appear.)





They stare at me and stay put.





Why is it that none of us can ever leave? We hover, and we land, right back where we started from.

Oh life.

encounter

It's almost dusk. I walk into the field.

What's your name?
Nina...
Nina? Do you live here?
Yes... (why do I say this? Perhaps because today, after a long week, I choose not to be a strict constructionist)
Good! Not many people nearby... Here!




She hands me flowers she had only seconds ago cut down.

For you.
Thank you.

late afternoon

By late in the day, I can't stand it. I leave my office and head toward the bike path.

You can do that in Madison -- hit the trail within minutes of your central digs. Past the lakes...




... with only minor obstacles. [I imagine in the polar regions, people feel about penguins as I feel about geese: too omnipresent to be noted for their beauty; so move out of my path, already!]





Back in April, I blogged about the Hmong farmers, renting land on the periphery of Madison, growing foods, flowers. Now, in early October, the harvest is winding down. Still, the work continues. Squash, green onions, cosmos. Long list. No more bugs now. Just a beautiful day to be outside.









One more look at the wetlands, now in dusk, with the same old geese looking regal now rather than pesty.





A good ride. It's so easy here: the bike is unlatched, the helmet is on and there you have it. So long as the weather holds.

thinking

Paper—what a waste. Save trees. I try, but I do miss reading newspapers and magazines.

When I travel, I plunge into the world of print again. At airport lounges, I pick up every free publication out there and I spend many hours in flight reading and dirtying my hands with newsprint.

I read, this time, about the French. And how they think too much. To the point where Sarkozy tells them: think less, do more.

I wonder if thought is antithetical to enthusiastic action. I worry about that, given my propensity to drift away, away into idle thought, you know, in the way of an immigrant, who finds now both sides of the ocean perplexing.

For example, I am standing with my suitcase at the RER (commuter train) station, waiting to get on the train that would take me to the Paris airport and suddenly, I hear it – the Polish language. It’s easy to hear Polish in and around Notre Dame cathedral, but there, at the Luxembourg station – it is a jolt. Two men, talking. Decently dressed men. Every other word from their mouth is the standard Polish curse word, in the same way that I hear the word “like” out of the mouths of teens here. Though -- Like, I talked to her and like, she like, didn’t even, like, hear me – is a lot more pleasant to hear than: kurwa (whore), he came up to me and kurwa (whore), he kurwa (whore) told me that he wasn’t kurwa (whore) going to kurwa (whore) go after all. Kurwa (whore).

As I go about booking my winter flight to Poland now, I can't help but think how lucky are the tourists who come to Poland and don’t speak the language. Because they don’t have to hear this kind of common discourse when they are out and about.

And then of course I feel guilty for thinking negatively, in the way that only a Pole can feel guilty. Guilt, pity, despair -- these are national traits and we are especially good at manifesting them.

Then, I remembered a photo that I took on my last day in Paris. Here, it’s this one:





It’s not especially noteworthy and that’s why I never posted it. But it depicts a scene, with man, a dog, a paper, a cup of espresso and a croissant. And I think – is there a better way to start a morning?

Today, walking home, I noticed a dog tied to a post outside a gas station. The gas station sold food and so dogs weren’t allowed inside. Unhappy dog. Go to France, pooch. You can watch your owner sip an espresso while you admire the chick-dogs that walk by.

Finally, still on my walk home, I pass Madison’s shrimp truck. It rolls up here every now and then to sell shrimp (and other seafood, upon occasion) from the Gulf. I am fussy about shrimp. But you know, as one of the vendors reaches for a handful, I can't help thinking that you could not easily find such nice plump crustaceans at good prices elsewhere. Not even in France.









So my thoughts are all over the place. Perhaps they lack the sexy existential qualities of French thought, but I swear, when I took a brief stroll outside my office at lunchtime and I came across these guys, down by the Union, I thought: why am I not a duck? (…whose biggest worry appears to be whether to plunge from the stoop into the water?)

Paris notes, one last time

The morning light comes late now. Maybe 7:30? Later? I’m trying out a new left bank hotel. Small, on a quiet street in the 6th arrondissiment. Or, have I crossed over to the 7th? A room onto a quiet street lets me listen to it waking up. Like last Friday, when the knife sharpening cart (I'm guessing here) rolled by and the sound of the bell came in so clearly through my upper floor window.

But it’s Sunday now and I wake up quickly, finish last night’s post and wait for my companions. We’re setting out for Versailles .

I have not been there in more than twenty years. I tended to choose crowded Giverny over crowded Versailles. But I am curious now how it looks. As if twenty years could do anything to change the place!

We catch a fairly early train. Along with so many others. When Louis XIV contemplated visitors coming to his palace, he did not anticipate Sunday visitors on the last day of September, in the year 2007. The rooms aren't large enough to contain us all. The bottlenecks are tight.

I choose not to linger, not to contemplate the art, the furniture. I give a nod to each room, I read who slept and partied where...





...and move out onto the gardens.

At the back of the palace, you can look one way and see this:





…and in the opposite direction to see this:






In the early hours of the day, the visitors are taking in the interior spaces. I head for the park. So warm in the delicate sun! In the public spaces, just outside the gates of the chateau, the park draws families, lovers, cyclists, picnickers.The scent is of Autumn.















I am enthralled. A French Sunday. A Parisian Sunday, really, even though this is no longer Paris.

At 1:30 we make our way to a restaurant in town – Le Chapeau Gris. It's not recommended anywhere, it just looked right (town listing on the Net). We see long tables of many generations lingering, as we will linger, over a large Sunday meal. This is not a time to hurry or to eat light. It’s a time to take a real pause and listen to stories that take abit longer to recount. All in the space of a wonderful three course meal. With a bottle of rosé wine.













In the late afternoon we return to the Chateau grounds. There are more buildings to explore, Marie Antoinette’s little park, all of it, sprawling, offering the opportunity to walk and take note.




















In the evening, we head back to Paris. An omelet, one last glass of wine.

I walk by crowded cafés and ice cream vendors. I look inside and see a bin of pistachio. I was seven when I first traveled to Paris. By train, from Warsaw, on my way to my first visit to the States. I woke up then to a bright day on the left bank. On the Place des Invalides, an ice cream vendor was selling cones. Vanilla or pistachio. I had never seen green ice cream before. It was a long time before I could put the ice cream's sweet taste out of my mind. Creamy texture, unusual color, easy to love. Like Paris.

from Paris: traveling

The next twelve hours are in flight and so posting will be a touch delayed. But I'll come back to Sunday for sure, the minute I touch down in the States.

A hint -- on this day, I did what hundreds, nay, thousands of Parisians (and others) did. Picture it: a perfect, lightly sunny day in the Ile de France. Where might you go? What might you do? When might you eat?

Another hint: I kept seeing, intermittently, this:




More later.

from Paris: different tastes

I never had the time to set the context for this trip. There’s the work part (trivial, consisting of one meeting, to the point that even IRS would not regard the hop over here as ‘work related’ and as far as I can figure out, the IRS is generous in its definitions). And then, there’s also the week-end part.

I’m not alone (no no, my occasional travelling companion regards this as a perfect occasion to stay home and do guy things – oh, like clearing barns and repairing crankshafts, so I am not here with him) and so I am looking at Paris through the eyes of others.

This is, by the way, an unusual time to be in Paris. France is hosting the World Rugby Tournament. It is a BIG DEAL event. I knew that when I booked a room way back in April. Prices are adjusted to reflect this golden moment in sports history. Uff! And there are banners and balloons and rugby t-shirts and special rugby menus in most places. And big screens showing the games.

So there’s that.

It is also fashion week. But I know very little about what’s at stake here. I have seen no model or designer of note and I say this in part because I would not really know how to spot one. All French women look to me like they have stepped out of a magazine page.

That’s the context.

A commenter asked for a photo of wine. I’m obliging. Here it is. Though not of our wine – this one is of a bottle shared by two, enamored with each other, on a quiet square in the middle of the island (Isle de la Cite) right there on the River Seine.




And, while we’re on the subject of lovers – at a distance, and on the river Seine, here’s another shot, reflecting the pink of adoration and of a perfectly beautiful late September evening:





These are unusual shots. They show off the quieter spaces of Paris. I’m going to flip over to the morning now, spent chasing one masterpiece after another. So, any idea why there’s a small crowd here?





Sure, it’s too see the Monalisa. I did not take a photo of her. And you know what she looks like anyway. Indeed, you were not permitted to take a photo of her, though not a single person followed that rule. The guards shrugged. The sign had said the photo ban was there for the most popular canvases, so that everyone could contemplate them in peace. Right.

In another museum, next to another small masterpiece, a solo visitor had a chance to take his own private photo.





And in the next room, a guard was listlessly staring into space. How much can you take of a waterlily canvas in a day?





Outside, the streets were filled with late Saturday shoppers. Nothing draws as big a crowd as a bakery with the afternoon allocation of baguettes, or a pastry shop where you can pick up something for le week-end. I regard Pierre Hermes as the best of the best. So do others.





A week-end in Paris. To be licked and savored and stored, so that on a more placid day back home, where it’s bike, work, bike, cook, work, sleep, I can think back to the taste of deep chocolate or cassis icecream.





Or to thoughts of dinner, across the table from other traveling companions…





…enjoying this gingered apple dish, with a crème brulee topping.

From Paris: how many ways? (with a post scriptum on wi-fi and coffee)

…do you say I love you? And how many ways can you say it rained today? Some possibilities (in reverse-chronological order, for a change):



dinner: dessert




evening: sent to the store




gray riverbank, turning leaves




empty chairs

A post scriptum: Paris Notes

Why are the mayors of New York and Chicago visiting Paris this week? To study the launching of free Wi-Fi in all the major Parisian parks and other public spaces (at noon today). The service, according to Le Figaro, will be available until the closing of the parks each evening, except on Le Champs du Mars, where it will be available round the clock.

And so the empty chairs will not remain empty today (it helps that the weather has improved).

But it leads me to wonder -- where are the great public spaces in Chicago? Or in Madison, for that matter, where the launching of WiFi has been a bust, both for technical reasons and, well, because it was never to be free.

In another unrelated piece of news, I read that Starbucks has been a complete failure in Paris. Dubbed here the McDonalds of coffee, it is mostly shunned, scorned and ignored. No comment. Or, okay, one comment: who the hell needs Starbucks in Paris?

from Paris: landmarks

Too hard? The previous post was from the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. And the sauce in the second photo is, in my opinion, a give-away. Mmmm.

But, for the traditionalists, I'll throw in the photos that tell all. [Just photos for now. My meeting is about to begin.]



fall trees




sea of cars on the Champs




bicycles tour and the Louvre




city bikes




in front of Les Deoux Magots




woman and dog




Paris metro