Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Sign
my guestbook. View
my guestbook. ← Previous Next → Back to the beginning
|
I think I just won two tickets on Bateaux
Parisiens by playing a game (answering three fairly simple questions) on
the City of Paris web site. I thought
I was just winning a chance at a drawing for the tickets, but after I
answered, a screen came up that said I had won. We shall see if the tickets actually arrive
in the mailbox. We had a mediocre dinner at Della Piazza last
night. Well, my dinner was very good
(Lasagne Bolognaise) but we went there expressly because Tom wanted their
(formerly) good french fries. But the pommes frites were not hot, and when
they’re not hot, they’re not hot.
Tom’s veal scallopini was pretty good, though. If we have another bad experience here,
Della Piazza may have to come off of the recommended restaurants list. Alan M., a longtime reader of this journal,
also did not like this restaurant. It’s too bad.
The owners have always (for twelve years) been extremely nice to
us. Perhaps this is just a server
problem. Every year, Della Piazza has
a new, young, fresh-out-of-high-school server. Speaking of high schools, the local newspaper yesterday
carried a shocking story about students who go to private schools through
junior high NOT being admitted to public high schools, or at least they are
given last priority. The
superintendent of public schools has decided that kids coming from public
schools get first priority, and kids coming from private schools get last
priority. You might think that this does not affect many kids,
but evidently, in this economy, it does.
Parents who can no longer afford the private schools are seeing their
kids unable to get into the good public high schools. Getting into the right high school here is extremely
important, because it can put a kid on a track that he/she cannot
escape. It could mean, for example,
that a kid who wanted to be a professor ends up as an engineer. Or a kid who wanted to be an engineer could
end up as an accountant. Horrors. It is too early for kids to be making those
career decisions, anyway. Time to
change the system. Another little news item of interest is that the City
of Paris is buying an exceptional illustrated manuscript dating from about
1770. It shows how the City was
divided into neighborhoods at that time.
Who is paying for this? Well,
the City is getting a donation from the Fondation Breslauer (a French
bookstore that specializes in bibliography) and an American association, the
“Mécénat de l’Institut” which means nothing more than Patronage Institute, so
who knows what American association is really funding this. I’ve searched, and I cannot determine what
organization this might be. If you read
or hear anything about this, please let me know. Speaking of bookstores, another one has been in the
news here lately. It is called
Résistances, and it is known for its support of the Palestinian causes. A gang of violent, extreme right-wing
Zionists attacked the shop, causing a lot of damage. Five of the alleged gangsters have been
arrested. This is the first time I remember reading of violence
committed by extremist Zionists in Paris, although surely it must have
happened before. I do remember reading
about a number of anti-Semetic attacks and vandalism. Hate breeds hate; violence breeds violence. Go in peace. Sign
my guestbook. View
my guestbook. |
Saturday, July 11, 2009
One
of two sphinxes guarding the entrance to the apartment building on rue Férou
where Ernest and Pauline Hemingway once lived.
The
old cash register in the Bouillon Racine. What’s wrong with this photo? (It comes from the restaurant’s web site.) |
