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Statue
of
A
jogger stretches above the homeless people’s tents at
People
boarding the Capitaine Fracasse for a dinner cruise
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Saturday, July 14 Happy Bastille
Day! I spent the
morning watching the parade on TV. This
is the first parade under the new president, and it was very different
because of him. First, he had military
contingents from each of the 26 other EU countries lead the parade with all
of their assorted flags. A boys’ choir
sang with the men’s choir at the beginning and the end of the parade. Sarkozy, at one point, ordered the vehicle
carrying him to the platform to stop.
He got out and energetically went over to the crowd on one side of the
Champs, shook a lot of hands, kissed a child, and then quickly went over to
the other side, shook more hands, smiled a lot, and freaked out his security
people. The weather
seems to be cooperating for the holiday weekend. It is warm now, and finally it is not
raining. We had a very,
very pleasant visit with Ohio friends ,Susan and her husband, Jeff, and their
little boy, Alex, who is seven years old going on 14. He is such a great kid – very capable of
entertaining himself and not one bit obnoxious. We adults started with drinks and hors
d’oeuvres in our living room, with all the balcony doors open due to the fine
weather. Then Tom and I walked the
three of them over to Le Tipaza (150 avenue Emile Zola, 15th
arr., telephone 01-45-79-22-25), the North African restaurant that we recommend,
where they’d already made a reservation. Tom and I had
a lovely walk on the Allée des Cygnes. Susan, Jeff,
and Alex came back over after their delicious dinner and our walk, and we
enjoyed more of the evening out on the balcony. We talked about the fact that Ohio State’s new president will be Gordon Gee,
who used to be president several years ago.
Has any other university ever done that? Asked a former president to come back? (Tom and Susan worked together in the same
department at On our walk,
we saw some of the homeless people’s tents near the statue of At the other
end, we saw a prosperous looking mostly young crowd waiting to board the
Capitaine Fracasse, one of those dinner-cruise boats. Our routine is
about to change as Dan and Mary will arrive this evening. Tomorrow,
we’ll have another apartment for our clan, close to the Champ de Mars. Tom will
probably stop working so much on his textbook, and we’ll be out and about
doing more things, I suspect. Dan and Mary flew into Like last
year, people continue to stop us – especially me – on the street to ask for
directions. We must look like we know
what we are doing, or at least where we are.
On our second day here, I went out to buy newspapers and a couple
young men stopped me to ask where to find the rue de Tournus. I was not yet into the groove of the
neighborhood. I knew I knew the name,
but I just could not think where that little street is. A very small street indeed, it connects the
rue du Theatre with the rue Foundary, traversing the avenue Emile Zola, not
far from where the young men stopped me.
I’m afraid I disappointed them.
I just could not yet get my internal map working. Then a well-dressed
aging little woman in a bouffant bottle-black hairdo stopped me on the
crowded rue du Commerce the other day, asking for chocolate. I am sure she really meant to ask for the
location of the nearest chocolate shop on that trendy shopping street. She just kept saying, “Chocolat,
chocolat,” a sure sign of a real chocoholic, like my mother. I can remember
a chocolate shop there years ago, but it has been replaced by a trendy
clothing store, of course. Again, I
had to disappoint her. There is no
chocolate shop on the rue de Commerce, and I cannot think of one nearby. There is one across from the church on rue
des Entrepreneurs, but it doesn’t look too good, and that was quite a hike
from where the little woman stopped me.
She looked very disappointed when I could not provide the requested
information. The rue du
Commerce has become so trendy that I find myself dressing up a bit just to go
out there to buy newspapers! I must be
turning into a parisienne. Yesterday,
I bought soap and lotion at l’Occitane en
Provence before I bought newspapers.
I believe l’Occitane is not really a French company. It is just another formula retail store
occupying the rue du Commerce. Then a man
driving a car up the rue de la Croix Nivert stopped Tom and me as we walked
toward the Square St. Lambert the other day.
He, of course, wanted to know where the rue du Commerce could be
found. He probably needs to buy nice,
new expensive men’s shoes. We pointed
the way down the rue des Entrepreneurs, but of course that is a one-way
street in the wrong direction. It is
hard for we pedestrians to keep this in mind.
He smiled at our realization that he could not go that way and he said
“A gauche. D’accord. Merci.”
Nice as could be. We told him
what he needed to know, anyway. Young women
who are selling tickets or promoting local businesses stop me all the
time. I just tell them, in almost
perfect French, that I’m American and I don’t speak French very well. They always smile and say “merci,” and I
have successfully avoided the sales pitch! I also have
the satisfaction of knowing that at least they thought I looked like a
parisienne! Maybe I also look like an
easy sales target . . . . |
