Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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A few days ago, I wrote to a friend, “As Quatorze Juillet approaches, I often think about that ‘solidarity’ concept that is celebrated here, along with ‘liberty,’ ‘brotherhood,’ and ‘equality.’ Bastille Day is not nearly as commercial here as July 4th is back home. Here, it does seem to be more of a day for reflection about the meaning of liberty, which must go right along with solidarity, brotherhood, and equality. And then there are fireworks at the end of the day.” The fireworks show was phenomenally good. Take a look for yourself. The entire 40-minute show is available at www.14juillet.paris.fr/feu.html. Each year, the PR people who work for the city of Paris come up with a “theme” for the show. The show is not heavily commercialized, and no company gets to put its name all over it because they provide funding for it. But the PR people still go to work on the “theme.” This year, it was “disco.” A 4-ton “disco ball” was hung in the middle of the Eiffel Tower structure. That’s how serious they are about this “theme.” After the show, the Champ de Mars was to become one big dance floor. I thought that we would probably hear the music all the way back at the apartment, but we did not. We watch the show from the apartment – specifically, we stand, fully clothed, in the bathtub, draw the shower curtain aside, and open the French window. We see the upper part of the fireworks, over a quintessential Paris rooftop scene, with the top of the Eiffel Tower included. It isn’t bad at all, and we have it all to ourselves. Way in the past, we have made ourselves part of the enormous crowd on the Champ de Mars. But now we watch from home. I never have liked crowds, and Tom isn’t fond of them either. But 9/11 underscored my dislike for crowds. We do feel the excitement of the approaching event, however, and so we like to go out and see the people flowing into the Champ de Mars, hours before the 11PM fireworks show begins. First, I took Tom by the Franprix grocery store that I discovered on the rue Lourmel. I’d gone out at 2:30PM in search of bread and paper products that afternoon, and of course the nearby bakeries were not open. As I continued west on the rue du Theatre, I saw a woman approaching me. She was clutching a baguette! And a loaf of country bread! I thought I vaguely remembered a bakery farther down Theatre, so I continued. But I was wrong. No bakery there. She must have come from the rue Lourmel, I thought, and I had noticed a Franprix sign when I passed that street minutes earlier. A good and hip grocery store in Paris will carry some real bread, from a real bakery. And all grocery stores have household paper products. So I went back to rue Lourmel, and entered the Franprix. It was bright, clean, new, uncrowded, well-managed, and it had wide aisles. The bakery bread was there, although most of it had been sold. I managed to get the last full-length baguette without sesame seeds on it. The baguette was made with unbleached flour, in an old-fashioned style with pointed ends, so I also bought a half-size white flour baguette for Tom. He is a white-bread kind of guy. This Franprix had a big assortment of paper products. The entire store was well-stocked. It was like the Monoprix, but without a hundred frenzied shoppers in it. The Franprix was calm, even serene. In the evening, when I was taking Tom down Theatre to show him my discovery, of course the bakery near us on Theatre was then open. I will never fully understand the hours that businesses here are open. Just when I think I have it figured out, I find out that I have no idea at all. I thought that the retail stores on the rue du Commerce would be closed for the national holiday. They were not. Practically every clothing, shoe, DVD, and watch shop was open. The cheese shop and the butcher were not. But the butcher shop on Theatre was open. Yet the kitchen supply store was not. It just makes no sense. But on the whole, there seemed to be more businesses open on this Bastille Day than any other Bastille Day that I can recall. The French restaurants were mostly closed, except for about half of the brasseries, and a few choice places like La Gauloise. After Tom toured the Franprix, he wanted to go up to the Champ de Mars to see the mob starting to gather. I was game, so north we went, up the rue Lourmel, which ends at the boulevard de Grenelle, where we crossed underneath the elevated train tracks of the metro line 6. The market awnings were mostly already set up under the tracks for the Sunday open-air market. As we walked up the short rue Humblot, toward the Place Dupleix, I spotted an Indian restaurant with a banner announcing new ownership. We crossed the street to check it out. It was 8PM, after all. Time for dinner. The windows were spotless. Check. The floor looked clean. Check. The menu included lamb Korma. Check. The décor was interesting and appealing. Check. There were plenty of people dining there, and they did not look like fools. They looked savvy. Check. There were still a very few tables available. Check. We entered, said good evening to the boss, and were given the best table remaining, which was near the door. The boss and the server were nice. Check. The dining room was warming up fast. That felt good; I’d been cold for days. We were glad to be near the open door, so we didn’t become uncomfortably hot. The boss was fiddling with the remote control for what might actually be an air conditioner! We ordered a samosa to share, a garlic nan to share, lamb curry for Tom, lamb Korma for me, and a big bottle of San Pellegrino sparkling water. The restaurant completely filled up while we dined. The service was very nice, and the food looked good. But in reality, it was bland. The prices were very reasonable, and significantly less than at Banani, our favorite Indian resto in Paris. I guess you get what you pay for. But I am not complaining. This Royal Rajasthan restaurant at 8 rue Humblot has much to recommend it, and those who do not like spicy food at all will find the blandness appealing, I’m sure. I countered the blandness by using up all the tamarind sauce (very spicy) that was brought to the table as part of the typical trio of condiments served at Indian restos (the other two being mango chutney and cilantro/mint or raita. But this is typical; I often use up all the tamarind sauce if somebody puts it in front of me. I like it hot. Fortified, we walked the remaining short distance to the Champ de Mars, entering it via the little rue Jean Carries. This year, there was fairly tight security around the Champ. Metal barricades made it clear that one could only enter or exit at certain places. Plenty of police were stationed at each entrance, and they were using profiling to decide whose bags they would check. Tom and I didn’t meet the profile, so we were waved on in. Those who met the profile for questioning or having bags checked appeared to be 1) good-looking young women, and 2) young men who were not white. So the crowd was really backed up at the entrance at the end of the Champ, across from the old military school. We thought we would exit there, but there was no way to get through – we had to backtrack and go back out the quiet little side entrance where we’d entered. Already, an hour and a half before the fireworks would begin, the grassy part of the Champ de Mars, with the unobstructed view of the Eiffel Tower, was shoulder-to-shoulder people. There was still lots of space in the allées of trees on each side; but the trees block the view of the sky, so nobody wanted to be there. Hundreds of people were still walking up the avenue de la Motte-Picquet and rue du Commerce, toward the Champ. We walked in the opposite direction, part of the time in the street, although a few cars (mostly taxis) were still trying to drive through. Finally, we reached the apartment and settled in for the evening. It is hard to say how many people watch the Bastille Day fireworks in Paris. Certainly several hundreds of thousands gather on the Champ de Mars. But people gather all over Paris, wherever they can see the Eiffel Tower (which is a vast number of places) to watch the show. It must be millions of people. I didn’t tell you about yesterday’s interview with President Hollande, because you probably read or heard about it in the news. But it did not take place at the Elysée Palace, as it did in the past. Instead, President Hollande walked the 150 meters from his viewing stands on the Place de la Concorde to the Hotel de la Marine, which is a grand military building, not a hotel. (However, this building closely resembles its next-door neighbor, the five-star Hotel Crillon.) The interview was conducted in a grand room with a modern glass conference table in the conveniently located Hotel de la Marine. Good for President Hollande – no fuss, no motorcade, just a walk and lots of shaking hands, giving autographs, etc., with the people behind the barricades along the way. Chapeau, Monsieur le President! Well done.
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Sunday, July 15, 2012
A
4-ton “disco ball” hanging in the Eiffel Tower, at the northwest end of the
Champ de Mars.
The
top of l’École Militaire,
the old military school, that overlooks the southeast end of the Champ de
Mars.
The
crowd gathers hours before the fireworks, especially in the grassy central
part of the Champ de Mars.
Looking
in the window of the Carmine Café at 73 avenue de Suffren
on our way home.
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