Paris Journal 2008

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I realize now that I need to follow up on some subjects I introduced over the past couple of weeks: The sixty-something-year-old man who shot at employees in a music store in the 4^th arrondissement had escaped from a mental hospital. He had also escaped from that mental hospital on two previous occasions, not long ago. And he has a history of violence and crime. It is time to keep a closer eye on this guy. So, he has now been placed in a facility for the dangerously mentally ill in Villejuif, on the edge of Paris. I still don’t understand how he was able to buy a gun. Thank heavens, the employees who were shot are going to be okay. The Franco-Colombian ex-hostage Ingrid Betancourt is doing well. She had lunch the other day at the luxurious hotel, Le Meurice, with the Egyptian-Colombian rock star, Shakira. Although we did not see Ingrid on the viewing stand for the Bastille day parade, she did appear in photos in the newspaper the next day, showing her receiving her Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor award from President Sarkozy at the post-parade garden party at the Elysées Palace. She looked stunningly elegant in a deep purple chiffon sleeveless dress, with her very long hair done up in a lovely French twist. On the sad side, it seems that Ingrid may be splitting up with her husband, Juan Carlos LeCompte. He sounds broken hearted about it. When we were walking last night, we passed the sign that I told you about in yesterday’s journal entry. Well, that photo in yesterday’s page was taken before Bastille day. It seems that over the holiday, the sign received a real beating. It is banged up now, and its entire concrete base has been pulled out of the ground. But the Champ’s maintenance workers managed to get it propped upright again. I think the holiday partiers did not like what the sign says about alcohol consumption not being tolerated in the park. We’d been walking along the Seine, and suddenly became ravenously hungry. We decided to go back to Le Blavet for dinner for the third time this month, but for the first time for just the two of us. Tom pulled the little cell phone out of his pocket and I found the number for Le Blavet in its directory and dialed. Tom made the reservation. We arrived on time. I was wearing my Obama button. The server seated us at the table by the window (hooray!) and noticed my Obama button with a smile. We gave each other the thumbs up gesture, and then I showed him how to do a fist bump. For the first time, I saw him smile – really smile! Madame made a point of greeting us very warmly. We dined. The food was heavenly. The restaurant filled up. We were restored. This restaurant offers the most value we’ve found in Paris. (See my restaurant recommendations for details.) On the way home, we passed the restaurant that occupies the space that was once Le Tire Bouchon. The restaurant that is there now – Bernard du 15 – was completely empty. It won’t last. The menu there looks boring, boring, boring. Also by way of follow-up, I want to take a moment for thanking my conservative readers, Jim H. and Dave T., for the good natured way in which they take my teasing about far right wing conservative Americans. By the way, you two, I don’t think you qualify for “far right wing.” In my book, you only qualify for “conservative.” I hope you aren’t too disappointed. Thanks for reading my journal anyway. I will continue to read conservatives’ columns in the newspaper, and I’ll think of you often. We continue to watch the Tour de France almost every day, for the last hour or so of that day’s stage. I’m happy to see that the anti-doping agency has some better tests now and that they are catching more of the cheaters. The American, Christian Vandevelde, continues to hold onto third place in the overall rankings, we are proud to say. We’re hoping that in a time trial, he can move up to first place. But he says his goal had been just to be in the top ten or so. Now, he says he can maybe hope to be on the podium (in Paris, at the end of the Tour), which means he isn’t aspiring necessarily to anything more than third place. But we are proud Americans and we want an American to win the Tour de France, of course. Anyone who doubts me when I say I’m very patriotic and proud to be American should just take a peek in the trunk of my little car. There you will always find a small American flag. I have it on hand just in case I’m somewhere in a group where we want to say the Pledge of Allegiance but there is no flag in the room. All I have to do is go out to my car and get the flag! And you should hear me make snide remarks when the French show off all their military equipment on Bastille day, when I just have to point out all the American-developed technology that makes this equipment so effective. And oh how I love to sing God Bless America. And the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And more. And I just love the statue of Thomas Jefferson that graces the bank of the Seine, very near the French Legion of Honor. Did you know that the French have fallen in love with the burger? This was the subject of an article in the news here recently. Even the fancy restaurants, like the one in the hotel, Le Meurice, offer a burger on the menu. In the case of Le Meurice, the burger, with fries, costs €35 (that’s about $56). You don’t have to pay that much, though. In the last year or two, we discovered that a brasserie/café on the rue Jacob offers a very good burger and fries. There are probably dozens of places in Paris that now offer really good burgers. The chefs in the fancier restaurants here just cannot leave the burger alone. One of them puts pine nuts in the meat! Another puts cornichons (pickles) in the meat! At least these chefs have excellent choices for turning the burger into a cheeseburger. Back to the subject of follow-up, I want to let you know that those train tickets for the fast train to Germany, the ones I ordered on the SNCF web site, did arrive in the mail THE VERY NEXT DAY! What service! This reminds me of a recent column by Roger Cohen about how France has changed. Old Roger has captured the essence of France in the new Europe. Here’s a link to the article, in case you haven’t seen it. It is appropriately titled, “France on Amphetamines.” That’s how those tickets arrived so quickly . . . .

Friday, July 18, 2008 Statue of Thomas Jefferson, on the left bank of the Seine near the Passarelle Solferino and the French Legion of Honor. Jefferson was influenced by French architecture when he designed his “project at Monticello.” Here’s a link to an article about the statue’s unveiling in 2006. Below, a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty graces the end of the Allée de Cygnes in the middle of the Seine. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook.

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