Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The weather has suddenly turned
much cooler. On Thursday evening, as we
walked home from L’Épopée, it began to rain.
Just a tiny bit. Just enough to
ensure that I rolled back the two awnings on the balcony before I jumped into
the shower. There was also thunder and
lightning, but I always think of the thunder and lightning here in Paris as
some kind of pathetic joke, or a pale imitation of the real thing. The real thing is what we have
in southwest Florida. Thunder there
can be deafening, frightening, and the lightning is truly dangerous. Thunder and lightning are wild and violent
in Florida. Here in Paris, thunder always
sounds muted, no matter how close it is.
Its voice is muffled by the fabric and texture of the city, the
canyons of streets and buildings, the hard, uneven surfaces that send
soundwaves back into oblivion, somehow. The lightning in Paris has stiff
competition from the ambient city light.
Try as they might, thunder and lightning are thwarted in their efforts
to be dramatic here. Paris seems to
have them under control, somehow. But as I turned on the water in
the shower, I noticed that the slightly muted thunder kept rolling and
rolling, nonstop. I felt
vibrations. Tom was saying something,
and he sounded animated – well, animated for Tom, anyway. I couldn’t hear him because of
the water running. The rolling thunder wasn’t
thunder at all. It was roaring wind
that was shaking the French windows/doors throughout the apartment. Tom was dashing about, trying to secure
everything more securely than it already was. Gale-force winds shook the
building for about 10 minutes.
Hailstones pounded the flowers on the balcony. On the other side of the city, hailstones
pounded Dan and Mary as they huddled in a doorframe outside. But in 10 minutes, it was all over. In 10 minutes, I emerged from the shower
and said, “What was all that about?”
Tom explained. I saw where he’d placed a large
bath towel under one of the French doors to absorb the apartment-penetrating
rain. I thought it was a darned good
thing I’d retracted the awnings, else they’d be in the street six stories
below. That was a cold front that
blasted through here in those 10 minutes.
Yesterday was a bit cooler, and today is much cooler. Yesterday, the rain punished the
riders in the Tour de France. Descents
from the mountains looked to be horrendously dangerous, with rain-slickened
roads and vicious winds. Some riders
even wore jackets! Still, nothing much changed in
the overall standings of the racers.
There was just one big change:
the American, Levi Leipheimer, had dropped out of the race. It turns out that the fall he took just
before arriving at Vittel the day before broke his scaphoid – a critically
important large bone in the wrist, on the thumb side. So our friend’s nephew,
Christian Vande Velde, has moved up to 7th place overall, and
Lance Armstrong, in third place, is without this helpful teammate, Levi
Leipheimer, a great rider. The sportscasters say that today
and tomorrow will be critically important to winning the Tour. On va
voir. Last night, we walked through
light rain to the other apartment, where we collected Dan and Mary and took
them to dinner at Bouillon Racine. On the way, we showed Dan where
Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company bookstore had originally been located,
on the rue de l’Odéon. We told him the
story about introducing the shopkeeper to Murray, the one and only president
of the International James Joyce Society at the time. She had been very impressed to meet
him. Tom was hesitant to introduce
Murray as such at first, worrying that it would go to his head. (Just kidding, Murray.) Dan said something about the
Odéon being some kind of temple. I
explained that it is a National Theatre of France, and that in Paris, it is
the oldest, still remaining big auditorium/theatre. It dates to the 1780s, and it has been
beautifully restored. At the restaurant, Dan and Mary
experimented with a couple different beers, both Belgian, I think. Dan and I had delicious escargots, and Mary
had a yummy cream of asparagus soup.
Dan’s lamb chops were better than Tom’s, for some reason having to do
with grizzle. Mary had several big
shrimp that still had their heads, along with scallops in a rich
risotto. My dish was a milk-fed pork
with puréed potatoes. It was identical
to something I had in a restaurant in Alzey, Germany, last year. Very good. One of our servers, a tall man,
was quite friendly with us once he learned that we were from Florida. He loves to go to Miami every winter. It is nice to meet a French person who does
not feel he must take his vacation in July or August. He adores Miami, and he adores
the U.S. now. At one point, he even
broke out into a brief “YES WE CAN” chant and dance. He complimented me on my French, and he flirted
a little with Mary, calling her “mademoiselle” several times even though she
very obviously wears a wedding ring and she was sitting there with her
husband. The server thoroughly
approved of her choice of beer, a Framboise from Belgium. Tom and Dan ordered ice cream
for dessert. We encouraged Mary to
order a crème brulée rather than just relying on having a few bites of Dan’s
ice cream. We told her the ice cream
servings are always incredibly small in France. Well, almost always. We were all
amazed to see our other server, a tiny French-Asian woman, deliver three huge
scoops each to Dan and Tom. Mary
practically drooled over her crème brulée, it was so good. I enjoyed watching them all enjoy dessert,
but my dinner had been filling enough.
I didn’t need to make myself uncomfortable by eating dessert. That’s the great thing about
dining with other people, isn’t it?
You can enjoy foods vicariously without consuming them yourself. As I suspected she would, Mary
loved the restaurant, with all of its over-the-top Art Nouveau décor and
perfect lighting. Sooo French. It was pouring rain when we left
the restaurant. We had umbrellas, and
I had my real rain jacket with a hood and all. We left Dan and Mary at the Carrefour de
l’Odéon, and we ducked into the “safe” dryness of the Odéon metro station. The metro was surprisingly empty
considering the rain and that it was prime time for going home after Friday
night dinner. Someone had blocked the
turnstiles open at the entrance to the metro that we had used, so when we
reached the other side to catch the line 10, several very large
transportation security officers were waiting to check our tickets. This is the first time I’ve had my metro
ticket checked in many years. Other strange things have been
happening at the Odéon metro station.
A day or so before Bastille Day, a blind woman had stumbled onto the
tracks of the line 4 and was both electrocuted and run over. How sad that a blind woman had to take the
metro, and that she died; there should be some alternative transportation for
the handicapped. A day or so after Bastille Day,
two young women were assaulted in that same station, late in the
evening. The perp was caught and has
been locked up for the time being. We were glad to arrive home
shortly before midnight, very damp but safe.
Earlier, Jim H. had raised the
subject of violence on Bastille Day – or rather, night. I had said, and it is true, that central
Paris was safe. But out on the
periphery, in the upper reaches of the 18th, 19th, and
20th arrondissements, there were incidents in which roving gangs
of youth caused considerable damage because they’d gotten their mitts on some
rather large fireworks. They were just tossing the
fireworks about, not caring where they landed. Some poor 50-year-old man lost his
apartment and one of his cats to a fire caused by one of these errant
explosives. So when we heard that Dan and
Mary had been in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the upper 19th,
we sincerely hoped that it was not after dark. If you are planning a trip to
Paris, do avoid the inexpensive hotels in the upper parts of the 18th,
19th, and 20th arrondissements. There is a reason why the prices are lower
there. |
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The peach tart (above) and the prawn ravioli with spicy
curry sauce (below) at L’Épopée. Both
are delicious.
This duck is lucky to be alive in the water garden at
UNESCO. Duck is on the menu almost
everywhere in Paris.
The Paris Yacht Marina at the foot of the Pont de
Grenelle, as seen from the Allée des Cygnes.
We saw ducks near here, too.
The Radio France tower, now shrouded for renovation,
has a sign that says “it is the first time that we have something to hide
from you.”
The smaller Statue of Liberty, overlooking the Seine at
the end of the Allée des Cygnes by the Pont de Grenelle. |
