Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Sign
my guestbook. View
my guestbook. ← Previous Next → Back to the beginning
|
On Saturday, after the move to
the 6th arrondissement, we walked back over to the 15th
so we could put more clean, laundered sheets away. You see, like many Paris apartments, the
place has a washing machine but no dryer.
Instead, there is an expandable rack mounted up high on the wall over
the washer. From that, and from the
shower rod, we’d hung sheets and towels to dry. First, we stopped at La Gitane
for dinner. I’d been craving skate (raie) and I’ve noticed that the skate
served by La Gitane always looks good.
Tom saw that the special of the day was magret de canard (duck breast), and that interested him. It was only 8PM when we were walking by, so
we were able to get a table with no problem. It was a wonderful, tasty
dinner. I’ve never had skate as good
at this was. It was incredibly soft,
and the vinaigrette sauce served on it was divine. The portions were so generous
that we had no ability to have dessert.
I think la patronne was
unimpressed with our wimpy appetites, but it was the best we could do. After finalizing the
preparations at the apartment in the 15th, we had a nice metro
ride home. On Sunday, we really needed
some supplies from the grocery, so after sleeping in nice and late, I coerced
Tom into going with me to Champion, which is now called Carrefour
Market. Carrefour is the biggest
retailer in France; it owns Champion and Ed, as well as many other stores,
I’m sure. I’d recently noticed that a
Shoppi on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet is now called Carrefour City. Carrefour (formerly Champion) in
the 6th is a crazy place on Sundays. It is only open until 1PM, so everyone is
there at the same time. I’d
experienced Sunday at that grocery before, but Tom had not. When we took our place at the end of a
sort-of long line, he started complaining about having to wait. I told him to go, that I could handle it on
my own, and that I didn’t mind waiting.
He changed his mind and decided to stay. It is fun, really, to just
stand there and watch other shoppers, who can be very peculiar in a place
like the 6th arrondissement of Paris. One hunched-over little old lady with a
large handbag was wreaking havoc everywhere she walked in the store; the bag
would knock things off of the lower shelves, and she wouldn’t notice it at
all. The lady in front of us in line
picked up several things that were knocked over by this woman’s purse and
neatly replaced them on the shelf.
Then she looked at us and giggled a little, because she knew enough
English to know we’d been amused by the oblivious hunchback. Our line went around a corner
to the first cash register. It was
shorter than I first thought. When I
realized this, I said to Tom that the last time I was in there on a Sunday
morning, I had to wait for a half hour in line, and this was not going to be
anywhere near that long. It turned out
to be only 15 minutes. And our cashier
even had the job of answering the phone, too.
He was very efficient. When we left with two full
bags, we meandered back by the market at Saint Germain. Although I’d told Tom before that it is
open on Sunday mornings, just like the Carrefour/Champion, he’d forgotten
that and was pleasantly surprised. So
we went in and bought bread, pastries, and bananas. After putting the food away at
home, we decided to go out for one of our marathon Sunday walks along the
Seine. I would not commit to how far
we’d go, since I didn’t know for sure how much I’ve healed from the Great
Stepstool Fall. But we went. As we started, we heard the magnificent
organ playing at St. Sulpice. We walked along the left bank
of the river up to the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir that connects the
Mitterand Library site and the great Parc Bercy. We stopped many times for short rests. I made a joke of it, saying every time,
“Hey, look, there’s a bench in the shade that needs to be sat upon.” So we sat upon bench after bench, but
eventually made it to the end of the beautiful Parc Bercy, where at the Cour
St. Émilion, little old stone wine warehouses have been converted into cute
shops and cafés along the original cobbled lane with a rail spur running down
the middle. After finding an empty table in
the middle of the terrace in front of the Nicolas café, we ordered a bottle
of mineral water, a coffee for Tom, a glass of Pouilly Fumé for me, and a
plate of charcuterie for us to share. Included with the charcuterie
was a slice of country terrine which I just loved. I went inside and bought two bottles of
nice white wine to take home. One was
a Pouilly Fumé, the other a Sancerre Blanc.
(The wine section at Carrefour had been nearly wiped out by the
Saturday night shoppers before our sojourn there in the dominical morn. I’d like to see what that store is like on
a Saturday night sometime. It is open
until 11PM.) That concluded a very long
walk, so we took the ultramodern number 14 metro back to the middle of Paris,
to Chatelet les Halles, and walked the rest of the way home, across the Seine
and through the ancient Ile de la Cité, down to the boulevard Saint
Germain. Tom went on to buy a
newspaper and I went home just a few minutes ahead of him. We were so exhausted that we
didn’t go out for dinner. I was still
recovering from the Great Stepstool Fall, and Tom was recovering from
worrying about me, I guess. So we had a
quiet evening at home with good French breads, cheese and fruit. I slept until 10:30 this
morning – still in recovery mode, but feeling much, much better. Even so, heaven help anyone who touches me
on the backs of my upper arms. |
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Passerelle Solferino has some awesome engineering.
View of the Eiffel Tower through the Place de la Concorde.
The ferris wheel on the Tuileries.
Looking toward the Louvre at the end of the Tuileries.
Looking toward the Grand Palais and the Pont Alexandre III
through the great lawn of the Esplanade des Invalides.
One of the two ponds in the Tuileries. |
