Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We did not allow rain to stop us yesterday. It was a gentle rain; among the various British words for different types of rain, I’d have to say this was more than a “drizzle.” It was more like “pissing down,” as they say up there in Angleterre. I wasn’t surprised about this state of affairs because I had checked the weather radar on the internet before we left the apartment. An entire row of showers streaked diagonally across France; the full length of that row was aiming right at Paris. Each of us armed with an umbrella, we took our normal Sunday route up through the Champ de Mars and into the garden at the Musée du Quai Branly. This favorite green space for us has a new igloo-like shelter, made of fine white concrete, paid for by a company called Nexans. Built into its circular interior is a bench, all the way around, in white concrete so smooth I’d swear it was marble. We sat for a while, letting the umbrellas dry to the point of being only wet instead of sopping. A security guard came by and scolded the young ladies across from us for smoking. They rose and exited the shelter, but fortunately they stopped to talk with the security guard. I then noticed that one of the women left her smartphone on the bench, and I called out to her, “Madame, votre phone!” She gratefully retrieved it. Then the rain seemed to stop. Onward, we trekked, to the riverbank highway that was closed to automobiles for the day. There weren’t many other pedestrians or bicyclists there, however. It began to rain (piss down) again. We opened the umbrellas and continued on. A couple of British tourists pedaled by on bicycles. Nothing stops them! We thought that Dan and the girls had gone to the Louvre. So we decided to walk in that direction, up to the passarelle that crosses over to the Tuileries, beneath which Bernard Constant, the amazing one-man band, plays on Sunday afternoons from about 2 to 5PM. He was there, but not looking too well. Unfortunately, he stopped playing to take a cigarette break when we arrived at that point. I had suggested that we might meet Dan and the girls at the Angelina tea room later in the afternoon. The girls love hot chocolate, and the hot chocolate at Angelina’s may very well be the best in the entire world. In the shelter of the passage into the Tuileries, I checked on the smartphone to find the exact address and location of Angelina’s in relation to our position, so that we would not spend any more time than necessary in the annoying light rain. We would have lingered longer, to hear Bernard play, but Tom was cold. Onward we went, umbrellas open. At that point, one can cross the Tuileries on a paved sidewalk. This is important to know when it is raining, because all the other walkways are that funny dirt that you find almost everywhere in Parisian parks, on the walkways. That funny dirt is yucky mud in the rain. At the other side of the Tuileries, we approached the amusement park with hoards of gleefully screeching children. We sat in a glass-covered old picnic shelter beside a tot lot to call Dan. Then it was arranged. We’d meet them at Angelina’s. But we learned that they’d gone to the Pompidou Center instead of the Louvre, so it was a longer walk for them. We had to wait in line anyway at Angelina’s. Fortunately, the sidewalk there is a long, covered arcade, providing protection from the persistent light, cold rain. Finally, it all worked out; Dan and the girls joined us, and at last we were given a table in the elegant main floor of Angelina’s. I say “elegant,” and it is, but it is looking a bit tattered. The problem is that Angelina’s is open every day, until 6:30PM or so, and they never close for a vacation. There is never a time to even re-paint the interior! So its interior is worn and chipped here and there. Still, the hot chocolate is so intensively rich and delicious that huge numbers of people visit Angelina’s daily to consume it. (Angelina’s now has some other locations, but this one on the rue de Rivoli is the original, dating to 1903.) I knew it was too much for me at that time, so while the other four ordered the hot chocolate, I did not. I only wanted a couple sips of Tom’s, which I had. It was incredible. The four of them started with their hot chocolate, which they all loved. Then we advanced to club sandwiches for the girls, an omelette each for Tom and Dan, and a little foie gras for me. It was all very good. The kitchen closes at 6PM for the main courses, and 6:30 for “snacks” at Angelina’s, so this is only a place for brunch, lunch, and extremely early dinner. Tom and I think there must be something about the zoning for the rue de Rivoli, in this section of it anyway, that does not allow for nighttime businesses like restaurants and clubs. The exception would be the hotels, which are some of the finest in Paris. In a way, that’s nuts because the noisy amusement park across the street in the Tuileries is open until 11PM. This amusement park operates in the summer, starting June 1 or so, every year. Tom says he thinks the real estate across from it on the rue de Rivoli must have dropped significantly in value when the amusement park opened for business. Near Angelina’s tea room is the Hotel Meurice, a 5-star luxury hotel which we have actually been in because our friends John and Martha stayed there once. When John and Martha were at the Meurice, the hotel was mostly full of a large entourage of visiting Saudi Arabians. The women in this group, dressed in their black chadors, went shopping together, but did not carry their purses. Instead, a couple of servants went with them, each carrying an armload of handbags. The men stayed behind, in the hotel lobby, where they smoked, drank, and talked to each other and to cell phones. But I digress. We lingered in Angelina’s for so long that the staff were shooing away customers, closing down the line of people waiting to get in, as we exited. In spite of the cooling weather and rain, the girls wanted to go to the amusement park. Tom was cold, and none of us wanted him to get sick, so we said goodbye to Dan and the girls at the corner of the rue Castiglione. They crossed into the Tuileries’ amusement park, and we continued on down the rue de Rivoli arcade until it ended just before the steps going down into the Concorde metro station. The Concorde station is vast. We walked and walked and walked until finally we thought “surely we must have crossed under the Seine by now!” At last, we reached the tracks for the line 8, which would take us back to the Commerce station. I sat at one of “les places reservées pour les personnes âgées,” a designation that is ignored by all. Tom was delayed behind me, but I saved him the seat next to me. When he sat down, I joked with him, saying “reservé pour les personnes agées, comme toi,” pointing up at the “places reservées” sign, which lists many categories beyond “personnes âgées,” such as the “mutilés de guerre.” Tom said “je suis mutilé de guerre,” and made a funny, loud hollow knocking sound (using his tongue and cheek) as he pretended to knock on his “wooden arm.” It was funny. He can find percussion instruments anywhere, including in his mouth. The man across from us, who was about Tom’s age, heard the joke and laughed. The transportation authority, RATP, explains this rule
about reserving places for certain people, ranked according to priority. Here goes the list: Des places
assises identifiées sont réservées par rang de priorité aux personnes
suivantes: ·
mutilés de guerre et mutilés militaires, ·
aveugles civils, ·
invalides du travail, ·
infirmes civils avec station debout
pénible, ·
femmes enceintes, ·
personnes accompagnées d'enfants de moins
de 4 ans, ·
infirmes civils sans précision de la
station debout pénible, ·
personnes titulaires de la carte station
debout pénible, ·
personnes âgées de 75 ans et plus. So older people (more than 75 years old, which Tom is not), have the lowest rank when it comes to vying for these seats (which nobody ever does, as far as I can tell). Top priority is those wounded in war or military service, then come blind civilians, followed by injured workers, severely handicapped people, pregnant women, adults with tots, and less severely handicapped people. RATP’s web site says otherwise, you can sit anywhere, but thank you for ceding your place to these “personnes prioritaires” even if you’re not in one of the designated “places reservées.” Generally, it is too darned difficult for a handicapped person to use the metro because of all the steps and the long, long corridors. But I have seriously, on a couple occasions, offered to give my seat to obviously pregnant women. Each time, they said no thanks. I think this was because they weren’t riding far, and wanted to be already standing near the exit door of the car. As we all know, getting up is more difficult than sitting down! |
Monday, August 6, 2012
A
view of the right bank, 12th arrondissement, showing the clock
tower of the Gare de Lyon.
A
part of the Mitterand national library, and the Passarelle Simone de Beauvoir.
Cooley
men like real hot chocolate.
Inside
the new igloo-like, vegetation-covered shelter in the garden at the Musée du Quai Branly.
Nexans, a company
that makes cables including fiber optics, sponsored the construction of this
shelter. Nexans
is a global company, headquartered in Paris.
Shareholder meetings for Nexans are
generally held at the Musée du Quai Branly. Here’s a page with more info about this shelter and its design. |
