Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Find me on Facebook 2012
Paris Journal ← Previous Next
→ Back to the Beginning
|
The plants and I are happy
that it rained for much of the day yesterday.
This morning, the outdoor temperature was down in the delicious lower 60s
F. I hope that our friends Jim
and Maddy are enjoying some of this cooler air in the south of France where
they are moving about on a peniche
that they jointly own with a few other people. They’re in Agen now – a
city that Tom and I visited a few years ago when our friend Sally-Jane was
staying in a beautiful farmhouse near there. Agen is off to the
northwest of Toulouse. Another Florida
friend, Michelle, and her husband Joe have a summer home in Axat, which is
off to the southeast of Toulouse. I don’t think that Michelle
and Joe have had as much trouble with hot weather as Jim and Maddy have had
this summer. Axat appears to be at a
somewhat high elevation, by the foothills of the Pyrenees. I’ve been enjoying reading Michelle’s blog this
morning. It took me a few minutes to
figure out that she is the writer of the blog, because it is her husband’s
name at the top of every page. What fun! She and her husband have just spent nine
days in the mountains in Switzerland, doing scary fun things like
hang-gliding and mountain climbing. Michelle is a fine
soprano. This summer, she sang La
Marseillaise in Axat’s Bastille Day celebrations. I’m so proud of her! In their town of Axat, Michelle and Joe are
known fondly as “les deux americains.” France is beautiful, and
there is stunning scenery in the south of France, but for us, Paris is the
place. We are city people who live in
the swamp in Florida; this is the three-month dose of city life that we need desperately. After this, I’m good for another nine
months in the swamp. I say “the swamp” but the
truth is, we get around and do many things on the island where we live,
particularly in the winter months, when our schedule is mad. To keep up with that schedule,
we must drive cars. During Paris
summers, however, we don’t drive cars at all.
I love that, and I love August in Paris, when so many Parisians are
away on vacation, and the pace of the city of light is no longer the speed of
light. Paris in August is a relatively
relaxed, calm place. I also love the
choices. There are so many. So many places to visit. So many places to shop. So many places to eat. And it is all so easy to get to. That said, I will admit
that Paris is a difficult city for people who cannot walk far and who have
trouble with steps. For them,
driving would be necessary; driving, parking, and owning a car in Paris seems
like a hassle. Or, such people could
depend on taxis. But taxis aren’t
always there when you need them, and they can be expensive. Now, there is Autolib. Maybe that’s the answer, but only if you
have a French driver’s license, I think, or a foreign drivers license plus
the “international driving license,” which is something I know nothing about. The metro is an efficient way
to move about the city. However, you
must be able to walk and climb steps – sometimes lots of steps – to negotiate
the metro. I have arthritic knees, but
ironically, they hurt more when I climb steps slowly. If I scamper up the steps quickly, my knees
don’t hurt. When we reach the foot of a
flight of steps (or sometimes it is three flights) in the metro, I pick up
the pace and ascend quickly. At the
top, I begin walking slowly, so that Tom can catch up with me. Going down steps is another
matter. I’m slower, and the knees
hurt, but I just compartmentalize the pain and ignore it. We have no trouble walking,
and we’ll walk all over Paris when we want to. Only days of constant rain or heavy air
pollution keep us inside. Oh, and
sometimes there is work to do at the computers. We have mercifully less
work to do this summer, so we’ve been going out and about more. In an interesting twist on
Monday, I had more work to do than Tom did, so he went out to Saint Ouen by
himself. I was a little nervous about
that, because I’m the natural-born navigator.
So we discussed the metro
route before he left, and he managed not to get lost. Whatever construction was to take place on
the line 13 on August 3 had been completed.
The RATP web site indicated no problems. I remember one time years
ago when he went somewhere without me in Paris, he boarded the metro going in
the wrong direction. He didn’t fully
realize his error until the terminus.
The driver kindly allowed him to remain in the train at the end of the
line, so he could take it back the other way. Tom said that although the
shops in the marchés of Saint Ouen are supposed to be open on Saturday, Sunday,
AND Monday, in reality, many of the shops were closed on Monday. But there are so, so many shops and stalls
in Saint Ouen, that it hardly mattered.
The marchés are less crowded on Mondays than on the weekends. Tom did not buy
anything. However, there is much to
tempt us in Saint Ouen. If we owned an
apartment in Paris, we would certainly furnish it with purchases made in
Saint Ouen. When we went there
together, we learned how to pronounce Saint Ouen properly because a female
voice announces the stops over a P.A. system on the line 13. Not all metro lines have this P.A. service. Yesterday, we did not take
the metro or explore any other part of the city because of the rain. Instead, I cleaned and we rearranged the
furniture more to suit us in the apartment. Then we walked down the
avenue Félix Faure for a nice dinner at Le Granite. Le Granite now is offering
a 30 percent discount via lafourchette.com, and it really made a
difference. The previous time that we
dined there this summer, there was only one other table occupied. Not so last night. Many tables were occupied, and I think the
deal offered on lafourchette.com was the reason. The web site exists in
English, too: thefork.com. Only in a city like Paris
can you do your grocery shopping at 9:30PM on your way walking home from
dinner. A newish Monoprix on the rue
de la Convention near the avenue Félix Faure was open, and we took advantage
of that in order to pick up a few items. The view of the sky from
the balcony was lovely last night, so we opened up and enjoyed the cool
evening air for a while. Life is good. |
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Looking
down at the Julia, a peniche
that we see every summer near the Passerelle Debilly.
Somewhere, there is a nice cat aboard this peniche.
Dinosaur
on the roof of the Bateaux-Mouches headquarters.
We
missed the “Dear Hair” exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly.
Dog
awaits master in the Health City gym on the avenue de la Motte-Picquet.
Moelleaux au chocolat at Le Granite. |
