Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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Tom found an available taxi driver up on the near end of the avenue de la Motte Picquet, at the taxi stand that faces in the direction of the rue du Commerce. “J’ai beaucoup des valises et une femme,” he said to the driver, as he began to explain that they’d first need to go to our apartment building to collect same before going to the destination. “Moi, je préfére beaucoup des femmes et une valise,” the driver responded wittily. (Tom: I have a lot of suitcases and one wife. Driver: I prefer a lot of women and one suitcase, myself.) Fun with French. So the two men were smiling when they arrived at the porte cochère for our building. A couple of neighbors in the building passed through the porte cochère while I stood waiting with the suitcases. They were impressed. Maria, the guardienne, also passed through, and was impressed. She suggested, however, that Tom could have simply hailed a taxi outside the door. I just answered that that was a good idea, but thought, “she doesn’t take taxis much in Paris.” The fact is, almost all of the taxis going down our street are already occupied or they’re on their way to responding to a call. If you’re on a street that leads to or from a train station, or by a very major metro station, or a cluster of hotels, yes, it is possible to simply go out and hail a taxi. The practice is frowned upon by the authorities, however. They want you to either phone for a taxi (which incurs an extra charge) or to get one at a taxi stand. By going to the taxi stand, Tom was also able to ensure that we had a taxi that could handle our suitcases. Actually, we had three suitcases, three briefcases, one shopping bag, one boxed mini-stereo, and one large Chico’s handbag. Nine items, and two adults. That’s plenty. At the end of the month, we’ll be throwing away clothing worn out over the past three summers, and then we’ll leave a suitcase in storage (the cave) at the apartment building in the 15^th, as we always do. When you live in a place for a few months, and you’re doing some work there, getting ready to move is more time consuming than if you’re simply vacationing. For one thing, there are papers to go through, and decisions to be made about what to throw away and what to keep -- plus decisions to be made about what to move and what to put in storage right away -- and decisions to be made on how to organize everything. Then there’s the cleaning. We do it ourselves, because, quite frankly, we are good at it. Tom wields the vacuum cleaner better than anyone I know, and me, I’m a scrubber and polisher. Let it shine, I say. So by the time we finally reached the apartment in the 6^th with our nine items, we were tired. But we were also tired of being inside. So I suggested we walk over to the Saint-Germain market nearby to buy treats. This market has two parts: One is a fancy-schmancy little shopping mall with boutiques, showy windows, and marble floors and walls. Soft music is piped through the mall. The other is a food market (cement floor, industrial ceiling), with a couple butchers, a few fruit-and-vegetable vendors, a dairy vendor, wine shop, Italian deli, Chinese takeout, and baker. And oh, yes, there’s a new French deli with delicious looking soups and tins and jars of foie gras, etc. I prefer this kind of market, in a covered, enclosed, climate controlled space to the open air markets scattered throughout Paris. Tom and I both find the open air markets to be not clean enough. The butcher and dairy vendors remembered us, which is always so nice. I’ve normally not shopped too much at this wine shop, because Nicolas is less expensive, but this time I entered the wine shop and was very pleased by how nice and helpful the owner was and how perfectly he understood and answered my questions. The dairy place has more than cheese. There we bought two kinds of cheese (a cantal laguiole and a blue from the Auvergne), eggs, orange juice, and fig preserves made with port. At the butcher, Tom asked for thinly sliced ham (jambon blanc) and a terrine made with some figs and foie. At the bakery, we bought a standard baguette, and an exceptionally good little loaf of multi-grain bread. Back at the apartment, we snacked on these things as well as some fantastic olives that Carol and Ron left in the fridge. We were so content and tired that we decided not to go out. Instead, we unpacked, settled in, listened to jazz on the little stereo now out of its box, and read. Peace. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Join me on Facebook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Friday, September 9, 2011 The Louvre. Pont Alexandre III. Above our heads, flowers growing on a balcony, not far from the Eiffel Tower. The cute RER train station at Javel, in the 15^th. ← Previous Next →