What Am I Allowed to Hope?

You come across the most interesting questions in public restrooms. No, not those questions.

The question above was etched onto the mirror in the toilettes of Les Philosophes, a popular café in the heart of the Marais. Given the name of the place, I suppose it's appropriate, but it struck me as particularly appropriate for us at this moment. What do we hope for from our time here? We're working on it, as the RATP, the Metro system, is working on their stations.

Do we expect our life here to be an endless series of lovely days in charming spots like the one below?

Of course not; we're not fools. We expect a series of ups and downs, of extremes even, just as Paris has extremes. Walking down the same street you can find this:

and this:

But it's great to be walking these streets. I put our name on the mail box and buzzers today. Now we're official.

Lazily we float along

Port de l'Arsenal, by objetsparis.

It came as a surprise to me when I found that there was a marina in the heart of Paris, something I discovered a few years ago when I spent a lot of time at the semi-annual Brocante held at Place de la Bastille. In between the stands of antiquaires I glimpsed pleasure craft lined up at the quai and had to go investigate.

If the Blogger software didn't cut off some of the picture you could see on the far right of the photo the column in the middle of the Place de la Bastille. We find ourselves now living just around the corner, sandwiched neatly between that Place and the lovely 17th century Place des Vosges, which we walked through this evening on the way home from a stroll. We keep pinching ourselves.

For some reason I haven't been taking as many photos as usual and having been having some difficulty uploading the ones I do take. Bear with me, I'll hit my stride soon.

To Lille or Not to Lille

Well, we got there and thankfully got back again. How to describe it? We took a train from Paris Gare du Nord and arrived at about 11:00 a.m. Friday, thinking we'd see some of the city before the Braderie started on Saturday at 2:00 p.m., after the various foot races.

Vieux Lille is charming and definitely worth a visit at any other time, and I understand the Musée des Beaux Arts is the second best collection in France after the Louvre, but half the town was closed getting ready for the market, and the other half was getting out of town to avoid the hordes descending. Every Lillois I met was planning to stay away or gearing up to rake in tourist Euros, and all dreading the horror to come.

We were able to get a taxi to our hotel on arrival, but the driver spent the entire trip telling us about precautions to take in the crowds, for our persons and our purses. The last thing he told us was that there was absolutely no chance that we could get a taxi back to the station on Saturday night. The hotel confirmed that there were no public transportation options that would get us from the hotel to the station, that no taxis would be willing or able to get through, we would have to walk and that the usual 10 minute walk would take about 40 minutes through the crowds. In the event, it took 50 minutes at 6:00 p.m. Had we taken our originally planned 9:00 p.m. train, it would probably have taken more than an hour.

While several streets were kept ostensibly stall-free for safety vehicles, there was no way to avoid the Braderie streets. At several points on the way to the station we were pressed so tightly in the crowd on one of the smaller streets that we literally couldn't move. I found myself thinking of being trampled to death in a panicked crowd. In this case it would more likely be death by suffocation. Claustrophobes might have been screaming at this point. I started elbowing. At a couple of points someone larger and stronger pushed through and we took the opportunity to follow in his wake. Since he was rude enough to push through in front of mothers with strollers (what were they thinking?!?) and large women in wheelchairs, who were we to remain politely dying in the throng? Besides many of these folks had beers in hand and seemed perfectly content to stand still until they needed another.

As for what there was to see, this is in fact a true flea market, not an antiques market, with an incredible range of items for sale, from new shlock, used clothing, toys, broken furniture, bits and pieces of old plumbing, etc. to used and still usable furniture, pottery, dishes, linens, books, music, and anything else you can imagine. Not as much fun, or as interesting, as the Alameda Flea Market, in my humble opinion. Along the routes are also stands selling fried take-away food and restaurants that set up huge numbers of tables and chairs to sell the traditional moules frites in black metal pots.

It goes on forever, taking up many of the streets in the center and in many cases forcing you to stay in the stream of gawkers and shoppers whether you want to or not, because the escape options are few. To cross one of the streets we had to ask one of the vendors if we could climb over and around his "backstage" stuff and squeeze between big white vans parked nearly bumper to bumper. As it grew later on Saturday the streets became more crowded and the crowd a bit younger and more evidently enjoying their beer. At some point I had to stop taking pictures because of the crowd.

We saw lots of people with shopping bags on wheels and others carrying large items in their hands, on their backs, and other methods of removal, but from a tourist point of view, you have to come prepared. Think of how you'll get that stuff home. Lots of people, by the way, didn't seem to be buying anything at all, just wandering along, looking at the stalls and cloths on the ground with no apparent intention of buying. Families were out with grandma and the kids.

It was exhausting and, to tell the truth, not much fun, at least for us. I would definitely not do it again, and it's not even one of those things about which I would say, "well, I'm glad I did it once."

On the other hand, you might love it.

Charming spaces

The stair in the courtyard, by objetsparis.

Charm is something we looked for while apartment hunting, and I fell in love with this one because it had loads. What it doesn't have loads of is room.

I don't know if Parisiennes have small wardrobes because they have no space or if they have no space because they have small wardrobes. Much more interesting question than the chicken and the egg, or at least more esthetically pleasing to contemplate. In any case, we've unpacked 3 1/2 of our four large suitcases and managed to find room for nearly everything we'll use in the next couple of months, barring a blizzard. Should that arise, there's the other half of that last suitcase left to break into.

The suitcases themselves are a bit of a problem, in that they're big, bulky, and obviously there. In keeping with the space-at-a-premium Parisian philosophy, every nook and cranny (how do you say that in French?) already holds the bits and pieces of our landlady's life and won't hold a pair of gloves, much less a few large red suitcases. At the moment they're tucked behind sofas and next to worktables. I'm thinking of piling them up and voilà, a coffee table, currently lacking in the apartment. Where do you suppose she puts the champagne bottle between pours?

Housekeeping

Metro entrance, originally uploaded by objetsparis.

It's such an indulgence to know we're here for the long haul. Dinner last night, I'm almost ashamed to admit, was half a ham sandwich at 9:00 p.m. and a bowl of cereal at 2:00 a.m, both part of the emergency rations we bought yesterday. And we didn't feel guilty about just hanging out in our Lufthansa jammies on our first night, when typically we'd feel we had to go out and Take Advantage of Being Here. Instead we admitted we were tired, didn't feel very hungry, and would rather read old New Yorkers.

Having finally broken down and popped an Ambien after the cereal, we slept until noon and managed to get out of the apartment before 3:00 p.m. We're now clutching our Navigo Metro passes in our hot little hands, Gene's got his new cellphone number, and we picked up the train tickets for our overnight on Friday to Lille, where we will be attending la Grand Braderie, the biggest flea market in Europe it's said, with more than a million attendees and 60 kilometers of stalls. Why, you may ask. Why not, we would answer.

We'll let you know if it was a good idea.

September 1, 1939

Doorway in the Marais by objetsparis.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland.

Still kvetching after all these years

Sacre Coeur rainy day, by objetsparis.

Oy vey, even first class is tough at this age, but thank god for all those miles we were able to use. We finally got to the hotel at about 10 p.m., (1 p.m. California time), having left the house 20 hours before.

They give you pajamas on Lufthansa! Now that's what I call civilized. We both slept several hours thanks to the magic of pharmaceutical chemistry, managed a quick shower in the Munich lounge, had wheelchairs throughout for the broken-toed gimpy husband, but still, it's never a breeze...god knows what we'll do when we run out of mileage! Spoiled? Hell yes, I'm a princess and we all know it!

When we checked into the hotel we got the message that G. and M. were waiting for us at Lipp, so we met them for a late dinner. First time we've met her, and we liked her a lot; I hope she made allowances for us.

This morning it rained just long enough for us to get wet moving into the apartment that will be our home for the next two months and to do a little damp grocery shopping, then a bit of sun finally came out. It's a wonderful neighborhood, lots of cafés, food shopping, restaurants, boutiques, and easy transport to nearly everywhere in the city. And luckily the apartment is just as charming as we remembered from our single visit last year.

The major challenge so far was our inability to connect to wi-fi, but I got hold of our landlady's cute young IT guy who came over, spoke English, and hooked us up. I would have settled for two out of the three, but we hit the trifecta. Voilá, we're connected to the world again. Amazing how everything seems magnified with jet lag; I was ready to throw things in frustration at being unhooked from my cyber-lifeline.

Actually I had gotten hold of our friend Linder, who in an incredibly bizarre coincidence lives in the same building we’ve just moved into, next staircase, who brought over a life-saving ethernet cable that would have allowed us to limp along on one computer, fighting for access with teeth bared, but that risk to our happy marriage is no longer one we have to deal with.

So now we're happily typing away at our separate laptops, just like home. I had another little glitch when I couldn't get Skype working, but that too has passed and I had a quick chat with my sister, whom I miss terribly already, even though we sometimes go days without speaking to each other on the phone at home. The distance, the long duration of this visit, and the fact that I can't just jump into the car to go see her, makes the inability to connect loom large.

And now that tout va seemingly bien, it’s time to find a café, have an aperitif, and begin our Parisian life. Yippee!!

(I'll try to limit future kvetching, so don't write me off yet)