Thanks for checking in, so to speak (…er, write). I am taking moiself on holiday. From this Friday and through June, I will be posting blogs from the same time period of eight years ago (late May-June, 2014). New posts will return in early-mid July.
Until then, I hope y’all enjoy these reruns (or at least gain a modicum of petty amusement from making fun of them, and/or noting how NOT perspicacious my 2014 blatherings observations turned out to be). Perhaps they may spark some sense of déjà vu in you, or cause you to contemplate what you were doing and thinking in those pre-pandemic, pre-idiocy epidemic times (i.e., before the debacle that was #45).
Moiself apologizes for the fact that visuals (pictures; video clips) in the original posts may or may not be included.
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I didn’t take a camera on Belle’s and my trip to Paris. However, I am — bien sur! — equipped with the intelligent communications device that is mandatory for all sub-arctic dwelling bipeds. Thus, I managed a few shots…none of which had me in them. This seemed to annoy some people (“You’re not in them – you didn’t take even ONE selfie?!”).
Cruising up the Seine River, I am somehow not in the photo – quelle fromage!
A long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I learned that, for me, photographically documenting key moments of travel – or key moments of anything – often spoils the very thing I’m trying to authenticate. Another way to put it is that taking pictures gets in the way of my experience of what is in those pictures. I want to have those so-called Kodak moments to remember. I don’t need to be “in them” if I was truly in them.
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What follows is a series of snapshot impressions of our trip.
Truth in advertising.
On our return flight from Paris, while looking over the airplane’s safety info sheet, I realized I’d never appreciated the suitability of the name chosen by that European Airplane manufacturing company. Unless you can afford first class, travel par avion has lost whatever comfort and glamour it once had. These days, flying is like riding a bus with wings.
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* “Paging passenger shithorse to gate B…” This was heard, over the Toronto airport’s PA system, by both Belle and I. Granted, we were a bit tired and punchy after an 8 hour flight from Paris, [1] during which a distressed toddler screamed for 7.5 of those hours. But, really, that’s what we heard. Repeated several times.
I hope Mr/Ms. Shithorse made his/her flight.
* * *
* What’s with the pigeons in Paris? They are plump, shiny, big as ducks…they are…beautiful. HOW CAN THIS BE?
I’ve had to revise my opinion of pigeons, a breed of bird I heretofore would never have associated with the word beautiful. [2] Belle and I decided that the regional pigeon pulchritude was related to the Parisian love of picnics. You will not find a ten foot square plot of grass, or even cobblestone walkway by the Seine, that is not occupied by a Parisian couple or family sitting on a small blanket, reaching into their basket or bag to retrieve baguette sandwiches, cheeses, patés and wine. And where there are picnics, there will be, intentionally or otherwise, scraps left behind. Parisian pigeons are well fed.
A pigeon’s destiny fulfilled.
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* We saw less beggars and/or “street people” in Paris than in Portland, but noticed that, just as in Portland, a beggar with a pet seems to get more positive responses (read: donations, or even a kind word of acknowledgement) than those soliciting alone. A Roma-looking woman with an amazingly friendly, one-green-and-one-blue-eye white cat got all of our change, [3] as did an older gent with a bunny-on-a-halter leash.
* Ditto re spotting and encountering mentally ill street people. We saw almost none, and we did a lot of street walking. Uh, that is, we walked a lot. You know. On the streets.
The one behaviorally challenged chap we did see was quite memorable. We encountered Crazy Wheel Man on a street near Place de Bastille, where he was shouting orders, loudly but with a big grin on his wild-eyed face, at select people and objects. He hollered something at a few cars that whizzed past; he ignored Belle and moiself as we passed him, but hassled the woman walking next to us who was pushing a stroller. He went after some bicyclists, then stepped out in front of an oncoming bus, raised his hand, and began to shout advice or admonition to the driver. CWM was so dubbed by us when I realized he was yelling at the stroller, not at the woman pushing the stroller. What the objects of his hollering had in common was that they were all wheeled contraptions.
Crazy Wheel Man would not have yelled at this.
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Miscellaneous cultural highlights
* I actually heard a French person exclaim, “Ooh la la!”
* I finally had the occasion to use one of my favorite French Survival Phrases ® , “Il n’ya pas de papier dans les toilettes.” [4]
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* Our base for our trip was an apartment in the Bastille District. The first step in entering our apartment was to input a security code at the outer (street level) door. The code consisted of five units – two numbers and a letter, followed by two more numbers. The code was a snap for us to memorize once we realized the code was Belle’s bra and cup size, followed by double her bra size.
Ooh la la.
* * *
Vive l’egalite!
I love it when I espy some men who dress as ridiculously as some women, and Paris people watching afforded several such opportunities. Sitting at a sidewalk café with Belle, appreciating a really fine lunch on a really hot day and while the really hot Parisians parade past us was a daily activity. On one such day, within ten minutes I saw three different men, dressed fashionably head-to-toe…but they blew it when it came to the toe part. These men wore what I call “elf shoes.” Sort of like flat (“bad word”) pumps for women, these men’s shoes taper to an almost stiletto point; alien anthropologists, finding such footwear in an archeological dig, would assume the wearer had only three toes, with the longest one in the middle.
What with no actual human foot being able to occupy the toe box, and with no weight occupying it (as the wearer’s real toes are crammed together about three inches back in the toe box) the end of the shoe curls slightly upward. You know, elf shoes.
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* About those fashionably dressed Parisians, whose physical appearance Belle and I found both enchanting and intimidating: my enchantment level was increased when I realized I hadn’t seen one pair of saggy baggy clown ass sweats or jeans sliding down the derrières of those gorgeous French men. Not one.
You will not see this in Paris. Are y’all ready to relocate?
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* Belle: “I feel that France is better at natural selection than we are. They pick all the hot ones to breed and let the rest die out.”
* * *
* Belle and I wanted to bring back some truly authentic souvenirs for our friends – none of this made in China, plastic Eiffel Tower key ring jive. We soon realized that if we wanted to bring back something that truly said, this is the essence of Paris, we’d have to check suitcases full of skinny French men and women wearing skinny jeans who would smoke skinny cigarettes on your porch. [5]
* * *
* The native Parisians and other French folk we encountered were, by and large, not large at all. Certainly their level of activity has a lot to do with it. Paris is a walking city – you’d have to be either suicidal or a fool to drive or bike in the urban areas [6] – and most residents use a combination of walking and riding their public transit to get from points A to B and everywhere in-between. You can get quite the workout merely navigating the Metro stations themselves. And yes, those fashionably thin Parisians do partake of their incredibly delicious, rich French food, but, judging from what we saw and were ourselves served, the portions are so much more reasonable/realistic than that which we in the over-developed world have come to expect.
Also, les homes and femmes, they all smoke cigarettes. Copiously. The waiter brings the plates des jour, and after a few minutes of fashionable lingering and laughing and puffing at the outdoor tables [7] their food might as well be served in an ashtray. Which may explain why the Parisians we observed never would have qualified for membership in the The Clean Plate Club – yet another reason they stay slender.
Ash-free Sole Meunière at Les Grande Marches
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Random Louvre thoughts
* Much to Belle’s delight, we saw a surprising amount of paintings featuring cows.
* Much to the delight of moiself, I saw a surprising amount of statues of people with expressions I consider representational and realistic, more than artistic or impressionistic.
Louvre, schmouvre, I am soooooo over these gawking tourists….
* In the Louvre’s statuary garden Belle demonstrated the knowledge acquired during her four years of Art and AP art classes, and I truly appreciated her insights and explanations when I asked about certain aspects of the magnificent objects d’art we were viewing. Then, out of the blue, I heard her exclaim, “Look at him beating up that horse!”
In Belle’s first glimpse of a statue of a Roman soldier restraining a bucking stallion, she failed to notice that the soldier’s clenched fist was not in fact about to cold clock the stallion’s jaw; rather, his hand was clenched around the horse’s reins. I sooooooooo relished being able to point out that detail [8] to my otherwise well-informed and observant daughter.
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* Paris has 37 bridges (“ponts“) that cross the Seine River. On Sunday June 15 it took 29 verses of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” for Belle and I to walk from the Pont Royal to the Pont Senghor bridge. [9] We’d started our bridge walk on the west side of the city, by the Eiffel Tower, and kept going until we found just the right one (according to Belle) of several of the bridges that are festooned with “love locks.”
We had each purchased two padlocks to commemorate our loved ones, and added them to the Senghor Bridge. Belle’s locks were for her friend ALX, and also for friend MRG, who has always wanted to travel abroad (but is unlikely to do so, as she is battling a fatal renal disease). My locks were for Belle and I, in honor of our trip, and my favorite hommes, MH and K, and my late great dad.
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* Most Parisian shopkeepers, restaurant staff and other businesspersons will admit to speaking English – IF you follow the protocol greeting ritual (which is strict, expected and courteous). The few we encountered who (claimed that they) did not speak or understand English seemed rather haughty about, or even proud of, that fact.
While Belle and I found most Parisians to be quite helpful, we also learned that they help with what is specifically asked, and no more. For example, early on in our travel week, as we were discussion what we really wanted to do/see in Paris (as opposed to what everyone says you should do/see), I reminded Belle that
(a) if she desired to see the Versailles Chateau or a certain shopping district, I would leave the planning of that to her, and
(b) she should be sure to plan carefully as some sites/shops are closed on some days.
Yes, I should have followed up, after that.
On our Monday trip to the Versailles Chateau, many, many Parisians along the way, including those at the TOURIST INFORMATION CENTER, HELLO, gave us directions and helped us find the proper metro to the proper train to the Versailles Chateau, without adding just un petite helpful comment, that, BTW, the chateau is closed today. The Versailles Chateau is always closed on Mondays, the guards outside the chateau’s closed gates told one group of visitors after another.[10] But then, we didn’t actually ask anyone, “And is the chateau open today?”
* * *
* It completely slipped my mind that a thick mustard, or any condiment, would be considered a security threat or a possible bomb-making component subject to the carry-on liquid limit. And so the Charles DeGaulle airport’s dour security man searched my bag and removed the 6 oz jar of moutarde de citron I’d intended to bring home to my mustard-loving son. [11]
A simple, “Madame, zees is over ze limit” would have sufficed – it was an honest mistake, the mustard did not pass muster, I get it. Just confiscate it, okay? But, nooooo.
Dour Security Drone held the jar up to the light, seemingly puzzled by the contents. “It’s mustard,” I helpfully offered, pointing to the jar’s moutard label. He made motions as if he intended to unscrew the lid and sniff it, which would have been fine by me. But he didn’t. He continued to scrutinize the jar, turning it this way and that. Then he put it up to his ear and shook it. It took all of my self control not to feign alarm and gasp, “No – don’t do that, you’ll arm it!”
Finally, he signaled to two of his comrade and passed the mustard jar to them. He told me I could gather my things and go, but that the mustard must stay. “Fine,” I said. “Enjoy your sandwiches.”
The one that made it through.
* * *
May your condiments be TSA-friendly and mustard bomb-free, and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
[1] And facing two more flights to get us back to the Portland airport.
[2] Aka, airborne rats.
[3] Which, in Euros, adds up.
[4] This was upon emerging from a boulangeries’s WC, and warning the next woman in line about how the room was lacking a vital accessory.
[5] My friends got chocolate, coffee, pasta and fruit paté instead.
[6] Although there seemed to be no shortage of both.
[7] Smoking is banned indoors, but if you sit at an outdoor table, everyone around you will be smoking.
[8] And bring it up several times later the same day.
[9] After two or three verses I sang the rest under my breath, out of respect for Belle, who was becoming somewhat perturbed by my enthusiasm.
[10] We were far from the only out of town visitors who didn’t get the schedule right.
[11] A smaller jar made it through, vive la liberation!
