The Ryndex

Nancy and Jody (my second and third guests of the year) were arriving on Saturday morning at 7AM. I would have had to get up at a ridiculously early hour to meet them at the airport, so I gave them excellent directions to get to Denfert-Rochereau from Charles de Gaulle Terminal 1. I got to the métro station a bit later than I expected, but they weren’t there yet, so I waited and read my Dive Theory book (my exam is at the end of the month). I waited about an hour, and decided that since I didn’t have Nancy’s cell phone number, I should go home and wait for her to call me…

I found her phone number and gave her a call, letting her know that I was at home and she should call me back to meet her wherever she is in Paris. About an hour later, she called me and gently reminded me that she wasn’t going to arrive until 7PM. Oh yeah. Whoops.

Well, no sense wasting good pain au chocolat. I rang up Antonio and Anna, and they came over for coffee and breakfast. I was tired of being a jaded local — I wanted to be a tourist again (and have an excuse for my crappy French). So we took a ride out to the Trocadéro, the slightly curved art-deco building that faces the Eiffel Tower. This is one of my favourite ways to see the Eiffel Tower.

We walked from the Trocadéro to the Bir Hakeim bridge, which has one level for the métro and one level for cars, and then continued along the thin slice of land separating the Seine towards the small Statue of Liberty.

I’ve been reading some anti-French sentiment in the American media concerning their anti-war-against-Iraq stance in the United Nations. I don’t know whether it’s a genuinely held opinion, or crass manipulation from the press. The real Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French people. There was significant French support in the American Revolution, and France was the first European nation to adopt the same values of democracy. There is a successful French program that assigns a French family to individual graves in the American Cemetery in Normandy, where the heroic Americans fought and died to restore the French democracy. They visit the grave at least yearly to place flowers there, and pass the responsibility to their children. Bells rang throughout the country to mourn the victims of the September 11th attack. American movies, music and books flourish in France, even if the American cuisine doesn’t (with the exception of Tex-Mex, of course). Your kilometrage may vary, but I don’t see that much honestly anti-American sentiment here.

Is there really an expectation that the French government should unconditionally side with America in a war against Iraq, regardless of the views held by the French people? Why is there a backlash against anyone that makes the effort to point out and discuss the specious reasoning supporting the war?

I’m going to cut this off here. I’m not feeling confident that we’ll look back in five years and think that things turned out just fine. But I will be very happy when I can look back and think this portion of the travel log is very dated.

So Antonio, Anna and I went to the Hotel de Ville and discovered that there was a free circus exhibition going on. So we saw it. The highlight was easily the pink latex corridor of nightmare hands.

After that, we strolled through the Marais and found the most famous salon de thé in Paris: the Frères Mariage. The shop in front of the teahouse was filled with jars and jars of loose tea, carefully labeled and stacked on wooden shelves. It smelled delicious, and I saw a great art deco teapot that I would love to own, at the low price of 200€. Of course, it quickly pays for itself when you consider that a cup of tea in the salon costs 6€ by itself…

Later in the day, I saw a great lamp. I’m not much for furniture shopping, but I’m going to interrupt this travel log to show you the lamp I want and need. Absolutely perfect. Absolutely 7200€.

Take your time and admire it.

Anyway, we walked around some more and ended up at Notre Dame, where we separated. It was getting late in the day and I needed to get going to meet Nancy and Jody at the airport, Terminal 1 (remember?).

I got stuck on a slow RER that serviced every stop out to the airport, so I was about ten minutes late getting to the train station. But even though you need to take a shuttle bus to get to Terminal 1 (yes, Terminal 1), I should have gotten there in time to meet them after they picked up their luggage. Of course, I got to Terminal 1 — the artsy seventies sci-fi terminal — and couldn’t find their arrival gate. Because EasyJet is serviced at Terminal 3. Whoops. Again.

I took the shuttle bus back to the train station, and found Terminal 3, which is hidden behind a hill and a road and a mysterious tunnel. There are two buildings — the far one is for arrivals. Even though their flight was about twenty five minutes late, they had been waiting for me for some time. Fortunately, the trip back into Paris was a bit easier.

They dropped off their bags at my place and gave me presents of delicious things from England: chocolate and Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (the definitive Easter treat), little pork pies and breaded savoury eggs, white californian wine, some cheese including some genuine unpasteurized Canadian Cheddar. Nancy gave me some The Laughing Cow, which you can buy in France and in western Canada under the name La Vache qui Rit. This is the individually wrapped cheese in a round box, with a red cow on the front. Oddly enough, the cow wears the same round box as earring, and in the British version, these cheese-within-a-cheese boxes are labeled in French. Almost makes you think…

We went straight to the Trocadéro again, just like the morning, and walked down under the Eiffel Tower at night. Jody was thrilled, and as the saying goes “a thrilled guest is a welcome guest”. It was a nice night, and pretty warm for once. However, I vetoed eating at any of the overpriced, underdelicious stands by the Eiffel Tower, and we ended up heading back to my place for various sausages, cheeses, baguettes, olives, and wine.

The next day started with the traditional guest breakfast of café crème, croissants, pain au chocolat and other buttery good viennoiseries. Since it was a Sunday, we started the day with a market run to the Bastille — one of my favourite typically French things to do. We picked up some bunched carrots, blood oranges, some candied ginger (ginger isn’t very well known in French cooking), some choucroute for Nancy (Jody and I both are anti-sauerkraut) and some other things for a picnic lunch. We took the métro to the Louvre which was incredibly crowded. It’s free the first Sunday of each month.

Since it was cold and drizzly again, we ate our picnic in the mall under the Louvre, on some steps well away from the food fair. Some pleasant English tourists eating nearby offered us the rest of their cheese, but I declined, since we had more than enough cheese of our own. Nancy later made the point that you should always accept offers like these, if only to bring pleasure to the offerer. It’s a very good point that I will take into account in the future.

I guess that we’re far enough down in the travel log that I’ve lost most of the readers and I can offer (once again) the Secret of Free Day. There’s an incredibly long line above the Louvre, winding around the famous entry pyramid. But if you take one of the alternate entrances to the underground mall (for example, the métro access by the Arc de Triomphe de Carroussel), the line is perhaps one fifth the size.

You might stand in that line, and think you’re clever. But if you’re even cleverer, you’ll notice that the line is poorly placed, and there are stores after the metal detector. So there’s an emergency intake line that cuts right to the head of the line, presumably for quick access to these stores. You just walk to the front of the line and go through. And laugh.

Despite the fact that we spent hours in the Louvre, it was still a whirlwind tour. There was a new system that rushed you past the Mona Lisa, with museum staff barking “Avancez! Avancez, s’il vous plaît!”. I barked “OK” back at them, but I shouldn’t have. It really was an improvement over the dreamy, gaping crowd the last time I visited.

Jody managed to root out the few impressionists in the Louvre, mentally preparing herself for the Musée d’Orsay the next day, and Nancy discovered a love for Italian sculpture. I saw the Venus de Milo for the first time, and was suitably impressed.

I also took my first tour through Napoléon’s apartments in the Louvre. Pretty impressive.

In fact, despite this being my third tour through the Louvre, I mostly went through sections I hadn’t been before (with the exception of the Mona Lisa, of course). We spent long enough in the museum that it was worthwhile to stop by Café Richelieu to caffeine up for the rest of the day. I expected the prices inside the Louvre to be much more expensive than outside, but they were pretty typical compared to the exterior — 2.25€ for the mini-espresso and a discriminatory 4€ for tea. And it was right inside the Louvre! For all we know, we could be drinking tea at the very spot where royalty or servants of royalty or royal chamber pots were stored!

We eventually made it outside and walked along the Seine, crossed to the south and looked at the bouquinistes with their green boxes of antique books, old posters, postcards and other tat. We visited Notre Dame during one of the masses, so most of the church was closed off. I normally don’t like to visit churches during services, but the tourism crowd was respectful and quiet. And I understood much of the French!

We took the tour through the Latin Quarter and visited another, much tinier church, and then got to our métro station St. Michel, which of course is closed for renovation. I knew that. No problem, back past Notre Dame to Cité and home for another meal of little delicious French things accompanied by delicious little English things, and a well-deserved rest.

The next day, I went to work. Apparently, Nancy and Jody went up the Eiffel Tower, saw the Arc de Triomphe and walked the Champs-Elysée.

They learned a few things as well: the Musée d’Orsay might well be one of the best collections of Impressionist art in the world, but you’d never know it on a Monday. It’s closed. And it’s a significant walk between the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

That evening, we took the métro/RER to the airport, and Jody and Nancy got hit on in the process. We got to the right terminal and gate with plenty of time to spare, made our plans to meet again (in June, I hope!) and they went on their way. Bye!

Hey everyone, this was a pretty good model for a two day trip to Paris — most major monuments, plenty of Louvre time, but also lots of little French things like the Market and wine. What would you have done differently?