Život v Cizine (was La Vie Expatriée)

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Portrait

The downside to visiting Montmartre, as I did this afternoon, is that around the Place du Tertre especially, it's hard to avoid the hordes of artists, all clamoring to sketch your portrait (for a fee, of course). As with panhandlers, the usual trick is to avoid eye contact and to refuse to get drawn into conversation.

That said, I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up having my portrait sketched; he started even though I had kept walking. So, yes I finally did stop. It is, at any rate, a flattering likeness:

(That's my fuzzy Cossack hat, in case you're wondering.)

Labels: Montmartre, Paris, portrait

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

It's Snowing

It's not way obvious from the picture,

but those white specks are snowflakes. They're melting as they hit the ground, though, so there'll not be any snowmen (what's the French for "snowman", I wonder) in the streets.

Labels: Paris, snow

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Saturday, January 20, 2007

The corner bakery

The bakery on the corner is the one with the longest lines on Sunday mornings: I don't know that it proves that it's the best in the neighborhood, but it seems a reasonable proxy.

I've been popping in a few times a week to get my lunchtime sandwiches and my Sunday morning pain du chocolat (chocolate croissant) and the occasional loaf of bread. The staff there are very nice and the bread is tasty. French sandwiches are more about the bread than the filling, and I find that suits me well. They also have other savory baked goods, such as quiches, pizza, lasagne, etc., as well as a generous selection of pastries and candies. Fortunately, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I've resisted the temptation.

Until today, when I got a millefeuille (AKA napoleon) to go with my lunch. It was beautifully flaky and custardy. There is, however, no chocolate involved, so expect I'll be able to resume resisting the temptation. Although there's no shortage of chocolate-rich pastries from which to choose.

Labels: bakery, Paris, shopping

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Biblioholic in withdrawal

When I arrived in France, I carried with me only a few books: my Bible, a couple of reference books on living on France, and a few novels. My intent had been to have a few boxes of books, constituting what I consider my "core" library, shipped to me here. However, as things fell out, I ended up trying to do this just hours before my flight, and I ran into so many problems at the Post Office that I just gave up and had them shipped to my brother instead. (With many thanks to Uncle Arnold for helping with the process and to Little Brother for housing my temporarily orphaned books!)

So, here I am, with hardly any of my own books. The apartment has a bookcase, tiny by my standards, of course, with a modest selection of books, including some in English. I've thought about asking my brother to start sending some of my books, but then reconsidered. I'll only be in this apartment for a few months, and then I'll have to find a new home. Really, wouldn't it be better to wait until I'm properly settled before sending for my books? (It's way traumatic on books to have to settle into new homes: they're worse than cats that way. Not that books are happy about being mushed into boxes either. But it's the lesser of two evils.)

No, the answer, it seems, is to build a new and modest library, comprised mainly of books that I can love & leave.

There are several bookstores in Paris that carry English language books, and I've visited two of them so far: Librarie Galignani and W.H. Smith, both on the Rue de Rivoli. Disciplining myself strictly, I came away with only two books.

Books are so expensive in France, though: even ordinary paperbacks start at a little over 10€ (about $13-14 at current exchange rates). I did a little online comparison shopping at amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.fr, and found that, even with shipping costs added in, amazon.com ended up being least expensive. That may be in part a function of the books I chose, and I'll continue the comparative shopping routine to be sure. But in the meantime I've expanded my local library by another eight books.

There's also the French missal that I bought, since I don't know the Mass responses in French, and my French isn't quite up to the task of following the readings just by listening.

So here I am, barely three weeks into my stay, and I've already bought ten (or eleven, if you want to be picky) new books. (I've also finished five, including some I brought or found already here, and have three in progress.) And I consider myself justifiably proud of my self-restraint!

Labels: books, bookstores, Paris

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

Wednesday is sightseeing day, it seems

I went out again yesterday to see the sights. I walked in a wide arc that took in the Arc de Triomphe:

and ended up at the Eiffel Tower:

It took two hours to get to the Eiffel Tower, and when I got there, I found that the third floor was closed for the day, due to high winds. (And yes, it was indeed seriously windy yesterday.) So, I didn't bother to go up ('sides, after all that walking, I was tired!).

Besides the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, I ran across the Lithuanian Embassy and the shop for The Fleuriste du Chocolat (the chocolate florist). There were some amazing bouquets in the window, which combined (real) flowers with flowers created with petals of wrapped candies. These must be seriously popular hostess gifts.

Labels: Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Paris, sightseeing

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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

More movie outings

In the past week, I've seen Apocalypto and Hollywoodland. These were both listed as "VO" (i.e., subtitled rather than dubbed). Unfortunately, I forgot that, in the case of Apocalypto, the original was Mayan; fortunately, my French was up to the task of following along!

I was actually more impressed with Apocalypto than I expected to be. It was gory, but the gore didn't have the pornographic glee of Gibson's Passion of the Christ. It also dragged some, but I got caught up in the story and the fate of the characters.

I wasn't all that taken by Hollywoodland. Affleck made a valiant effort, and maybe the script was at least partly to blame, but he came across as wooden, and didn't convey Reeves's charm. Neither was I convinced by Brody. Diane Lane, on the other hand, was very good, and I liked Spano and DeMunn (who played Strickling and Weissman, respectively).

Labels: Apocalypto, Hollywoodland, movies, Paris

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Sightseeing

Well, there's no point in living in Paris if you're not going to go see the sights. So, last week, I went out to visit the Louvre. On my way there, I made a detour to see Sainte-Chapelle, which I had never seen before.

The palais de la Cité, where the chapel is located, is now the home for the Paris law courts, so you have to go through security, complete with x-raying bags, to get in to the chapel. They're doing some renovation, so the exterior is swathed with scaffolding, and the lower chapel is cluttered with tools and drop clothes and the like. (As an aside, I really think they should discount admission when work is going on.) Even without the clutter, the lower chapel, while nice enough, was nothing all that impressive.

The upper chapel, on the other hand, was utterly exquisite. The upper walls are nearly entirely paneled in stained glass in vibrant reds and blues. On a sunny day, it must be dazzling. As it is, I was enthralled.

My next stop was the Louvre. (The last time I had been was before I.M. Pei's pyramids had been completed.) The immensity of the Louvre still takes my breath away. Try as I might, I simply can not imagine people actually living there: everything is on simply too grand a scale.

I wandered about for a couple of hours, and probably covered less than a quarter of the total museum. But then, I'm not much of a fan of painting, and I was mostly interested in the sculptures and antiquities. Especially my favorite: the Winged Victory:

There is, by the by, a Starbucks in the Louvre. This is just so wrong. Come to think of it, I can't recall having seen any other Starbucks in Paris (not yet anyway).

Labels: Louvre, Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, sightseeing

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Housekeeping

The popularity of studio apartments in Paris makes for very space-efficient appliances.

For example, the stove in my kitchen has a dishwasher built in. There's the range on top, a fairly shallow oven (no roasting turkeys in this oven; I'm not even sure if I could manage a roast chicken, which may account for the popularity of roasted chickens in the butcher shops), and at the bottom, a drawer that opens out as a dishwasher rack. While demonstrating the amenities of the apartment to me, my landlord explained that I can not use the oven and dishwasher at the same time. It's hard to imagine that this is a problem that would arise often. And in fact, I've not yet had occasion to use the dishwasher. Nor have I used the oven all that often, either.

I also have a washing machine at my disposal, which is certainly handy. It's very cunningly designed. It's less than 20 inches wide, not even as wide as a one of the cabinets, so it fits quite handily into a corner of the kitchen. It loads from the top, and the drum rotates vertically, rather than horizontally. It doesn't hold a lot, so I'm needing to do laundry a few times a week. And there's no dryer: instead, I have a folding rack that I drape damp laundry over. Apparently, the existence of a washing machine but not a dryer is a fairly common arrangement. On sunny days (we've had a few recently), I look up sometimes to see people drying laundry on their windowsills.

I also have a towel drying rack in the bathroom. This seems rather an indulgence, but it is nice to have a dry and toasty warm bathmat and towels in the morning.

Labels: housekeeping, Paris

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Monday, January 08, 2007

That fatal phrase

It's worth pointing out that, to date, I have not once heard that fatal phrase, "My, what good French you speak, for an American".

I don't know if I've changed, or the French have. The most likely explanation, actually, is that I'm living in a residential neighborhood with a substantial immigrant population, so my French is not particularly noteworthy one way or another.

Labels: French, Paris

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Sunday, January 07, 2007

"Lumen de Lumine, Lumière née de la Lumière"

I went to this show at Notre Dame cathedral this evening.

Described as

Opéra d’images pour découvrir ou redécouvrir les "Mystères de la Nativité", sous-titré en anglais, projeté sur écran géant transparent, suspendu dans le Chœur de la Cathédrale, destiné aux petits et grands. Une heure d’un récit imagé, mêlant textes bibliques, narration, musique & projection de chefs-d’œuvre de l’Art chrétien.
(An opera of images to discover or rediscover the "Mysteries of the Nativity", subtitled in English, projected onto a giant transparent screen suspended in the choir of the Cathedral, designed for children and adults alike. A one hour illustrated story, mixing biblical texts, narration, music, and projection of masterpieces of Christian art.)

It was a very prettily done show, and wove its different pieces together quite nicely. The English subtitling, however, was distinctly amateurish.

Labels: Notre Dame de Paris, Paris

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Friday, January 05, 2007

Out to the movies

I went to the movies this evening for the first time in Paris (and my first time in several weeks!), and saw The Holiday. It was entirely predictable, but mostly charming, although I really wanted to slap Cameron Diaz' Amanda around a few times.

American movies are very popular in Paris, and most movies can count on a Parisian release. Unfortunately, the release dates are different. While usually this means that they're later, so I now have another chance to catch Hollywoodland, sometimes it means that they're earlier. In particular, it looks as though I've missed Children of Men: it opened in France in November, and right now, it doesn't appear to be playing anywhere closer than Marseilles.

The movie listings for American, or other foreign language films, include a notation "VO" (version originale) or "VF" (version Française) to indicate whether it's subtitled (VO) or dubbed (VF). Sometimes the same theater will offer both versions.

Labels: movies, Paris, The Holiday

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Just looked out my window...

To see two policemen riding by on their bicycles. They weren't pedalling all that quickly, so I gather they were just making their usual patrol.

Given traffic and parking (and it's amazing to see the way that the French will wedge their cars into any little teeny, tiny space, even straddling corners), I suppose bike patrols make a lot of sense. It was, nonetheless, a surprising sight.

Labels: Paris, police

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Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Second visit to Table d'Eugene

I may just try eating my way through the menu.

My first visit, I had the salade aux boudin noir (salad served with four croûtes of black sausage), brick auvergnate (a sort of gratin with potatoes, cheese, and ham), and lemon sorbet.

This second visit, I had the salade de cabécou au miel (salad with chèvre drizzled with honey), poisson au sauce beurre nantes (fish with a *very* buttery sauce studded with baby shrimp), and tarte belle Hèlene (a tarte with a filling of chocolate mousse studded with poached pear).

I have to say that the desserts are the weak spot: the lemon sorbet featured too much rind, making it bitter, and the tarte was okay, but boring.

My initial impression of Table d'Eugene as a neighborhood spot has been confirmed, though.

Labels: Paris, Table d'Eugene

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Into the center of town

Today was the first day I ventured out of my immediate neighborhood: I headed specifically for the Bazaar de l'Hôtel de Ville to find adapters for my computer & speakers. Which I found, along with a (French) power strip and a few other little odds and ends. Then, since I was in the area anyway, I wandered over to Notre Dame de Paris.

Even midday on a Tuesday, it took about 10 minutes for the line for entrance to the cathedral to make its way inside. Is this just still the holiday season, or is it like this all the time? And what a nuisance for those for whom this is their "home parish." But it's as lovely as I remembered.

And now that I have my adapters, I can get set up again with my own Internet access. Yippee!

Labels: Bazaar de l'Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame de Paris, Paris

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Monday, January 01, 2007

Bonne Année

A quiet day today, a bit at loose ends. I made it to the 11 AM Mass at Notre Dame de Clignancourt and went for another walk out towards Montmartre. This time, though, instead of going up on the hill, I just followed Blvd de Rouchechouard out to the Place Pigalle, where it turns into the Blvd de Clichy. Which in turn is where Paris' strip clubs congregate. This was another area full of tourists: I counted over a dozen tourist buses parked along the street.

Labels: Montmartre, Paris

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