zosianicola's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gay Paree We went to see Nina for a whirlwind visit----it was lovely, just lovely, perfect weather and guess what, springtime in Paris is just delightful (you knew that). Nina's middle school and beyond friend, who now gets an alias from me, Bertram, came along. He is like a nephew, teaches French in a TX high school, and was fun to have with us. We got to Paris on Sunday around noon, got to the train station and then had the fine experience of hanging around for 3 hours because our train was retarded (Lynn Johnston used this as an anti-gag in For Better or Worse last week). So we got to Neen's town, Bar Le Duc three hours late and she had been haunting that station waiting for us. We spent the next day in Nancy, without Mlle because she had to teach. Nancy is very gilt--the town square is all wrought iron with gold touches. That night we had the best dinner in recent memory, in a little restaurant in Bar Le Duc. We had dishes ranging from rabbit pie to snails to pig head. An incredible dessert that was some frothed-up creation with cold plums at the bottom---Neen, what was the name of that? The next day we dawdled around Bar Le Duc for the morning while she taught, and in the pm went to Paris. We got there about 5:30 and just ran out to experience the evening street life. We were on the left bank, halfway between the Notre Dame and the Pantheon. Bertram had not been in Notre Dame before so we started there, but they were doing Mass so we couldn't get a good look at the front rose window. I hope he didn't want to do the treasury, because we had all done it before and didn't want to see the Crown of Thorns and Louis 9th's vestments again. Of course everything was closing by 5:30-6 but we still had plenty to see and do until supper, for which we chose an Algerian restaurant. That was delightful--we all had couscous and tagines, halva for dessert The next day we went to Ste Chappelle first--must always see that again---but they are cleaning the windows behind the sacristy so the effect was dampened. It was really too bad---the hanging tarps really decreased the sunlight coming in. Of course it is still an incredible experience. Then we went to the d'Orsay, where I hadn't been before, by a terrible quirk of events, a disagreement with the French teacher who took me and Bill on a school trip in 1994. Every piece of art I yearned to see but hadn't yet seen is at the d'Orsay. By this I mean all the Renoirs and Degas's---his little dancer, so sweet!---and the big broad works of Manet, the little piper and Olympia with the perfect breasts and feet. We bumped into an old aquaintance from ourU with her hub and 2 kids, and she didn't recognize me---I have known her for 20 years but we go through 8-year periods not seeing each other and she never remembers me. I remember her more because she stole the husband of a friend, that's why the relationship is unequal. The friend has a daughter Nina's age, and was a very good friend--anyway she has husband-hopped and is with someone else now. The first husband would remember me. Anyway that is always fun, to be halfway around the world and see someone you know. We walked to the Tour Eiffel but the lines were long, and we had all been up there before anyway--so we took a cab back to the Rive Gauche and went to the Pantheon. i wanted very much to pay tribute to my heroine, Marie Curie. Very cold in the Pantheon! Then we walked through the jardin de Luxembourg and watched French people and their dogs. That evening we had Vietnamese and Laotian food (having had the perfect culinary experience in Bar Le Duc, a dinner which would have been $600-$700 in Paris, but was only $200 in Bar Le Duc, we decided to stick to cheaper restaurants, with food from French colonies---ie, Tunis, indochina). After dinner we walked a lot, stopped at a patisserie, twas fine The next morning we had only enough time to walk down by Notre Dame again, along both sides of the Seine, then get our cab to the airport. Bert stayed with Nina but I think he returns to the US today. After this long and very positive post I will not report the trouble we had at O'Hare field but just mention that to do customs at O'Hare one transfers one's bags, then has to leave security to get to one's next gate, so if one has bought say irish whiskey at a duty free shop in Charles de Gaulle, one must think very hard and fast and engage the assistance of the airlines to get that whiskey into a checked box. A very nice American Airlines guy did help us with that. i will post some pix when I get better ones from Nina, P-dog, and Bert. Mine are not terrific because I took very few 6:25 a.m. - 2007-03-17 ---------------------------------------------------------
a substitute activity - 2007-07-17 |
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