Random thoughts after two weeks in Paris....
(1) We have been surprised at the disparity among the cost of various items when compared to their relative cost in the United States. Some things are much more expensive: gasoline, of course (I had the pleasure of a $110 fill-up during the trip to Luxembourg), but also clothing (particularly men's shirts, for some reason; common white cotton dress shirts run about $55 in the stores I've looked in), Diet Pepsi (anywhere from $2 to $4.50 for a half liter, assuming you can even find it [ Coca Cola Light seems to have cornered most of the market]; you can imagine how that's killing me), sliced meat ($5 for four thin slices of ham), electronics such as computers, Game Boys, and so on, and children't toys. But some things are much cheaper (and seems to be much higher quality): bread and cheese especially (the local market here has a huge selection of cheese that would sell for 5 times as much at the Molsberry's Market), and also coffee (a real bargain). Food generally (except for meat) is comparable. Now perhaps this is a reflection of the fact that our part of the U.S. is itself very high-priced. But I bet some of it has to do with trade quotas and tariffs and subsidies and so on.
(2) We continue to be impressed by the people in Paris. We heard it said that people here were unfriendly, but that's not been our experience. People do keep to themselves when walking or riding the Metro or buses ... but I personally like that quality. But without exception, in our dealings with people in shops, stores, museums, buses, and other public places, everyone we've met has been unfailingly pleasant, friendly, and helpful. Perhaps it is because we have taken the effort to try to speak French (Suzie has become quite good), but I'm not sure it's just that. For all you hear in the U.S. about the arrogant, surly French, we haven't met a single one. In fact, we've seen exactly the opposite, particularly from the family with whom we are exchanging homes.
(3) Those who know me know that you don't often associate the words "Shupe" and "well-dressed." But for this trip I have tried not to look like an American tourist, and have dressed up. So it was a highlight of the trip to me when the security screener at one of the museums we visited yesterday looked at me and asked whether I spoke French or English. I may look like a tourist, but not necessarily like an American one.
(4) I'm really tall here. I was standing next to a man in the Musee de Moyen Age who was exactly my height (he was a German), and he seemed enormous, and it made me realize that I'd hardly seen anyone as tall as me the whole trip.
(5) I didn't even want to come to Paris, but after being here for two weeks, I can say that I love it. I love the way the city looks, I love the outdoor cafes and pastry shops and restaurants, the architecture of the city, the over-the-top monuments, the color of the buildings, the Metro, the buses, the open spaces and the narrow streets, the museums, the Seine, the people with their dogs (who always seem to resemble each other), the espresso, the Tabacs, the markets, the scooters and the "Smart" cars ... pretty much everything. The city has a feel to it that is just perfect, accepting and yet respectful of privacy and space; it doesn't feel like a big city. It feels like an upscale village. Oh my God, I sound like Hillary Clinton, time to deblog.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
No Rose Line in St. Sulpice
My mother wanted to hear a free organ concert in a cathedral called St. Sulpice today. The concert (really just a mini-recital or something, it lasted about 25 minutes) was very good, the same sort of experience we had in the other church, with the huge organ pipes echoing sound all up and through the vast stone space. But unknown to (or unremembered by) me was the fact that St. Sulpice plays a role in the book The Da Vinci Code, as the place where the evil albino Silas thinks he is going to find the keystone because of clues that lead him to the "Rose Line," which is described as the original prime meridian, zero degrees longitude. The line appears in St. Sulpice just as it is described in the book, a bronze line running along the floor and up an obelisk on the north wall of the church.
But next to the obelisk was small pamphlet describing the purpose of the "gnomon":
The brass line on the floor of this church and continued on the obelisk against the wall forms part of an "astronomical gnomon" built here in 1743.
This scientific instrument comprises:
-- the meridian line precisely oriented north/south,
-- a small aperture in the metal plaque on the right-hand upper side of the opposing window.
It has never been called a "Rose Line".
It is not the vestige of an ancient pagan temple. No such edifice ever existed on this site.
It has never been used to define the "prime meridian," a role now played by the Greenwich meridian....
The flier goes on the say that at noon solar time each day, the rays of the sun would project a disc of light at a different point along the line every day, and that the gnomon was used "to ascertain various parameters of the earth's rotation" and "to check the calculations made in the 16th century ... for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar," and that it was "also intended th help determine the exact time, and to relay it to Paris by the toll of bells."
So here we have a serious factual disagreement between the prologue of The Da Vinci Code which, although I don't have it here, I recollect saying something to the effect that 'every single fact in this book is completely true and accurate' (although exactly what that means in a book of fiction is a fair question), on the one hand, and the folks at St. Sulpice, on the other. Now let's see, who should I believe here, an author who wants to make money by selling books, or the priests at St. Sulpice? Well, I suppose the priests could be despritely trying to cover up their church's unsavory pagan past, but somehow I doubt it. Also, a bit of quick research on the Internet reveals that although France did have its own "prime meridian," as did many other countries, it is uncertain whether it ran through St. Sulpice:
France clung to the Paris meridian (now longitude 2º20 east) as a rival to Greenwich until 1911 for timekeeping purposes and 1914 for navigation. When other world powers agreed on Greenwich as the prime meridian in 1884, France abstained. Typical “French exception” mentality, you might think — but France had practically invented the modern science of earth measurement, and thus had a very decent claim to the prime position.
A French astronomer, Abbé Jean Picard, had been the first to measure the length of a degree of longitude and from it compute the size of the Earth, in 1655. This feat in turn was instrumental in the siting of the Paris Observatory: on Midsummer’s Day 1667, members of the newly formed Academy of Sciences traced the future building’s outline on a plot outside town near the Port Royal abbey, with Picard’s meridian exactly bisecting the site north-south.
Another web site describes how dearly the French wanted to keep their own prime meridian:
The Greenwich Meridian was chosen as the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference, where forty-one delegates from 25 nations met in Washington DC. By the end of the conference, Greenwich had won the prize of Longitude 0º by a vote of 22 to 1 against (San Domingo), with two abstentions (France and Brazil). Algeria, a French dependent, objected to the phrase "Greenwich Mean Time" and proposed "Paris Mean Time diminished by 9 mins 21 secs" instead.
My conclusion: No Rose Line in St. Sulpice, just an Astronomical Gnomon.
But next to the obelisk was small pamphlet describing the purpose of the "gnomon":
The brass line on the floor of this church and continued on the obelisk against the wall forms part of an "astronomical gnomon" built here in 1743.
This scientific instrument comprises:
-- the meridian line precisely oriented north/south,
-- a small aperture in the metal plaque on the right-hand upper side of the opposing window.
It has never been called a "Rose Line".
It is not the vestige of an ancient pagan temple. No such edifice ever existed on this site.
It has never been used to define the "prime meridian," a role now played by the Greenwich meridian....
The flier goes on the say that at noon solar time each day, the rays of the sun would project a disc of light at a different point along the line every day, and that the gnomon was used "to ascertain various parameters of the earth's rotation" and "to check the calculations made in the 16th century ... for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar," and that it was "also intended th help determine the exact time, and to relay it to Paris by the toll of bells."
So here we have a serious factual disagreement between the prologue of The Da Vinci Code which, although I don't have it here, I recollect saying something to the effect that 'every single fact in this book is completely true and accurate' (although exactly what that means in a book of fiction is a fair question), on the one hand, and the folks at St. Sulpice, on the other. Now let's see, who should I believe here, an author who wants to make money by selling books, or the priests at St. Sulpice? Well, I suppose the priests could be despritely trying to cover up their church's unsavory pagan past, but somehow I doubt it. Also, a bit of quick research on the Internet reveals that although France did have its own "prime meridian," as did many other countries, it is uncertain whether it ran through St. Sulpice:
France clung to the Paris meridian (now longitude 2º20 east) as a rival to Greenwich until 1911 for timekeeping purposes and 1914 for navigation. When other world powers agreed on Greenwich as the prime meridian in 1884, France abstained. Typical “French exception” mentality, you might think — but France had practically invented the modern science of earth measurement, and thus had a very decent claim to the prime position.
A French astronomer, Abbé Jean Picard, had been the first to measure the length of a degree of longitude and from it compute the size of the Earth, in 1655. This feat in turn was instrumental in the siting of the Paris Observatory: on Midsummer’s Day 1667, members of the newly formed Academy of Sciences traced the future building’s outline on a plot outside town near the Port Royal abbey, with Picard’s meridian exactly bisecting the site north-south.
Another web site describes how dearly the French wanted to keep their own prime meridian:
The Greenwich Meridian was chosen as the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference, where forty-one delegates from 25 nations met in Washington DC. By the end of the conference, Greenwich had won the prize of Longitude 0º by a vote of 22 to 1 against (San Domingo), with two abstentions (France and Brazil). Algeria, a French dependent, objected to the phrase "Greenwich Mean Time" and proposed "Paris Mean Time diminished by 9 mins 21 secs" instead.
My conclusion: No Rose Line in St. Sulpice, just an Astronomical Gnomon.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Shop Shop Shop
Today was our day to hit the stores. We took the Metro to Place de la Bastille, then walked around (delayed by several downpours) the Place des Vosges, where Suzie bought several prints, then walked to the Marais, where we found the best deal we've found so far in Paris for lunch, at a place called La Locandiera -- an excellent satisfying lunch for 5, including coffees, for 25 euros.
We then took the Metro to the "Grandes Boulevards" for some big dog shopping, at various unnamed stores and at Au Printemps, one the "Grands Magasins" of Paris. Now those of you who know me well know what I think of shopping, especially in a department store ... it is to be avoided until absolutely necessary. But Au Printemps was (oh hell, how do I say this?) pretty cool. Three large multiple-story buildings, the main building having on its top floor a relatively inexpensive cafeteria with an indoor-outdoor seating area having an excellent view of the Paris skyline. We had coffees and some pastries and enjoyed the sun, then Suzie and my mother shopped and, yes, I have to admit, I shopped, too. I did, I shopped.
We called it an early day after that, wanting to get a good night's sleep tonight after the thunder of the night before.
One final picture of something the boys love to do more than anything: Flipping open the doors of the Metro car when it comes to a stop and it's time to get off. So here's Andrew looking very pleased that he is about to indulge in this pleasure.
We then took the Metro to the "Grandes Boulevards" for some big dog shopping, at various unnamed stores and at Au Printemps, one the "Grands Magasins" of Paris. Now those of you who know me well know what I think of shopping, especially in a department store ... it is to be avoided until absolutely necessary. But Au Printemps was (oh hell, how do I say this?) pretty cool. Three large multiple-story buildings, the main building having on its top floor a relatively inexpensive cafeteria with an indoor-outdoor seating area having an excellent view of the Paris skyline. We had coffees and some pastries and enjoyed the sun, then Suzie and my mother shopped and, yes, I have to admit, I shopped, too. I did, I shopped.
We called it an early day after that, wanting to get a good night's sleep tonight after the thunder of the night before.
One final picture of something the boys love to do more than anything: Flipping open the doors of the Metro car when it comes to a stop and it's time to get off. So here's Andrew looking very pleased that he is about to indulge in this pleasure.
Museums, Hospitality, Lightning, and Thunder
The last two days were the most relaxed we've had.
On Friday, we split up because Suzie and my mom wanted to shop. In the morning I took the boys to the Musee des Arts et Metiers, which contains exhibits about the invention of various things. Housed in a handsome cathedral built between the 11th and 13th centuries, it was very well done, displaying the artifacts according to various themes (measurement, materials, construction, communication, transportation, etc.) It contained things that I (and the boys) found really interesting: very early telescopes, microscopes, mechanical computational machines, computers (including a Cray supercomputer from the 1980s that took up an enormous amount of space in order to obtain the now incredibly slow speed of 265 MHz), typewriters (including one with a double-sized keyboard, with separate keys for capitals and lower-case letters), steam engines (including an enormous steam-powered wagon from 1798), bicycles, cars, phonograph records, tape recorders, lasers, etc. In the chapel, hung from the highest point in the church, was (so it said) one of the original pendulums used by Foucault to show the rotation of the earth. At noon, one of the museum's employees gave a demonstration and lecture (in French) about Foucault to about 8 of us, of which I could get about 1/16th of (he kept asking me "Comprendez vous?" and I kept lying, "un peu").
After that we met up again with Suzie and had lunch (large, delicious, and relatively inexpensive) near the Pompidou Center. We then walked past the Hotel de Ville to the Ile St. Louis and along the Seine. At this point, the boys and Suzie decided to go home, and I stayed and walked to the Latin Quarter (maybe my favorite part of Paris so far, but there are so many interesting parts that it is difficult to choose) to visit the Musee National du Moyen Age, which is partially housed in the ruins of Roman baths dating from 200 a.d., and partially in a building constructed in the 15th century. I had been looking forward to visiting this museum, but for some reason it was a disappointment. The museum was poorly lit and hot, and the artifacts -- almost all of them religious, not surprising given the primacy of the church in the Middle Ages -- became oppressive after a while. Or maybe that was the point of the museum, to try to capture the feel of life during that time, in which case the museum succeeded.
In the evening, we had one of the nicest experiences we've ever had. The parents of the wife in the family in whose apartment we are staying (Laurence) live about three blocks away. They have been very helpful to us, and they invited us over to their apartment on Friday for drinks and hors d'oeurves. We went over at 7:30, and had the best time. In addition to Laurence's parents, her younger sister was there also, and they were among the nicest, friendliest, easy-going, congenial, down-to-earth, gracious people I have ever met. We sat and had a conversation in French (mostly Suzie, until the second glass of champagne started taking effect) and English about various things, and they had prepared many delicious things to eat (quiche, sausages in croissants [they laughed at our expression "pigs in a blanket"], the most delicious cantaloupe I've ever had, charcuterie, chocolates, various kinds of nuts, I can't remember it all). It was so civilized ... just perfect. And they had us over for this wonderful feast solely out of the goodness of their hearts. It will be a memory of Paris that will stay with me forever.
That night, the boys had an experience they will never forget. It had been intermittently rainy all day, but at about 3 in the morning a full scale lightning and thunderstorm hit. I mostly slept through it, but the boys got up and went out on the balcony and watched the show. They talked and talked about it the next day. For me, a Midwesterner, thunderstorms were commonplace, but the boys were amazed, and were hoping for more today (but so far they have been disappointed).
On Friday, we split up because Suzie and my mom wanted to shop. In the morning I took the boys to the Musee des Arts et Metiers, which contains exhibits about the invention of various things. Housed in a handsome cathedral built between the 11th and 13th centuries, it was very well done, displaying the artifacts according to various themes (measurement, materials, construction, communication, transportation, etc.) It contained things that I (and the boys) found really interesting: very early telescopes, microscopes, mechanical computational machines, computers (including a Cray supercomputer from the 1980s that took up an enormous amount of space in order to obtain the now incredibly slow speed of 265 MHz), typewriters (including one with a double-sized keyboard, with separate keys for capitals and lower-case letters), steam engines (including an enormous steam-powered wagon from 1798), bicycles, cars, phonograph records, tape recorders, lasers, etc. In the chapel, hung from the highest point in the church, was (so it said) one of the original pendulums used by Foucault to show the rotation of the earth. At noon, one of the museum's employees gave a demonstration and lecture (in French) about Foucault to about 8 of us, of which I could get about 1/16th of (he kept asking me "Comprendez vous?" and I kept lying, "un peu").
After that we met up again with Suzie and had lunch (large, delicious, and relatively inexpensive) near the Pompidou Center. We then walked past the Hotel de Ville to the Ile St. Louis and along the Seine. At this point, the boys and Suzie decided to go home, and I stayed and walked to the Latin Quarter (maybe my favorite part of Paris so far, but there are so many interesting parts that it is difficult to choose) to visit the Musee National du Moyen Age, which is partially housed in the ruins of Roman baths dating from 200 a.d., and partially in a building constructed in the 15th century. I had been looking forward to visiting this museum, but for some reason it was a disappointment. The museum was poorly lit and hot, and the artifacts -- almost all of them religious, not surprising given the primacy of the church in the Middle Ages -- became oppressive after a while. Or maybe that was the point of the museum, to try to capture the feel of life during that time, in which case the museum succeeded.
In the evening, we had one of the nicest experiences we've ever had. The parents of the wife in the family in whose apartment we are staying (Laurence) live about three blocks away. They have been very helpful to us, and they invited us over to their apartment on Friday for drinks and hors d'oeurves. We went over at 7:30, and had the best time. In addition to Laurence's parents, her younger sister was there also, and they were among the nicest, friendliest, easy-going, congenial, down-to-earth, gracious people I have ever met. We sat and had a conversation in French (mostly Suzie, until the second glass of champagne started taking effect) and English about various things, and they had prepared many delicious things to eat (quiche, sausages in croissants [they laughed at our expression "pigs in a blanket"], the most delicious cantaloupe I've ever had, charcuterie, chocolates, various kinds of nuts, I can't remember it all). It was so civilized ... just perfect. And they had us over for this wonderful feast solely out of the goodness of their hearts. It will be a memory of Paris that will stay with me forever.
That night, the boys had an experience they will never forget. It had been intermittently rainy all day, but at about 3 in the morning a full scale lightning and thunderstorm hit. I mostly slept through it, but the boys got up and went out on the balcony and watched the show. They talked and talked about it the next day. For me, a Midwesterner, thunderstorms were commonplace, but the boys were amazed, and were hoping for more today (but so far they have been disappointed).
Friday, July 29, 2005
The Expected and the Unexpected
Yesterday we did things that you'd expect tourists in Paris to do: We visited St. Chapelle (noted for its stained glass; it was beautiful, but somehow not quite as spectacular as I expected), climbed the towers of Notre Dame (the boys and I anyway, more on this later), and toured the Luxembourg Garden (by far the most beautiful spot in Paris, in my opinion). Our day started out, as it always does, on the Metro,
then to St. Chapelle
and the surprise visit to the French courts (see preceding post).
When we got to Notre Dame, there was a long line to go up the towers, and because of the limited space on top, they only let in about 15 people at a time. So it took us more than an hour of waiting to get in, during which I repeatedly tried to convince the boys that it wasn't worth the wait. But they were determined, and they were right ... it was worth the wait. Not only were the views of Paris spectacular, but the whole experience, from climbing up the narrow old spiral staircases, to seeing the bizarre gargoyles up close and personal, was very neat.
Afterwards we met up with Suzie and my mom, and walked (through a humid thundering downpour) south to the Latin Quarter. We had an excellent 8 euro prix fixe lunch (quiche Lorraine for the entre, curry chicken for the plat, and creme caramel for dessert), then happened upon an nearby old cathedral, St. Severin. Right as we went inside, the organ, with huge old pipes, started playing discordant music that sounded like it was made for a horror movie (or, more likely, was intended to instill in its listeners a healthy fear of God). So we sat and listened to the impromptu concert for about ten minutes. Very, very intense, the heavy, minor-keyed organ echoing throughout the vast, hard, cold stone interior.
By this time, the sun had come out again, making it even more humid. We headed south, through the Latin Quarter to the Luxembourg Garden, which were absolutely magnificent. Suzie let the boys rent one of the little sailboats that kids push around the large pond in the center of the gardens, and we adults sat in the shade and watched the people come and go.
As it happens, the bus line that runs closest to our apartment (our friend, the 82) has its opposite terminus at the Luxembourg Garden. We found the stop and took it all the way back, a very long, humid, but pretty ride. A very relaxing day.
then to St. Chapelle
and the surprise visit to the French courts (see preceding post).
When we got to Notre Dame, there was a long line to go up the towers, and because of the limited space on top, they only let in about 15 people at a time. So it took us more than an hour of waiting to get in, during which I repeatedly tried to convince the boys that it wasn't worth the wait. But they were determined, and they were right ... it was worth the wait. Not only were the views of Paris spectacular, but the whole experience, from climbing up the narrow old spiral staircases, to seeing the bizarre gargoyles up close and personal, was very neat.
Afterwards we met up with Suzie and my mom, and walked (through a humid thundering downpour) south to the Latin Quarter. We had an excellent 8 euro prix fixe lunch (quiche Lorraine for the entre, curry chicken for the plat, and creme caramel for dessert), then happened upon an nearby old cathedral, St. Severin. Right as we went inside, the organ, with huge old pipes, started playing discordant music that sounded like it was made for a horror movie (or, more likely, was intended to instill in its listeners a healthy fear of God). So we sat and listened to the impromptu concert for about ten minutes. Very, very intense, the heavy, minor-keyed organ echoing throughout the vast, hard, cold stone interior.
By this time, the sun had come out again, making it even more humid. We headed south, through the Latin Quarter to the Luxembourg Garden, which were absolutely magnificent. Suzie let the boys rent one of the little sailboats that kids push around the large pond in the center of the gardens, and we adults sat in the shade and watched the people come and go.
As it happens, the bus line that runs closest to our apartment (our friend, the 82) has its opposite terminus at the Luxembourg Garden. We found the stop and took it all the way back, a very long, humid, but pretty ride. A very relaxing day.
Pour Les Avocats
This is a mini-post for my attorney friends in Santa Rosa. We visited St. Chapelle yesterday, which is surrounded by the French courts. As a result, we had to go through a thorough security check to get in the complex, but once we were in, we were free to walk about the complex. The boys and I got adventurous, and found our way into the main court building. I asked ... correctly in French, mind you ... if we could go into the courtrooms, and was told that they were all open. We visited several, including the "premiere chambre." So here are a few pictures for you avocats.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Space 187
Some have noted that I left hanging the question of whether we ever found the right parking spot (a critical part of this narrative, to be sure). It turns out that the Mechalis had written the wrong number on the information sheet they left us. Their space is 187, not 87, so we ended up in the right space after all.
Nana and the Children Disappear
You've heard about the cows, you've heard about the diabolical elevators, now here's another one....
The trip back from Freudenstadt was very long and tiring. We had hoped to stop en route at Nancy, but it was overcast and intermittently raining, and we weren't going as quickly as we had hoped (we weren't on the tollways, so it was slower going). By the time we arrived in Paris (the last 30 minutes being stop and go on the Peripherique and its approaches) we were beat.
There is a huge parking garage under our building, but when we left we (and I should really say "I") neglected to notice (a) which spot in the garage we were parked in, and (b) which door we exited from. When we got back to our building, I first pulled up to the gate, hit the remote ... and nothing happened. A second time ...nothing happened. Then I considered that maybe I should be over at the next set of gates. In the meantime, some old Mercedes leaking coolant had pulled over and blocked what I now assumed were the correct gates. After waiting for him to move, I pulled in to the second set of gates, pushed the button on the remote, and ... nothing happened. At that moment, another car pulled in immediately behind us, so that we were stuck. As that happened, the gate started to open. But we couldn't know whether we had opened it with our remote, or if the car behind us had opened it ... which meant that we couldn't be certain if we were in the correct garage.
With the other car behind us, we had no choice but to roll forward, so I headed into the garage, down the ramp, and took the first right. I'm now attempting to maneuver what now seems like a huge Chrysler Voyager minivan through a parking garage designed for small Renaults. And I don't know where our parking place is. We decide to pull into a space near the door to the elevator and have Suzie and I go up to the apartment to find the piece of paper that has the number of the space. At the elevator, we discover that there is water leaking through the closed doors. We push the button anyway, and when the doors finally open, we see that there is a torrent of water cascading down the elevator shaft, making a sheet through which we must pass to enter the elevator. At this point, we are wondering what effect the water must have on the electronics in the elevator, but we press "5" and head up. We find the paper with the parking space number -- it says "87" -- and we head back to the elevator. To get to the parking garage, you have to insert the house key and then push a special button. We do that, drop to garage level, race through the cascade of water, make a right through one door, and a left through two others, and enter the garage through the same door we had come through to go up ... only to find that the car has vanished: The space we had parked in was empty.
So now we've lost my mother and the kids. I'm exhausted, the elevator is flooding, I'm longing for my 2-car garage in Santa Rosa. I start off exploring the parking garage, which has more nooks and crannies than you'd think possible, hollering the Suzie and regular intervals to make sure that I don't get lost. Finally I figure out that the garage must have two levels. But how to get to the level the car is on is completely unclear. Through random wandering (with shouts to Suzie every 30 seconds) I find the ramp down to the second level, and eventually find my mom and the boys, all wondering where we had gone.
But to get to the correct level now requires that we move the behemoth Voyager again which, you may recall, was already damaged in Freudenstadt. This I manage to accomplish with great fear and skill, and when we get to the right level, we start looking for space 87 (we do this by walking, by the way). There's the three hundreds, there's the two hundreds, and there's space 187, but there is no space 87. Suzie even tries asking a French family returning from a weekend excursion, but they have no idea where space 87 is (they were probably just happy they could find their spot). In the end, we park in spot 187, cart our luggage through the deluge in the elevator, and return later to place a note on the windshield saying to call if we have usurped someone's spot.
This was the trip's low point. I was exhausted, felt incompetent about not being able to even park the damned car, and felt guilty about the damage to the car to boot. It was raining outside and raining inside. Being away for 4 days made our apartment seem strange again. And I was behind on my blogging. Bad bad bad.
The trip back from Freudenstadt was very long and tiring. We had hoped to stop en route at Nancy, but it was overcast and intermittently raining, and we weren't going as quickly as we had hoped (we weren't on the tollways, so it was slower going). By the time we arrived in Paris (the last 30 minutes being stop and go on the Peripherique and its approaches) we were beat.
There is a huge parking garage under our building, but when we left we (and I should really say "I") neglected to notice (a) which spot in the garage we were parked in, and (b) which door we exited from. When we got back to our building, I first pulled up to the gate, hit the remote ... and nothing happened. A second time ...nothing happened. Then I considered that maybe I should be over at the next set of gates. In the meantime, some old Mercedes leaking coolant had pulled over and blocked what I now assumed were the correct gates. After waiting for him to move, I pulled in to the second set of gates, pushed the button on the remote, and ... nothing happened. At that moment, another car pulled in immediately behind us, so that we were stuck. As that happened, the gate started to open. But we couldn't know whether we had opened it with our remote, or if the car behind us had opened it ... which meant that we couldn't be certain if we were in the correct garage.
With the other car behind us, we had no choice but to roll forward, so I headed into the garage, down the ramp, and took the first right. I'm now attempting to maneuver what now seems like a huge Chrysler Voyager minivan through a parking garage designed for small Renaults. And I don't know where our parking place is. We decide to pull into a space near the door to the elevator and have Suzie and I go up to the apartment to find the piece of paper that has the number of the space. At the elevator, we discover that there is water leaking through the closed doors. We push the button anyway, and when the doors finally open, we see that there is a torrent of water cascading down the elevator shaft, making a sheet through which we must pass to enter the elevator. At this point, we are wondering what effect the water must have on the electronics in the elevator, but we press "5" and head up. We find the paper with the parking space number -- it says "87" -- and we head back to the elevator. To get to the parking garage, you have to insert the house key and then push a special button. We do that, drop to garage level, race through the cascade of water, make a right through one door, and a left through two others, and enter the garage through the same door we had come through to go up ... only to find that the car has vanished: The space we had parked in was empty.
So now we've lost my mother and the kids. I'm exhausted, the elevator is flooding, I'm longing for my 2-car garage in Santa Rosa. I start off exploring the parking garage, which has more nooks and crannies than you'd think possible, hollering the Suzie and regular intervals to make sure that I don't get lost. Finally I figure out that the garage must have two levels. But how to get to the level the car is on is completely unclear. Through random wandering (with shouts to Suzie every 30 seconds) I find the ramp down to the second level, and eventually find my mom and the boys, all wondering where we had gone.
But to get to the correct level now requires that we move the behemoth Voyager again which, you may recall, was already damaged in Freudenstadt. This I manage to accomplish with great fear and skill, and when we get to the right level, we start looking for space 87 (we do this by walking, by the way). There's the three hundreds, there's the two hundreds, and there's space 187, but there is no space 87. Suzie even tries asking a French family returning from a weekend excursion, but they have no idea where space 87 is (they were probably just happy they could find their spot). In the end, we park in spot 187, cart our luggage through the deluge in the elevator, and return later to place a note on the windshield saying to call if we have usurped someone's spot.
This was the trip's low point. I was exhausted, felt incompetent about not being able to even park the damned car, and felt guilty about the damage to the car to boot. It was raining outside and raining inside. Being away for 4 days made our apartment seem strange again. And I was behind on my blogging. Bad bad bad.
The Louvre
We spent most of Wednesday at the Lourve. It took us six hours to see a tiny fraction of what's there. I focused on older stuff, because I find that more interesting that froo-froo 18th century neo-classical French stuff (sorry if I've offended anybody). So the boys and I spent most of our time in the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Medieval sections. Those sections weren't too crowded, but parts of it were a madhouse (at one point we were overlooking the main lobby, and I asked the boys what they thought of it, and Andrew said, dead-on, "It looks like an airport."). We got there early enough to see the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and the Venus de Milo w/o massive hoards. Of those three, only the Winged Victory statue was more impressive than I thought it would be.
The coolest things we saw where fragments of the earliest hieroglyphics writings, three-thousand-year-old dice, and the Code of Hammurabi, inscribed in hieroglyphics on a black marble pillar. Even with the crowds, it was an awesome experience, reminding me that some small part of human nature is truly grand.
In the evening, Suzie and I went to dinner alone. We found a charming little bistro on a small, tree-lined square in the Marais, and had a delicious romantic meal together. We sat there amazed that we were sitting there.
A few favorite random images from the day follow.
The coolest things we saw where fragments of the earliest hieroglyphics writings, three-thousand-year-old dice, and the Code of Hammurabi, inscribed in hieroglyphics on a black marble pillar. Even with the crowds, it was an awesome experience, reminding me that some small part of human nature is truly grand.
In the evening, Suzie and I went to dinner alone. We found a charming little bistro on a small, tree-lined square in the Marais, and had a delicious romantic meal together. We sat there amazed that we were sitting there.
A few favorite random images from the day follow.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Strange Industrial Wild Tech in a Little Town
Catching up again. Our visit to Freudenstadt was mostly very pleasant, but was marred by someone vandalising the car we were borrowing from our French family. Someone put a long dent (but somehow, didn't scratch the paint) on the passenger side. When we saw it we were sick about it, and remained that way for 3-4 days. Fortunately the French family was very good about it; they said that it was just a part of the risks you took in doing a car exchange. Still, we feel really bad about it and offered to pay whatever the cost of getting it fixed.
We discovered the damage the evening we arrived in Freudenstadt, and immediately afterwards Suzie and I went off to find a grocery store to buy some things for dinner. After 45 minutes of searching, we finally stopped and asked someone, who directed us to the "Kauffland." This was a large building surrounded by a large, double-level parking lot (with a very miss-able entrance, we missed it twice). When we entered the store, everyone was pushing shopping carts filled with food, but there was no food to be seen anywhere. There were televisions, bicycles, electical cords, CD-Rs, underwear, socks, batteries, sporting goods ... the place looked like Wal Mart, not a grocery store. Finally we found, at the very corner of this enormous space, a moving stairway that lead to a second, lower level, which was the biggest grocery store we've seen in Europe. Not quite as big as Safeway, but impressively close. But we couldn't seem to find anything we wanted, maybe because we were tired from the day's travel. It just seemed like a bad scene all around, the lines were long, the store had a very uninviting industrial feel to it, the people weren't particulary friendly, and my German wasn't being resurrected the way I thought it would be. I will always remember the Kauffland as being a bit surreal.
Our hotel was a small facility located in an area called Lauterbad about 1 mile south of the main city. One of the area's claim to fame is its natural mineral water baths. Our hotel had a small indoor pool filled not with clorinated water, but with naturally-heated clear, soft mineral water. It also had a sauna. Very refreshing after the Kauffland experience.
The next morning we had breakfast in the dining room (it came with the room and was delicious), then hiked on a trail through the woods to the city. Another claim to fame of the city is its glass. There was a place where a man was making hand-blown glass, and we sat and watched for about 20 minutes. It was fascinating to see how deftly he could create various different pieces from the viscous hot material: vases, small animal ornaments, and so on. After that we walked around the city. German cities are almost eerily clean and ordered, pretty but in almost an unreal way, and this one was no exception. After lunch we walked back to the hotel, and then experienced the Panorama Bad.
The Panorama Bad is an enormous indoor swimming center. We saw ads for it and thought the boys would enjoy it. We had a great deal of trouble finding it (this was universally true in Freudenstadt). When we found the entrance, it was like we were on board the U.S.S. Enterprise (the Star Trek version, not the real thing). Rather than just taking our money and letting us in, we were given bands for our wrists that held one large circular colored disc. The disc, when placed against a larger round disc next to the entrance to the facility, caused the larger round disc to light up, and opened the entrance. Once past the entrace, we tried to find a locker, but the room we entered into was a series of maze-like aisles, some for people with shoes, some for people without shoes, some for men, some for women, some for both, some for families. None of them seemed to lead directly to the pool. I finally found an aisle that looked appropriate for a man and two boys with shoes, got a locker, and changed. (Suzie reported that she worked her locker by placing her wrist-disc against a disc on her locker, which lit up and allowed the locker to open. (I am not making this up.) Once we changed, we reached a point where we could see the facilities through a glass door ... but it was locked (with no disc either). We finally figured out that you had to go through shower rooms to get to the pool, so we made it in.
And, it was quite a facility. A huge regular pool, a large diving pool, a heated half-indoor, half-outdoor pool, a baby pool, and a 110 foot water slide that emptied into yet another pool. Two observations: First, liability laws must be different in Germany than in the U.S., because basically the entire facility was unsupervised, even the diving pool, which had a 10-foot springboard diving board (you can't even find a pool in the U.S. anymore that has a 10-foot springboard) and the water slide (which was a wild rush of children running, pushing, and landing on each other at the end of the slide). Second, I have never felt thinner in my life ... or more tanned! I'm pretty white, but the people in this pool were as white or (scary to conceive of) even whiter than me. Suzie looked Middle-Eastern. So if you are ever feeling fat and pale, go to a pool in Germany.
We never figured out why the wrist discs were necesary, since there was only one entrance, and you couldn't get in unless you paid. It was as if they were saying ... we have this groovy technology and by golly you're going to use it. I have to mention that the discs reminded me of the training collars that Captain James T. Kirk and his crew had to wear when they were captured and forced to be "Thrals" (gladiators that fought battles so that a higher-order intelligence could make wagers). I'm sure my fellow Trekkies will remember that episode, it had the striking blonde alien woman in the skimpy costume who falls for Kirk (well, maybe all the episodes did, but I seem to recall some brunettes too, and at least one fell for Spock).
Time to end this post. Pictures follow.
We discovered the damage the evening we arrived in Freudenstadt, and immediately afterwards Suzie and I went off to find a grocery store to buy some things for dinner. After 45 minutes of searching, we finally stopped and asked someone, who directed us to the "Kauffland." This was a large building surrounded by a large, double-level parking lot (with a very miss-able entrance, we missed it twice). When we entered the store, everyone was pushing shopping carts filled with food, but there was no food to be seen anywhere. There were televisions, bicycles, electical cords, CD-Rs, underwear, socks, batteries, sporting goods ... the place looked like Wal Mart, not a grocery store. Finally we found, at the very corner of this enormous space, a moving stairway that lead to a second, lower level, which was the biggest grocery store we've seen in Europe. Not quite as big as Safeway, but impressively close. But we couldn't seem to find anything we wanted, maybe because we were tired from the day's travel. It just seemed like a bad scene all around, the lines were long, the store had a very uninviting industrial feel to it, the people weren't particulary friendly, and my German wasn't being resurrected the way I thought it would be. I will always remember the Kauffland as being a bit surreal.
Our hotel was a small facility located in an area called Lauterbad about 1 mile south of the main city. One of the area's claim to fame is its natural mineral water baths. Our hotel had a small indoor pool filled not with clorinated water, but with naturally-heated clear, soft mineral water. It also had a sauna. Very refreshing after the Kauffland experience.
The next morning we had breakfast in the dining room (it came with the room and was delicious), then hiked on a trail through the woods to the city. Another claim to fame of the city is its glass. There was a place where a man was making hand-blown glass, and we sat and watched for about 20 minutes. It was fascinating to see how deftly he could create various different pieces from the viscous hot material: vases, small animal ornaments, and so on. After that we walked around the city. German cities are almost eerily clean and ordered, pretty but in almost an unreal way, and this one was no exception. After lunch we walked back to the hotel, and then experienced the Panorama Bad.
The Panorama Bad is an enormous indoor swimming center. We saw ads for it and thought the boys would enjoy it. We had a great deal of trouble finding it (this was universally true in Freudenstadt). When we found the entrance, it was like we were on board the U.S.S. Enterprise (the Star Trek version, not the real thing). Rather than just taking our money and letting us in, we were given bands for our wrists that held one large circular colored disc. The disc, when placed against a larger round disc next to the entrance to the facility, caused the larger round disc to light up, and opened the entrance. Once past the entrace, we tried to find a locker, but the room we entered into was a series of maze-like aisles, some for people with shoes, some for people without shoes, some for men, some for women, some for both, some for families. None of them seemed to lead directly to the pool. I finally found an aisle that looked appropriate for a man and two boys with shoes, got a locker, and changed. (Suzie reported that she worked her locker by placing her wrist-disc against a disc on her locker, which lit up and allowed the locker to open. (I am not making this up.) Once we changed, we reached a point where we could see the facilities through a glass door ... but it was locked (with no disc either). We finally figured out that you had to go through shower rooms to get to the pool, so we made it in.
And, it was quite a facility. A huge regular pool, a large diving pool, a heated half-indoor, half-outdoor pool, a baby pool, and a 110 foot water slide that emptied into yet another pool. Two observations: First, liability laws must be different in Germany than in the U.S., because basically the entire facility was unsupervised, even the diving pool, which had a 10-foot springboard diving board (you can't even find a pool in the U.S. anymore that has a 10-foot springboard) and the water slide (which was a wild rush of children running, pushing, and landing on each other at the end of the slide). Second, I have never felt thinner in my life ... or more tanned! I'm pretty white, but the people in this pool were as white or (scary to conceive of) even whiter than me. Suzie looked Middle-Eastern. So if you are ever feeling fat and pale, go to a pool in Germany.
We never figured out why the wrist discs were necesary, since there was only one entrance, and you couldn't get in unless you paid. It was as if they were saying ... we have this groovy technology and by golly you're going to use it. I have to mention that the discs reminded me of the training collars that Captain James T. Kirk and his crew had to wear when they were captured and forced to be "Thrals" (gladiators that fought battles so that a higher-order intelligence could make wagers). I'm sure my fellow Trekkies will remember that episode, it had the striking blonde alien woman in the skimpy costume who falls for Kirk (well, maybe all the episodes did, but I seem to recall some brunettes too, and at least one fell for Spock).
Time to end this post. Pictures follow.
Here's to the Boys
I'm exhausted after a day at the Louvre and an evening out (just me and Suzie) in the Marais, all of which will be described in a later post. But I wanted to share a picture of the boys on a street we happened across during our search for a good lunch spot: Rue des Bons Enfants. Street of the Good Children. (I think this was a bit of a joke, since this street was right in front of a police station.)
Anyway, Suzie and I agreed this evening that although they've had their moments, Will and Andrew mostly have been great on this trip. Even today, a long long day at a museum, they were well-behaved and genuinely interested (I got them sucked into a find-the-oldest-thing-in-the-museum game, which was won by finding Mesopotamian (sp?, sorry, long day) artifacts that were 10,000 years old.
So here they are...deux bons enfants on the Rue des Bons Enfants. Thank you boys!
Anyway, Suzie and I agreed this evening that although they've had their moments, Will and Andrew mostly have been great on this trip. Even today, a long long day at a museum, they were well-behaved and genuinely interested (I got them sucked into a find-the-oldest-thing-in-the-museum game, which was won by finding Mesopotamian (sp?, sorry, long day) artifacts that were 10,000 years old.
So here they are...deux bons enfants on the Rue des Bons Enfants. Thank you boys!
Backwards in Time -- Strasbourg
We've been doing such long days here that it's been difficult for me to catch up on posts regarding the side trip we took. So I thought I'd briefly hit the remaining highlights and lowlights.
Last Friday we drove from Luxembourg to Freudenstadt in the Black Forest in Germany. En route we stopped in Strasbourg, which was very, very beautiful. Right in the middle of the old part of the city (lovely in itself), you turn a corner and come upon an enormous (really enormous, monster-sized) gothic cathedral. We all literally gasped when we first saw it, because it's so huge and it sits just right there in the middle of everything. We toured the cathedral and the old part of the city, had lunch at an Alsatian restaurant (I had some traditional dish that was cheese, ham, and onions on a large, thin flat bread; the boys had spaetzel [with a ton of cheese and cream, made mine seem like lean cuisine]; and Suzie, being good, had a salad. After that we drove on to Freudenstadt.
Strasbourg pictures follow. A reminder: Clicking on any picture will bring up a larger, clearer image.
Stay tuned for weird happenings in Freudenstadt.
Last Friday we drove from Luxembourg to Freudenstadt in the Black Forest in Germany. En route we stopped in Strasbourg, which was very, very beautiful. Right in the middle of the old part of the city (lovely in itself), you turn a corner and come upon an enormous (really enormous, monster-sized) gothic cathedral. We all literally gasped when we first saw it, because it's so huge and it sits just right there in the middle of everything. We toured the cathedral and the old part of the city, had lunch at an Alsatian restaurant (I had some traditional dish that was cheese, ham, and onions on a large, thin flat bread; the boys had spaetzel [with a ton of cheese and cream, made mine seem like lean cuisine]; and Suzie, being good, had a salad. After that we drove on to Freudenstadt.
Strasbourg pictures follow. A reminder: Clicking on any picture will bring up a larger, clearer image.
Stay tuned for weird happenings in Freudenstadt.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Tourists ... But not Quite
The boys have been insisting that we go to the Eiffel Tower, which I suppose I can understand, given its status as the one image most likely to pop into your head when you hear "Paris." So today we decided to get it out of the way (neither Suzie or I were very thrilled about going). So we got up early and got going early, to try to beat the crowds. About 4 blocks from our apartment is a bus route (the 82) that goes directly to the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to use it. (The Metro is more efficient, but as I may have mentioned, it doesn't give you the feel of what the city is like between "here" and "there.") The bus took longer than the Metro, but it was a beautiful, peaceful ride, mostly through the suburb (Neuilly sur Seine) directly south of Levellois, where we are staying. Neuilly looks to be extremely upscale, with clean, wide, tree-lined boulevards and obviously expensive apartments and shops; Suzie, whose dream has become buying an apartment in Paris to retire, added it to the list of prospective areas in which to buy.
Eventually the bus dropped us off right in front of the Eiffel Tower, where we were stunned to find an enormous line of people waiting to go up the northwest leg. Fortunately, we saw that there was another entrance (the northeast entrance) with no line whatsoever, so we headed there. It was the entrance to walk to the 2nd platform, which is what we had intended to do anyway. The walk to the first platform was a piece of cake, the walk to the second slightly more difficult (our hearts were beating pretty good by the time we arrived). Suzie has a fear of heights (her last similar attempt, a ride up the Space Needle in Seattle, was a disaster), so she stayed on the second stage while the boys and I went up the elevator to the top. I have to say, I was more impressed with the view than I thought I would be. It was a hazy day, so the city looked a bit murky, but still it was worth the trouble.
The most interesting aspect, though, was the complexity and size of the tower. The intricacy of the bracing, the number of rivets and the sheer mass of the steel used was amazing. It seemed to be incredibly solid; even up high there was no sense of being in an unsafe situation.
After descending, we walked across the Seine to the area called Passy. After being overwhelmed with tourists at the tower (we were in the middle of a horde of high school students from Idaho most of the time), we were relieved to be in an area that seemed tourist-free. We eventually found our way to a boulangerie (pictured below)that had a sit-down area for lunch, and had an excellent lunch (chicken and cous-cous salad for Suzie, spinich quiche for me, and chicken sandwiches on fresh bagettes for the boys), then went to a small Monet museum (the paintings there were "donated" by the artist's family in lieu of inheritance taxes). It was interesting to see, in a series, the different ways Monet painted the same scene. After that visit, we went back to the boulangerie where we'd lunched, and got pastries, then walked around the neighborhood a bit more (with a detour at a toy store; thankfully, French computer games are on a different system, so wouldn't work at home), found the Metro, and came home.
Suzie and I agreed we have gotten a real sense of Paris through our long walks, and while we've seen (and will see) almost all of the tourist-type stuff, we've also seen a great deal that many tourists probably don't see. We continue to be surprised by the friendliness of Parisiens, and by how comfortable we both feel here.
If we get a second wind, this evening we are going for a cruise on the Seine. More later. Pictures follow.
Eventually the bus dropped us off right in front of the Eiffel Tower, where we were stunned to find an enormous line of people waiting to go up the northwest leg. Fortunately, we saw that there was another entrance (the northeast entrance) with no line whatsoever, so we headed there. It was the entrance to walk to the 2nd platform, which is what we had intended to do anyway. The walk to the first platform was a piece of cake, the walk to the second slightly more difficult (our hearts were beating pretty good by the time we arrived). Suzie has a fear of heights (her last similar attempt, a ride up the Space Needle in Seattle, was a disaster), so she stayed on the second stage while the boys and I went up the elevator to the top. I have to say, I was more impressed with the view than I thought I would be. It was a hazy day, so the city looked a bit murky, but still it was worth the trouble.
The most interesting aspect, though, was the complexity and size of the tower. The intricacy of the bracing, the number of rivets and the sheer mass of the steel used was amazing. It seemed to be incredibly solid; even up high there was no sense of being in an unsafe situation.
After descending, we walked across the Seine to the area called Passy. After being overwhelmed with tourists at the tower (we were in the middle of a horde of high school students from Idaho most of the time), we were relieved to be in an area that seemed tourist-free. We eventually found our way to a boulangerie (pictured below)that had a sit-down area for lunch, and had an excellent lunch (chicken and cous-cous salad for Suzie, spinich quiche for me, and chicken sandwiches on fresh bagettes for the boys), then went to a small Monet museum (the paintings there were "donated" by the artist's family in lieu of inheritance taxes). It was interesting to see, in a series, the different ways Monet painted the same scene. After that visit, we went back to the boulangerie where we'd lunched, and got pastries, then walked around the neighborhood a bit more (with a detour at a toy store; thankfully, French computer games are on a different system, so wouldn't work at home), found the Metro, and came home.
Suzie and I agreed we have gotten a real sense of Paris through our long walks, and while we've seen (and will see) almost all of the tourist-type stuff, we've also seen a great deal that many tourists probably don't see. We continue to be surprised by the friendliness of Parisiens, and by how comfortable we both feel here.
If we get a second wind, this evening we are going for a cruise on the Seine. More later. Pictures follow.
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