Week 1: Paris
Arrival at DeGaule is pretty easy. You walk miles through sunlit corridors [if it isn't raining that is] and the queue up at immigration. The man asked me why I was visiting Paris, and I replied 'to see all the new baby cousins.' Nope, no smile from Mr. Efficient. He slapped the visa onto my passport and on we went to baggage claim.
Our bags were actually at baggage claim! I can't count the number of times my bags have not arrived with me, so this was very special. Slipped out the first open door and had a cigarette. The airport has been reorganized since our last visit, but we found the ticket office for our Air France bus, and then waited for it to arrive. My cousins live near Etoile, so the Air France bus is extremely convenient for us. Once we left the bus, we began the walk to the apartment but I explained to Leslie that it was essential that I have a coffee before we made it all the way. "Good idea," he replied and then I spotted what would become our new favorite cafe! Right around the corner from my cousin's apartment, a new hip spot with copper, pretty lights, and as it turned out, a delicious cafe! [We returned here every morning once I discovered an open linksys wireless.]
Our arrival at the apartment was greeted with much enthusiasm, many kisses and an introduction to Juliette, Elizabeth's most recent child. Juliette is two and has chosen to not talk. Turns out she can talk, but just doesn't. This works for me. One less person to not understand!
Before you knew it, it was lunch time, and a full French meal was set before us with the help of Marta, who comes for one hour a day. Anne and Henry look wonderful. They have hardly aged at all. In fact, I realized on this trip that I don't really know how old they are. I will guess though that they are about my parent's age: 68 and 75. Nothing in this apartment has changed since the last time we were there in 2001. Their housing passion is saved for their summer house.
Our afternoon was spent walking around the neighborhood, reaquainting ourselves with the shops and searching for internet access. [I had purchased a Sprint plan before leaving and Sprint claimed that the FNAC had an access point. Nope. No access point.]
Anne and Henry have four children, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Julien and Thomas. For this, our first dinner, Thomas and his new bride Gwenola came over. Of course, missing their August wedding was what started me on this path towards making a trip to France. I carried a gift from the Artful Hand, Boston, and thank goodness, Gwenola loved it! What a lovely woman. Meeting and getting to know her was a real treat. They shared photos of the wedding.
After a full day of walking, church viewing and museum tramping, Friday's dinner was at Henry's brother Julien-Paul's home with Anne, Henry, the wife Marie-Annick, a son Pierre Louis and his wife Fredericka. For a variety of reasons, I had never met Julien-Paul or any of his family. We walked in the door and they popped champagne in celebration of the American cousins! Okay, this stuff was amazing! Delicious! No cheap knock-offs will ever do again. Almost immediately I was presented with family trees and scanned ancestral portraits. I was asked to review my generation for accuracy, and made the requested changes. Since this was first Friday of Lent, dinner was a challenge for Marie-Annick, who apologized that no meat was included in the dinner. Okay, the meat wasn't missed. The first course was smoked salmon, served with capers, fresh lemon and olives, with a mache micro-salad. [Leslie has stated that he will never eat smoked salmon without fresh lemon again.] The next course was a casserole with something long and white, hard boiled eggs and a cream sauce. Again, so good you can hardly imagine. The cheese was lovely and then the chocolate mousse was fabulous. We ended up staying very late, chatting with our newly-found cousins. Pierre Louis and his wife drove us home since the buses had long since stopped running.
Julien-Paul lives right below the Eiffel Tower, and at midnight the Tower began to twinkle with brilliant lights. I am not a real fan of the Eiffel Tower, but even I have to admit that the light show was lovely.
Saturday, Anne and Henri left for their ski vacation leaving Leslie and I alone in the apartment, well, there was another young cousin there too, but she didn't really factor into our stay. We began our day going to the market. This daily market is just blocks from the apartment, and is really good. Patricia Wells raves about this market in her books, and I share her enthusiasm. We began at the coffee roaster, moved to the cheese shop, before ending up at a produce stand. Marta had already made a veal stew, but we needed to complete the meal since Elizabeth would be arriving from Luxembourg to see us.
Elizabeth, as always, was in great spirits. She only moved to Luxembourg from Paris in January, so she talked a lot about the new people, new schools for all five children, and how her husband is doing with his new position. For her, this evening away was a vacation. No children for 24 hours! The thing that she misses most in Luxembourg is good croissant. Otherwise, she has found other mothers, supermarkets, everything except for a good croissant. We had a wonderful evening together. In the morning, when I went outside to have a morning cigarette, I slipped down the street and bought some croissants. It was the least I could do since she had come all the way from Luxembourg just to see us!
Sunday was yet another social day. After our sight seeing, we headed to Charlotte's apartment with a fine Parisian cake in hand. Charlotte is married to Pierre and now has three children. Unfortunately, Pierre doesn't speak English so I think he finds our visits hard. Helene and Jerome have grown tremendously in the past five years; that is what children do after all. The newest child, Agnes, is something. Alert and observant, she is clearly not letting the older two do much without her. Again, a warm and wonderful evening with family.
Monday evening we spent with Nancy and Peter, Leslie's first cousins, once removed. Peter works at the American Embassy in the State Department, while Nancy is an aspiring singer/songwriter. We met at a casual restaurant near their apartment, and had a really wonderful set of conversations. We have only met them twice before, at family weddings, which hadn't given us much chance to get to know them. Well now we have, and we are certainly glad that we did. They are both smart and engaging. Peter has just learned that he has been reposed to New York City at the United Nations, reporting to Bolton., so they will not be very far away from us.
Tuesday we planned very carefully. The ballet started at 8pm, and I wanted to make sure that I had enough energy saved for this significant evening. After a full morning, we returned to the apartment to nap in the afternoon. Since I had purchased the tickets over the internet, we needed to be at the box office no less than 45 minutes before the start of the performance. In perfect Susan-Style, we arrived 75 minutes early. As we entered the lobby, a guard said something that sounded like "there are no tickets this evening." I responded in my cave-person French, that I already had tickets. There was a very long line. Several times, employees came by and review my printouts and continued to say there was a problem, in French. After about 30 minutes, a manager noticed my print-outs and indicated that I should follow him. We were taken to the other side of the lobby and put into a much shorter line. It was here that I discovered what was happening. Une greve! A strike! [If you haven't read a newspaper lately, France is having a disagreement about young workers.] Well, this was the first strike action in all of France in support of the students. And so we actually waiting in line to get our tickets, so that we could wait in line to get our refund. Back in the long line was a woman with a bright orange hat. She kept screaming, in English, at a cashier who didn't speak English, "I don't want my money back. I want to see the ballet!" Over and over she yelled. Now, I have to admit that I too wanted to see the ballet, but I was pretty sure that no one would cancel a strike just because the orange-hat woman wanted to see the ballet. It was embarrassing to watch. Leslie and I took the money with disappointment and headed back out into the city. Our biggest regret was that we had spent the afternoon resting instead of exploring the city.
Our bags were actually at baggage claim! I can't count the number of times my bags have not arrived with me, so this was very special. Slipped out the first open door and had a cigarette. The airport has been reorganized since our last visit, but we found the ticket office for our Air France bus, and then waited for it to arrive. My cousins live near Etoile, so the Air France bus is extremely convenient for us. Once we left the bus, we began the walk to the apartment but I explained to Leslie that it was essential that I have a coffee before we made it all the way. "Good idea," he replied and then I spotted what would become our new favorite cafe! Right around the corner from my cousin's apartment, a new hip spot with copper, pretty lights, and as it turned out, a delicious cafe! [We returned here every morning once I discovered an open linksys wireless.]
Our arrival at the apartment was greeted with much enthusiasm, many kisses and an introduction to Juliette, Elizabeth's most recent child. Juliette is two and has chosen to not talk. Turns out she can talk, but just doesn't. This works for me. One less person to not understand!
Before you knew it, it was lunch time, and a full French meal was set before us with the help of Marta, who comes for one hour a day. Anne and Henry look wonderful. They have hardly aged at all. In fact, I realized on this trip that I don't really know how old they are. I will guess though that they are about my parent's age: 68 and 75. Nothing in this apartment has changed since the last time we were there in 2001. Their housing passion is saved for their summer house.
Our afternoon was spent walking around the neighborhood, reaquainting ourselves with the shops and searching for internet access. [I had purchased a Sprint plan before leaving and Sprint claimed that the FNAC had an access point. Nope. No access point.]
Anne and Henry have four children, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Julien and Thomas. For this, our first dinner, Thomas and his new bride Gwenola came over. Of course, missing their August wedding was what started me on this path towards making a trip to France. I carried a gift from the Artful Hand, Boston, and thank goodness, Gwenola loved it! What a lovely woman. Meeting and getting to know her was a real treat. They shared photos of the wedding.
After a full day of walking, church viewing and museum tramping, Friday's dinner was at Henry's brother Julien-Paul's home with Anne, Henry, the wife Marie-Annick, a son Pierre Louis and his wife Fredericka. For a variety of reasons, I had never met Julien-Paul or any of his family. We walked in the door and they popped champagne in celebration of the American cousins! Okay, this stuff was amazing! Delicious! No cheap knock-offs will ever do again. Almost immediately I was presented with family trees and scanned ancestral portraits. I was asked to review my generation for accuracy, and made the requested changes. Since this was first Friday of Lent, dinner was a challenge for Marie-Annick, who apologized that no meat was included in the dinner. Okay, the meat wasn't missed. The first course was smoked salmon, served with capers, fresh lemon and olives, with a mache micro-salad. [Leslie has stated that he will never eat smoked salmon without fresh lemon again.] The next course was a casserole with something long and white, hard boiled eggs and a cream sauce. Again, so good you can hardly imagine. The cheese was lovely and then the chocolate mousse was fabulous. We ended up staying very late, chatting with our newly-found cousins. Pierre Louis and his wife drove us home since the buses had long since stopped running.
Julien-Paul lives right below the Eiffel Tower, and at midnight the Tower began to twinkle with brilliant lights. I am not a real fan of the Eiffel Tower, but even I have to admit that the light show was lovely.
Saturday, Anne and Henri left for their ski vacation leaving Leslie and I alone in the apartment, well, there was another young cousin there too, but she didn't really factor into our stay. We began our day going to the market. This daily market is just blocks from the apartment, and is really good. Patricia Wells raves about this market in her books, and I share her enthusiasm. We began at the coffee roaster, moved to the cheese shop, before ending up at a produce stand. Marta had already made a veal stew, but we needed to complete the meal since Elizabeth would be arriving from Luxembourg to see us.
Elizabeth, as always, was in great spirits. She only moved to Luxembourg from Paris in January, so she talked a lot about the new people, new schools for all five children, and how her husband is doing with his new position. For her, this evening away was a vacation. No children for 24 hours! The thing that she misses most in Luxembourg is good croissant. Otherwise, she has found other mothers, supermarkets, everything except for a good croissant. We had a wonderful evening together. In the morning, when I went outside to have a morning cigarette, I slipped down the street and bought some croissants. It was the least I could do since she had come all the way from Luxembourg just to see us!
Sunday was yet another social day. After our sight seeing, we headed to Charlotte's apartment with a fine Parisian cake in hand. Charlotte is married to Pierre and now has three children. Unfortunately, Pierre doesn't speak English so I think he finds our visits hard. Helene and Jerome have grown tremendously in the past five years; that is what children do after all. The newest child, Agnes, is something. Alert and observant, she is clearly not letting the older two do much without her. Again, a warm and wonderful evening with family.
Monday evening we spent with Nancy and Peter, Leslie's first cousins, once removed. Peter works at the American Embassy in the State Department, while Nancy is an aspiring singer/songwriter. We met at a casual restaurant near their apartment, and had a really wonderful set of conversations. We have only met them twice before, at family weddings, which hadn't given us much chance to get to know them. Well now we have, and we are certainly glad that we did. They are both smart and engaging. Peter has just learned that he has been reposed to New York City at the United Nations, reporting to Bolton., so they will not be very far away from us.
Tuesday we planned very carefully. The ballet started at 8pm, and I wanted to make sure that I had enough energy saved for this significant evening. After a full morning, we returned to the apartment to nap in the afternoon. Since I had purchased the tickets over the internet, we needed to be at the box office no less than 45 minutes before the start of the performance. In perfect Susan-Style, we arrived 75 minutes early. As we entered the lobby, a guard said something that sounded like "there are no tickets this evening." I responded in my cave-person French, that I already had tickets. There was a very long line. Several times, employees came by and review my printouts and continued to say there was a problem, in French. After about 30 minutes, a manager noticed my print-outs and indicated that I should follow him. We were taken to the other side of the lobby and put into a much shorter line. It was here that I discovered what was happening. Une greve! A strike! [If you haven't read a newspaper lately, France is having a disagreement about young workers.] Well, this was the first strike action in all of France in support of the students. And so we actually waiting in line to get our tickets, so that we could wait in line to get our refund. Back in the long line was a woman with a bright orange hat. She kept screaming, in English, at a cashier who didn't speak English, "I don't want my money back. I want to see the ballet!" Over and over she yelled. Now, I have to admit that I too wanted to see the ballet, but I was pretty sure that no one would cancel a strike just because the orange-hat woman wanted to see the ballet. It was embarrassing to watch. Leslie and I took the money with disappointment and headed back out into the city. Our biggest regret was that we had spent the afternoon resting instead of exploring the city.
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