The Inaccurate Tourist

12. Mexican

What am I supposed to say when I'm asked what traditional Canadian cuisine is like? There's maple syrup and Nanaimo bars, and that's about it -- I've never tasted a Quebecois tourtiere, and I'm not about to admit to poutine. There may be a lot of great family recipes (such as Gramma's strudels), and a few traditional regional dishes here and there -- and even in Vancouver, one can find great Ukrainian food at a homemade church sale -- but there isn't any food or style that is typically Canadian.

To be a bit more clear, our North American attitudes towards the market have resulted in homogenous, brand-name supermarkets selling over-industrialized designer-label food in larger packages at cheaper prices, and sacrificing flavour, quality and nutrition in order to enhance shareholder value. This can also be observed in France (you can always buy your Royale du Cheese at the local McDo's), but the fact is that the food and ingredients really are better (and more expensive) here.

In North America, the fresh bread is made by dropping pre-made frozen dough bullets into an oven, and hotting them up -- in Paris, there are boulangeries that have used the same source of flour for six generations. In North America, you buy your loaf of bread for the week -- in Paris, your baguette might be Kim Powers when you go to bed, but it's Kim Johnson when you wake up. (Sorry Kim, and by the way everybody, try to avoid saying that we put preservatives in our food in North America. It doesn't mean what you think it means.)

If you know me, you will agree that I'm not particularly obsessed with food. However, I have been warned by another Canadian that the subject will insinuate itself into all my conversations until I find myself spending half my time talking about food.

In the meantime, however, I decided to have a dinner party for about ten people this week, and I needed a menu. I had decided to cook a Mexican meal, as authentic as possible, on the grounds that it was interesting and I had brought a bottle of Don Julio tequila from my last trip to Mexico. I consulted with a remote expert (Alberto) who graciously gave me some authentic recipes.

Searching for the ingredients was an adventure by itself. I went to several major and minor grocery stores to find pinto beans, peppers, sour cream, cheddar cheese, cilantro, and flour tortillas. The pinto beans I found (labeled as Coca Rose) in Carrefour, a hypermarché roughly equivalent to a Superstore and FutureShop rolled into one. Bell peppers (or poivrons) are easy to find in all colours, but chile peppers (or piments) aren't. I ended up buying a little jar of chile paste, and then I found a box of fresh chile peppers (unlabeled) at the Franprix supermarket close to my house. Cilantro wasn't easy to find, but I was more successful when I remembered that the seed is called coriander in English. I could only find coriandre (the name for both the seed and foilage in France) growing fresh in a pot.

I ended up finding cheddar cheese at the fromagerie, but I was prewarned that the French consider it an acquired taste, best left unacquired. I picked up some edam, some real mozzarella (completely unrelated to North American mozzarella) and some emmental on the grounds that they all can melt.

You can't find sour cream anywhere in Paris, which is alright because I wasn't sure if it was an authentic ingredient or a Tex-Mex invention (like the margherita, I've heard). For my own personal interest, I purchased a little tub of crème fraîche épaisse, or thick fresh cream. In fact, crème fraîche is very nearly the same thing as sour cream, but only slightly less acidic, and much better (of course).

I spent quite a bit of time roasting and peeling the peppers, which meant grilling them in my toaster oven for about twenty minutes, turning constantly, and then removing the blackened skin and seeds. I saved the ten most intact peppers for the chile rellenos, and chopped up the rest and boiled with a minced garlic and a little water to make a green chile sauce.

The red salsa requires that the tomatoes were slightly carbonized before being mixed with the finely chopped onions and garlic. According to the instructions, I used a molcajete to crush them, otherwise known as a mortal and pestle, otherwise known as a glass and a casserole dish.

The red salsa recipe has an extremely interesting taste -- I think the slightly burnt tomatoes make it sweeter and sharper, and crushing the tomatoes results in a very smooth texture.

The other salsa (or Pico de Gallo) that I made, on the other hand, is made of chopped, fresh vegetables. I really like cilantro, so it wasn't as optional as the recipe suggests. This is also a very simple recipe, especially for somebody talented with a chopping knife (I am not). In fact, I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite salsas that I've ever eaten -- compliments to the recipe not to the chef.

I also made refried beans -- way too many refried beans, in fact. This is also a simple recipe with few ingredients, but a few more steps. The beans need to be soaked for at least eight hours in unsalted water, and then boiled for forty five minutes (my recipe required a slice of burnt onion to be added for the last ten minutes). It's then mashed (with my improvised molcajete), and fried in a few centilitres of butter (or lard if you want) with some minced garlic, salt and pepper. Although I made too much, I'm told that it freezes well.

The trick to making guacamole in Paris is to buy the avocados a long time before you need them. Every avocado in Paris is rock hard. I had heard that apples, especially very ripe apples, release gas that causes other vegetables to ripen quickly -- hence the phrase "one bad apple spoils the barrel". I can confirm that a hard avocado sealed in a bag of apples will be suitably soft and dark green in three days.

The chile rellenos are the roasted and peeled chiles above, wrapped around my three grated cheeses and dredged through flour, salt and pepper, dipped in egg and fried in sunflower oil. In order to make sure everything was served in a timely fashion, I did them a bit earlier, and then baked them again with grated cheese. There are a lot of steps to making these things, but they turned out really well.

The two other side dishes were black rice (probably not authentic as far as I know, but my favorite rice) and corn.

Oh yeah, I also served chicken fajitas -- another great recipe that I found, and which didn't have any reference to the taco seasoning, chili powder, or prepackaged packages of "mexican spice". In fact, it didn't have any spices in it at all other than black pepper. And it turned out very well.

But enough about the food already, you say, how did the soirée go? In fact, the cooking was generally well received (I warned everybody about the dishes that were exceptionally strong, such as the green chile sauce). I had a bit of a problem with getting everything together and hot at the same time, however, so it turned out that I spent a bit more time in the kitchen shuffling dishes than I would have liked. I was fortunate to have a lot of volunteers to help out (and everybody knows that the party really lives in the kitchen).

If you can believe, I ran out of dishes as well -- it tends to happen when you have a meal followed by a dessert (I served ice cream in the colours of the Mexican flag), followed by a second dessert with champagne (both brought by guests, it was a delicious coffee and cream flavoured cake), followed by coffee.

We had a genuine chanteuse (a friend of a friend that gracefully attended, despite the absence of our mutual friend -- and became a direct friend in the process) for some entertainment, some French co-workers, a couple of Italian expatriates, another Canadian co-worker that I knew from Canada, one of the diving instructors, and at least one complete stranger.

We had sangria, red wine from Chile, tequila from Mexico, champagne and coffee from Italy. The sangria was my own version, and my definition of sangria includes any red wine with fruit, fruit juice, and some other liquor.

I'm just sticking some pictures of the Eiffel Tower here, because I had a request for a full picture. At this point, I'm standing on the Bir-Hakeim bridge, named after a city in Libya where the French Foreign Legion had a legendary victory in World War Two. This bridge is connected to the Alley of the Swans, a long and thin island in the Seine with a tree-lined promenade. I found out later that there is a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty at the end of this island, facing in the direction of the real one on the other side of the ocean.

The rest of this travel log is stolen from an email from Alberto. This is extremely poor etiquette on my behalf, and I will ask for forgiveness (after the fact). Please never do this yourself.

Recipes

The most common pepper for salsas is the Serrano pepper, this is similar to Jalapeño peppers but thinner, If you can not get them then Jalapeño is fine, if not any other raw hot pepper would do. If you get across habaneros these are great but ultra-hot for Canadian standards.

Guacamole - Alberto

• 2-3 avocados (a good avocado is blan in the outside, soft to the touch but not mushy)
• 2-3 Serrano Peppers (depending on how hot they are)
• 1/4-1/2 onion (depending on how strong it is)
• 1/4-1/2 tsp salt (salt to your taste)

Mash the avocados, cut the peppers in little pieces, chop the onion in tiny squares. Mix all ingredients and "presto" you have guacamole.

Mexican Salsa (also known as Pico de gallo) - Alberto

• 2 tomatoes (tennis ball size)
• 2-3 Serrano Peppers (depending on how hot they are)
• 1/4-1/2 onion (depending on how strong it is)
• 1/4-1/2 tsp salt (salt to your taste)

Cut the tomatos in tiny squares, cut the peppers in little pieces, chop the onion in tiny squares. Mix all ingredients and "presto". Some people add a few chopped cilantro.

Red Salsa - Alberto

• 2 tomatoes (tennis ball size)
• 2-3 Serrano Peppers
• 1/4 onion (depending on how strong it is)
• 1/4-1/2 tsp salt (salt to your taste)
• 1 garlic clove

Put the tomatoes in a pan and grill them until the very first tiny signs of charcoal appears. Put everything in a blender, blend it and that's it. If you do not have a blender, you can use a molcajete (mortar and pestle) to smash everything. This is probably one the most traditional way of making salsa.

Am I unfair to Canadian cuisine? Is North American food better than I describe?

What kind of chile pepper am I using anyway anyway?

What happened at Bir-Hakeim?

11. Hundred Steps

Hey everyone, remember that time when I decided I might like to learn to play chess, and so I signed up for a competition at work? I only had about 75 days to learn anything beyond the basic rules, and then I discovered that I would be playing against my manager's manager. Hoo boy, that was funny. Seems like only yesterday.

Anyway, the theme of today's travel log is "things that are a hundred steps away from my apartment." It was surprisingly easy to do, although I took some liberties with the distance.

Immediately outside of my apartment and around the corner, I can find the Square du Cardinal Wyszynski (named after Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, who was active in the resistance in World War II, and who was later imprisoned for his anti-Stalinist opinions). On Sundays, the park is full of parents and children playing in the playground and taking rides on the caroussel (for some reason there are a lot of caroussels in Paris, usually decorated with unlicensed images of Mickey Mouse). In the background, you can see the Gare Montparnasse -- one of the train stations for the high speed train.

On the other side of the square is the Notre-Dame-du-Travail (not the Notre Dame, but a Notre Dame). This church was built in the nineteenth century for the citizens of the fourteenth arrondissement, who were mainly laborers and workers. It shows the gothic influences of classical churches in the city, but the architecture also suggests the industrial iron-and-wood influence of the factories and Eiffel. This touch was deliberate, to remind the workman that they had a place in the church for their spiritual development, as well as in the factory for France's economic development.

The Notre-Dame-du-Travail (Our Lady of Workers) still rings its 0.5 megagram bell from Sébastopol, which was a gift from the Emperor Napoléon III -- spoils from the Crimean War.

Actually, I'm going to make my excuses and go to bed. I had a very enjoyable day walking around my neighbourhood and taking picture, but I'm just not feeling inspired enough to do the write-ups. How about you do the research and include it in the comments?

Vercingetorix was the chief of the Gauls, fighting against the invading Romans fifty years before the birth of Christ. In fact, in 52 BC, he was finally defeated (by superior numbers after a drawn-out battle), and was taken to Rome to lay his weapons at the feet of Julius Ceasar.

I believe that I previously implied that the Tour Montparnasse (a lone skyscraper in the midst of the city) was a failed effort to Manhattanize the area. In fact, soon after its construction, bylaws were passed to prevent any others from being constructed. This picture is a composite, so you can play find-the-glue-lines (there are four).

I stretched my hundred steps to take me to the Montparnasse Cemetery to get some pictures that I'd promised.

Durkheim was a brilliant socialogist. Alright, I don't know what Durkheim theorized, but I'm sure it was brilliant. Regardless of my ignorance of sociology, I'm still alive. Says something, doesn't it?

Emmanuel Chabrier wasn't a prolific composer, but he is one of my favorites. I first heard his España on a compilation CD, where it was mislabeled as Spanish Rhapsody by Ravel. It took the good old Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to set me right.

In fact, most of the plots in the cemetery are for families, so Chabrier shares this space with various other non-composer Chabriers. But he gets his bust on top.

The two most celebrated existentialists, together forever. There are little notes, tokens, flowers, candles and coins on top of the grave (mostly American and English, so bring some Canadian change with you). This picture is one of the few that turned out clear enough to see the names and dates -- you'll notice that they died in the eighties. Simone de Beauvoir might have gone to see E.T.

If you go back to Durkheim's grave, you'll notice that he gets pebbles as tribute instead of pennies.

And finally, the old windmill of the cemetery. The blades of the windmill are long gone, and just the tower is left.

Chabrier, Wyszynski, Sartre, Vercingetorix, de Beauvoir and Durkheim. What were they really like?

How on earth am I going to play a respectable game of chess in two and a half months?

10. Raft

If you are a herbologist, please identify this plant. I bought it assuming it was rosemary, and I've been eating it. However, I have learned to distrust my taxonomy when I bought an origan that wasn't oregano (but edible all the same). I bought an authentic oregano later in the week at the grocery store. I have never particularly had a green thumb. To my astonishment, my little herb garden has been visibly growing, although somewhat kinked by my plant-rotation strategy.

When the last-minute trip to Amsterdam fell through last weekend, I took a walk through a open air market. I had my video camera with me for once, so I took a "hidden camera" tour through the market.

Although it's going to look great in my "Two Years in Paris" video (after some post-production anyway), the captures are only mildly interesting. The real thing is very vivid -- there are booths for vegetables, for meat, for fish, for cheese, for flowers, for discount clothing, and for plastic, flimsy electronic whatsits. It's full of French people (and at least one Canadian), and they are all talking and choosing fruit and cheese and pointing at things.

The vegetables stalls are as bright as the flower stalls, and the meat stalls have way too many legs sticking up in the air for my liking. It's a sign of an over-industrialized food industry in Canada -- I am much more comfortable eating meat that can only abstractly be related to an animal. The idea of having to remove a head or a foot from my meat purchase makes me a bit nervous.

I have to admit that I haven't bought any food at an open air market -- it's much more convenient and familiar to go to a supermarket and purchase everything in one trip. I think you can obtain better quality food (as well as good conversation) by buying your vegetables at an epicier, your bread at a boulangerie (or better yet, a patisserie), your meat at a boucherie (but all seafood at the poissonerie) and your cheese at the fromagerie. In fact, I am now recognized at the boulangerie, and the one time I went to the fromagerie, I was treated to a ten minute lecture on the various cheeses (I picked up a delicious petit bleu rolled in raisins).

I learned something else this week about French swimming pools. I already knew that speedo-style swimwear was much more common for the gentlemen in Europe than in North America. I discovered that it is not just fashionable, it is mandatory in many pools. When I asked why, I was told there are two reasons. Based on the premise that swim shorts can be worn as regular shorts, forbidding them ensures that people will not wear street clothes in the pool. The other reason is that public outdoor swimming pools want to ensure that people won't jump the fence to enter without paying.

So I went to the local Go Sport outlet and bought my speedo-style swimwear, which were in fact Adidas brand. To celebrate the fact that Paris (unlike Canada) is not having freakish snow storms, I put a quick shot of me wearing my new maillot de bain here. Warning -- be careful what you wish for.

I had a special request for more information on two paintings from my Louvre visit -- The Raft of the Medusa and The Death of Marat. I didn't know anything about these pictures when I saw them for the first time, so I did a bit of research this week.

The rated-for-all-ages version of the story goes something like this: a frigate had to be evacuated out at sea, but there weren't enough lifeboats. Fortunately, they had enough time to build a raft so that everybody had a way to get to safety. The raft got separated from the lifeboats, so the passengers worked together to build a sail. In this painting, they see another ship and they are trying to get its attention. All fifteen people in the painting are rescued by the ship.

Put the kids to bed now; the actual story adds some gruesome details. The frigate Medusa was part of a fleet going to Senegal. As part of the negotiations following Napoléon's defeat at Waterloo, the British were returning the colony to French rule. The Medusa was carrying armament and 400 French subjects, including the new governor. The captain of the ship was being exiled for his political views.

The captain wasn't particularly apt and chose to assign all navigation duties to a passenger who claimed vast experience. Nearly immediately, they traveled out of sight of the other boats in the fleet and subsequently lost contact with them. The Medusa was travelling by following the line of the visible land rather than staying to deeper waters, and subsequently got stuck on a well-known and well-mapped shoal.

Fortunately, the problem solved itself when the tide raised the ship enough to float free with little damage. Unfortunately, the captain immediately manoeuvred the boat back onto the shoal, this time crippling it.

They were about 100 kilometers from land, and decided to evacuate the stuck frigate. Since only 250 passengers would fit in the available lifeboats, they decided to build a raft for the rest. The raft was three or four times as large as the painting it inspired and in addition to the 147 people, it was supplied with a little water, a little food and a lot of wine. The seas were calm, and the raft would be towed by the lifeboats.

On July 5th, 1816, they set out for land. When the raft was half-loaded, the captain tells them he will "be right back" to join them, and abandons the Medusa in one of the lifeboats. When the raft is completely loaded, it isn't sufficiently bouyant, so all the people stand waist deep in water. This makes it very difficult to tow the raft, so the captain and the governor cut the tow line after about 15 kilometers.

126 passengers survive the first night after the abandonment. At this point, both land and the Medusa are beyond their reach, but they manage to build a sail during the day. That night, they open the barrels of wine and manage to get very destructively drunk.

Only 66 passengers survive the second night. Hungry, incredibly thirsty, and delirious from exposure, they turn to cannibalism. After the third night, 48 passengers survive, but the weakest twelve are thrown overboard to save their meagre resources. The raft is riding higher in the water, because three quarters of the original passengers are dead.

On July 19th, the ship Argus spots the raft and rescues the fifteen survivors. The captain and his lifeboats had made it to land and civilization a week before, but wouldn't start organizing a search party until a week after the rescue had already taken place. Five of the fifteen passengers never recover and die soon after reaching land.

On August 27, a ship reached the "wreck" of the Medusa. It hadn't sank, and wouldn't sink for another few months. The ship was intact, and there were survivors on board.

There was a resulting political scandal -- the raft of the Medusa was popularly seen as an allegory of the abandoned common man. The captain faced execution for abandoning his ship when there were still passengers aboard, but successfully claimed that he had transferred responsibility to his flotilla of lifeboats. There were grand headlines, and government cover-ups, and "fashionable dandy" Theodore Géricault decided to paint a picture.

He did an incredibly job of research -- interviewing the passengers (usually the survivors, but also visiting others in the mortuary), spending months with compositions and drafts, and building models of the raft. The result was a huge masterpiece hanging in the Louvre -- for a sense of the scale, go back to my frame capture and look in the lower right corner.

The Death of Marat, by Jacques-Louis David in 1793, on the other hand, is just a painting of a guy stabbed to death in his unusual home office.

Am I unfair to Jacques-Louis David? Am I historically inaccurate regarding the Medusa? Let me and the rest of the world know.

9. La Joconde

The weekend started with a visit to Evry, which is a new city in the suburbs of Paris. It is connected the city by the RER. Most of the buildings in this area were modern, including the Cathedrale d'Evry. This building is in the shape of a cylinder 29 metres across. The roof is cut at an angle and decorated with trees. The metal "scaffolding" coming out from under the central cross is actually a set of bells.

The official website says that there are more than 800,000 hand-placed bricks on the exterior and interior of the cathedral -- the precise placement of these bricks is easily apparent from the inside. I took a bit of video inside the Cathedral, which is very interesting acoustically and aesthetically, but I couldn't get a picture that captured the vast space inside.

Sunday, however, I managed to get into the Louvre with Antonio and Anna. The Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month (saving five or six euros). I thought it would be extremely crowded, but the only real congestion was at the coat check and at La Joconde. In fact, there was a bit of oddness at the coat check -- they really stretched the definition of "coat check" when they refused to take my Roots Canada (TM) jacket or my (empty) backpack. However, I can't really complain -- it's a free service to museum patrons (and tipping is forbidden).

The Louvre is incredibly large. If you only have an afternoon to spend, you have to plan your day around the areas that interest you. I will fortunately have the opportunity to return the to Louvre again and again (and I will), so we decided to start at the top (French painters through history) and spend the afternoon there, and then go to see some of the more famous pieces in the museum, such as La Joconde.

I can't claim to be an expert on French paintings, but the names were all there -- from Eustache Le Sueur to Eugène Delacroix. If I didn't know who they were before, I know now. Although some of the more valuable and fragile paintings are behind glass, most of them are just hanging on a wall. You are even allowed to take photos as long as you don't use a flash -- a rule that was generally ignored. In fact, I took plenty of pictures of the paintings (without a flash), but I'm going to leave them off the website.

In my (limited) experience, an exhibition at a Canadian museum generally has one or two headliners -- a Renoir, Manet, Rembrandt, Degas, van Gogh -- a BIG NAME (or 'Monet-shot' if you will) that even I can recognize. I can wander around the museum and appreciate what I see, but at the end of the day I can say that I saw a BIG NAME painting.

The Louvre is nearly entirely BIG NAME art with all of the above and Michelangelo, Goya, Raphaello, Titian, Van Eyck, Rubens, Vermeer, that guy that makes the faces out of fruit and of course, Leonardo da Vinci. In a gallery of big names, his is one of the biggest for a single reason - La Joconde.

Imagine da Vinci in 1506, in front of a wood panel, using all his ability to paint the portrait of an enigmatic, smiling woman. He paints her so that her expression changes as you watch her, and as she watches you. His attention to detail and mastery of the art creates a window. Hundreds of years later, the painting has become so famous that it's always surrounded by a crowd of people. To preserve it from the thousands of flash photos taken every hour, it has been covered by a thick box of grey glass. The crowd of people stare through the grey window and memorize the details of the smiling woman, and a man to the side captures them on his camera. I take a picture of this man.

I've been deliberately coy up to now, but the words "enigmatic" and "smiling" give it away -- if you didn't already know, La Joconde is the name of the painting that I would normally call the Mona Lisa. You've seen it a thousand times in advertisements and posters, but I've left the picture off the web site, because it really is an experience to see it live, despite the Heisenberg-esque distraction of all those other pesky observers.

If you feel the need to see the Mona Lisa again, however, you can find it here.

Instead of ringing a bell and yelling "everybody out!", they close the Louvre room by room, slowly herding the patrons towards the exit. Unfortunately, I encountered this phenomenon in the Italian sculpture area. We left the Michelangelo sculptures to go find the Venus de Milo, and the doors closed one by one until we were back at the coat check.

We took a walk around the area, where I took this picture of some modern Parisian art -- big reflecting balls in a fountain. I liked the way the lights were reflected, and if you look carefully, you can see me in there as well. We were killing a bit of time so that we would arrive at the theatre in time to see a play: Meutre à la Soleil Vert, the tragi-comic story of multiple mysterious murders in a clinic. It was an extremely tiny theatre -- I think the stage was larger than the audience. It wasn't Molière this time, and the French used a lot of slang. Nevertheless, I understood most of the story and most of the nuances, except the ending which had to be explained to me afterwards.

This week, I managed to obtain my medical certificate so I could get insurance in order to subscribe to the diving club and therefore practice in the pool. I wasn't able to take my level one exam (which is the introductory level) this week, however, but I had some excellent snorkelling instruction from an experienced gentleman.

Let me know whether you think I should buy a Habitrail system and some white mice. What should I name them? Your stories about the Louvre or BIG NAMES or Art are welcome as well.

8. Department Stores

It looks like about once every month I am unable to have photos. Today its because I'm reinstalling the operating system and I haven't fiddled properly with the cables and software to properly do the digital captures. But I haven't been all lazy -- as of today, readers can add their comments to the travel log. You can share your travel story (France or not), add your point of view, ask a question or add an insult. The best comment wins an all expense-paid trip from France to the destination of your choice, for a postcard of my choosing, if I get around to it.

I managed to get a lot done this week -- I finally bought an ironing board. I haven't needed to do any ironing so far because the weather has been cold, and I can wear a sweater all day over my rack-dried T-shirt (my flat has a washing machine). I bought it at a grand department store downtown called La Samaritaine, and carried it home through the métro.

If I had been taking pictures, I would have probably put a picture of my French ironing board here.

It isn't difficult to take an ironing board on the métro, as long as you keep it vertical and preferably folded. The train was slightly crowded, and I had a distance to go, so I kept me and Blue Baron (the name of my ironing board, which is entirely white) at the back of the train. I had a surreal experience when I stood up at my stop to get off. Two English women were between me and the door, and one said to the other "do you think this is his stop?" to which the other replied "yes, he's standing up to get off." I smiled at them when I left, because I thought it would be impolite to demonstrate my working knowledge of English.

You can't just call La Samaritaine a department store -- it's a grand department store. It sprawls over three or four buildings connected by skywalks, and it sells everything from Paris fashion to kitchenware, crystal, china to designer furniture. It is right by Pont Neuf, which is one of the oldest parts of the city, and it takes advantage of its location by putting huge glass windows in striking locations. They had featured an Indes Exhibition, which was an upper floor divided into small themed rooms crammed full of Indian-themed merchandise -- it was all immaculately arranged and laid out. I would also recommend going to the top floor for CDs and books for a dizzying view through the centre of the store.

Another famous grand department store is the BHV, which is 150 years old, despite its modern sounding name. It is right beside the Hotel de Ville, which supply the H and the V for its name (the B comes from Bazar). It is also large, but quite a bit less dramatic than the others. It has pretty reasonable prices, however, so I'll probably decide to buy my iron from there in a couple of weeks. The BHV also has a Box & Co, which is a floor entirely dedicated to boxes, shelves and containers.

The Bon Marche is more of the same, a grand expensive department store with a dizzying view from the top floor to the bottom.

Finally, the Galleries Lafayette is an historical building with an extremely large stained glass dome in the middle of its ten floors. They are also known for their extremely large and stylish ads, which are periodically protested by various women's advocacy groups. For example, in January, their model was dressed in brightly coloured, slightly torn clothing with a cartoonish black eye, and resulted in protests by anti-violence groups. This February, the model was wrapped in skintight black leather with a lampshade on her head and plugged into the wall. I saw one poster with an official sticker of protest, indicating that women shouldn't be exploited on posters, especially as furniture. This month, the model seems to be entirely a full-frontal nude except for the body paint of Latin American Indians. Hopefully this won't offend anybody.

If I had been taking pictures, I would have probably put pictures of the grand department stores here. It's starting to sound better all the time, isn't it?

On Wednesday, I was supposed to practice in the pool with a local dive club. The French don't recognize the PADI certification that I have for scuba diving -- much like with light bulbs, they have their own superior standard. I have to admit that the French diving certification does seem much more comprehensive, which is probably due to the fact that the certifying agency is run by the government rather than a commercial agency. The French love of order, regulation and law is thoroughly demonstrated in the necessary paperwork. So I was going to do an equivalency test for their first level, but unfortunately I wasn't permitted in the pool without a medical certificate from a sports doctor for insurance reasons.

If I had been taking pictures, I'd probably have put a picture of me in my speedo here.

On Thursday, I was supposed to meet some other Canadians at a French bistro near Les Halles de Molemen. There was a change of venue, and although I was notified well ahead of time, I had written down the wrong address and I spend three hours walking around the beautiful St. Eustache church searching for a familiar street or gypsy music (there was a noted guitarist playing there that night). Although I never found the restaurant or the other Canadians, I saw a full moon rising above the oddly gabled and chimneyed roofs of Paris.

If I had been taking pictures, I'd probably have put a picture of that oddly beautiful sight here, and then another picture of me in my speedo while I had your attention.

I'm going to end with some particularly useless French words to enjoy. Have a good week everybody!

• blablabla - noun (m). claptrap
• truc - noun (m). whatsit
• se rebiffer - reflexive verb. to hit back
• galipette - noun (f). somersault
• parapluie - noun (m). umbrella
• ombrelle - noun (f). parasol
• parasol - noun (f). beach umbrella
• squelettique - adjective. skeletal

P.S. Although I do have and wear a pair of Speedo(TM) brand swimwear, they are actually swimming shorts as opposed to their trademark tighties. There, now you can rest at night.

Comments, corrections, your experiences, your impressions, diving in Europe, funny French words.