July 26, 2002
25. Guests
I have to write this travel log retroactively, but that's alright because you can read it retroactively. Thus, I have never missed my Friday deadline. But it's boring to hear about late travel logs, especially if I'm just going to whine and assign blame.
In this case, the fault lies entirely with my next set of visitors, who shall remain unnamed (Thea, Jeremy, Ed and Letty). I've worked with Thea for about five years and when I got the job offer in France, I offered my place as a potential vacation destination. The invitation easily extended to her parents, especially because of their enthusiasm, and then to her brother Jeremy, an old work colleague.
With four arrivals, it turned out to be much more effective for them to book a shuttle directly to my place than to take the train in from the airport. They arrived Saturday evening and figured out how to make my apartment interphone bleat. I don't know how the interphone works (if it works at all), so I leaned way out my window and shouted that I would come down to meet them.
I had prepared some French treats to welcome them -- champagne, baguettes, some cheese, pâté, sausage -- and we chatted a bit. The evening was mainly settling in, hanging things up, showing them where the cutlery and towels were, packing some things and unpacking others.
They had thought ahead and brought passport photos for their métro passes, so we went and purchased the Carte Orange, which permits unlimited travel for the week from Monday to Sunday. We took an orientation tour around Paris, visiting (but not going into) the Champs-Elysée, the Louvre and the Seine, the Île de la Cité, Notre Dame, a stone's throw from the Hôtel de Ville, here and there and back. It was Bastille day so all of the attractions were free. We missed the parade, thanks to a rather relaxed start to the day, and therefore missed the crackpot shooting at the President and the heroic Canadian that stopped him. We did see the fireworks from Les Invalides with Aaron and Maria, who were using my place as a depot between their trip to Greece and hiking around Mont Blanc (on the Swiss border of France).
Bastille Day celebrates the storming of the infamous prison on July 14th, 1789 marking the end of the Monarchy and the beginning of democracy. The people of Paris broke into the armories at Les Invalides, obtained weapons and marched on the Bastille to get gunpowder, tear apart the governor (literally) and free the prisoners (seven).
A co-worker explained an interesting aspect of the French attitude towards national symbols. The French are undoubtedly and justifiably proud of their beautiful country and accomplishments, and the tricolore hangs in bunches of five on public buildings. There's a Marianne in every city hall, and liberté, égalité fraternité carved into facades and stamps. But, as individuals, the French don't wave or display flags themselves -- that's a symptom of right-wing nationalistic nuttery.
Oddly enough, one of Letty's brothers was visiting Paris at the same time, so there was an impromptu family reunion under the Eiffel Tower. We all took one of the boat rides on the Seine (conducted in five languages using multiple tracks on a magic audio wand and a talented live guide). Under the bridges for a tour up and down the river, seeing the major sites (Eiffel, the Louvre, Notre Dame, etc) and a dozen bridges.
We were in one of the last boats of the day, so most of the trip was dark. The human eye is a wonderful thing compared to a camera (even a digital one) -- everything is lit up at night and the contrast between light and shadow on the buildings and bridges is outstanding from the level of the river. The lines for the night boats are much longer than for the day, so you can avoid a long line by purchasing your ticket in advance during the day.
Unfortunately, my camera shows a lot of colour noise in the darkness -- the amplification of the visual signal makes the slight colour errors very obvious. You can see green, blue and red specks over the dancers on the Seine. Voilà, I'm an impressionist. (By the way, another problem with capturing shots with the digital video camera is the length of time it takes to turn on. I completely missed the lady flashing her breasts at our boat.)
Thea and I visited the dancers on the Seine a few days later. There's three or four large amphitheatres cut into the quai -- one for salsa, one for Argentinean tango, one for angry buskers and another for a large ensemble of drummers and musicians playing African music. We watched all of them, and we danced one salsa, taking care to stay well away from the unguarded edge. There's people of all ages and levels, and they're all having a good time.
Across from the Eiffel Tower is the Trocadero, a large curved building with an Art Nouveau facade. I demonstrated my lack of ability to take good night shots here as well, but this photo was touched up a bit to remove some colour noise. I wasn't happy with the picture when I removed the purple highlights, so I put them back in.
Unfortunately, I had to work while the Goldstroms were here, and I didn't record the details of the next few days. I seem to remember that they bought the three day museum pass, which provides access to many of the best museums in Paris for one price. But the cost of the pass is irrelevant -- you get to skip the line. Frankly, you're probably going to leave every museum without seeing everything because your feet are sore. If you can skip the forty minutes standing at the entrance to pay, you've bought yourself an extra forty minutes at the museum.
They spent the first day at the Louvre, and discovered first hand how they flush tourists out at the end of the day by progressively closing the rooms farthest from the exit. The second day was spent at the Musée d'Orsay, which is across the Seine from the Louvre and continues where the Louvre left off with slightly more modern great works (especially their collection of Impressionist and impressionist-era paintings and sculpture). They also visited the gardens of the Musée Rodin, which are an excellent bargain at 1EUR and feature the most famous of his sculptures.
Jeremy was ill on the last day of the museum pass, so I fraudulently posed as a Goldstrom to obtain access to the Musée Picasso. This is quite a bit of his personal collection, which was given to the state on his state (by his family, to cover the huge tax bill he left behind). If you have an appreciation for Picasso, his museum is a must-see -- it covers all of his incredible range from realist to cubist, from blue period to pink period, from masterpieces of a lifetime to scrawls on napkins, from influential artists of his time (Modigliani, Cézanne, Matisse, Braque -- a better cubist in my opinion) to primitive art.
If you aren't a Picasso appreciator at the start, you'll either be converted by the end, or be more confused than ever. Regardless, the 350 year old (at time of writing) Hôtel Salé is a beautiful and elegant old mansion, and you can say you saw his collection of communist cards (for he was a card-carrying communist, you see).
For the Goldstroms, the next museum made the natural transition from the Louvre (antiquity to just old) to the Orsay (kind of old, but not that old) to the Centre Georges Pompidou (really modern art). You'll recall that I mocked the industrial exterior of this museum in A PREVIOUS TRAVELLOG. Once inside, however, I made a startling discovery -- I really enjoy modern art: Bauhaus, the Klees and Kandinskys, the Dadaists, Op Art and the wacky stuff that kids do with plastic these decades.
But here's the most important hint: the museum itself is on the fourth and fifth floors. On entering the building, ignore the neon arrows that point suggestively and go up the stairs to the left. Flash your museum pass (because you don't want to wait in line) and exit the building again, because the escalator is on the exterior. Get off at the fourth floor and go inside (flashing your museum pass again, 'excusez-moi, laissez-moi passer, je suis Very Important Person...'). Once inside, take the stairs to the fifth floor, which has most of the good stuff, and go outside to the fountain to see an excellent view of Paris.
Since we were right beside the most important collection of modern art in Europe, I took a long distance capture of La Defense, which is a very modern industrial and commercial area. The most striking feature is the Grande Arche, large enough to contain Notre Dame and which is actually a four dimensional hypercube (or tesseract) projected into three dimensional space.
I happily wandered about inside. It was very well-presented, but not very easy to go through in a group -- too many places to hide. The famous fountain by Marcel Duchamp was there, thumbing its nose at the world. I believe that I read it is now behind glass because a couple of years ago, a performance artist engaged it in dialog to revivify the ideals held by the dadaists (that is, he urinated in it).
Later on, we went back to La Samaritaine to see the famous panorama from the roof. I had heard a rumour that some enterprising teenager had taken up collecting money from the tourists as they went up -- but in fact, this is a new, official policy for the store. It costs 2EUR to go up from now on (it was free when Nancy and I went). In fact, this is an excellent idea -- the view is now unobstructed and still worth the 2EUR.
Why does I blame this series of retro (late) travel logs on the Goldstroms? If they were crappy or boring guests, I would have made my excuses and stayed home to write the travel log. Unfortunately, they were always insisting on going to good restaurants, fascinating museums and cool jazz clubs. How could I resist?
Did I offer you a place to stay in France? Did you accept? Did you notice that I hardly talked about food this travel log? It's my artistic statement -- its absence accentuates its presence.
July 12, 2002
24. Asterix
I am a rollerblading fool. I had two New Year resolutions this year -- chess and rollerblading -- and it's the season for rollerblading. In my last report, I had already ceased toddling back and forth along Les Invalides and did an exploratory tour along the Seine with Nancy and Antonio.
The next tour was on and through the streets of Paris -- a large step up in difficulty. We managed pretty well for the first bit, because we were guided by Jean-Paul. Paris is flat enough, and there are plenty of broad sidewalks and empty bus lanes, if you know the routes. If you don't know the routes, you're liable to end up on the endless narrow and cobbled streets that are very charming and distinctive, but not very easy to roll over.
But there is a subtle distinction between 'flat enough' and 'flat', which led to my spectacular fall. It only takes a couple of blocks descent, say for example at Saint Michel, going down towards the Seine. If somebody were to hypothetically make this descent without a sound grasp of braking principles, they might find that the bus lane empties into a busy street of traffic. If I were faced with the choice of entering cross traffic (certain death), or deliberately hitting a taxi to stop, I can honestly say I would choose the taxi.
I had prepared myself for the impending crash, so most of my energy was dissipated in my outstretched arms. Unfortunately, enough speed was left over to send my face against the taxi, my glasses flying and to leave me sprawled on the road.
I wasn't really hurt (although my glasses may never sit straight again). I had the shakes from the massive adrenaline overdose, and my chin was kind of bloody and my right middle finger hurt a bit. It looked and sounded sufficiently spectacular that a crowd gathered around and looked kind of sick.
We continued the tour through Paris all the way around the canal locks (where Amélie skipped her stones after illegally forcing her way through the barriers) and to Place de la Bastille. A band had set up with their instruments and amplifiers on one of the barges on the canal, so we watched them play while they went through the locks and into the underground tunnel.
Later that evening, when it was getting dark, we stopped at La Troisième Bureau for something to eat. I had carpaccio de canard for the first time -- thin slices of raw duck marinated in oil and herbs and served with a sauce of crushed olives. Absolutely amazing.
It was dark and I was dressed entirely in black, so we decided to rollerblade across the city back to the fourteenth arrondissement.
I deliberately didn't take any pictures of my swollen chin, because it wouldn't be fair to inflict that on you. I'm sure you'd much rather see this charming picture of Maria, who visited me with her boyfriend Aaron -- my second visitors. They're touring France and Greece in between graduating with their postgraduate degrees from MIT (that's Dr. Maria) and taking jobs.
I know Aaron a bit from school, but mainly from post-University grouse grinding days. This is the first time I'd met Maria, but according to French customs I got to kiss her on both cheeks in front of her boyfriend. Hahaha. We ate at a little French restaurant La Gitane, where I ate rabbit for the first time. Apparently, because rabbits have such little bones, it is considered courteous to eat it with your fingers -- the alternative is for everybody to wait for you to finish.
I won't bore you with the food-obsessed details, such as the cheese plate (wearing Aaron down until he admitted that he likes Roquefort) or the dessert (I had the cooked pears in Saboyan sauce -- an egg, wine and sugar mixture), or the coffee.
For Canada Day, I was feeling a bit rough from the taxi collision, so I didn't bake any cookies or hang up maple leaves or anything. I drew a picture of Canada on the whiteboard and hung an empty bottle of Canada Dry from the light cord (the Champagne of Ginger Ales is sufficiently known here). I didn't go to the Moosehead, but I took a picture from the last time Aaron was here.
I just went and found a bottle of Canada Dry to check -- it doesn't say "The Champagne of Ginger Ale" on it! It's logical, the French are already pretty sensitive about advertising foods named after a region -- you can't sell a wine as Bordeaux unless it comes from Bordeaux.
I also visited Parc Asterix on the weekend. This is a large theme park along the lines of Disneyland, but oriented towards our favourite French comic book hero Asterix the Gaul. The Gauls, of course, were the people that inhabited France before the Roman invasion, and Asterix's village wasn't conquered with the rest (following the fall of Vercingetorix) because they had a magic potion at their disposal that gave them superhuman strength.
The park was a combination of Asterix's village, and some of the places he visited (especially Egypt, Rome and Greece), with thrilling rides that weren't entirely related to the stories. There was also a 'Fake Paris' section to remind you that you were only an hour away from the real thing.
We stopped in Fake Paris for a sandwich, where my colleagues from Shanghai fell into one of the classic French Sandwich Traps -- when you order a ham sandwich, you often get bread and ham. And that's it (excepting the ever-present centimeter of butter, of course).
It was some visiting co-workers from Shanghai who convinced us to visit Parc Asterix in the first place. Although they had never heard of Asterix, they had already visited Eurodisney on the last trip. Frédéric and I had a good time explaining who all of the characters were, and I learned a bit as well.
Frédéric won a huge stuffed animal at the carnival. In fact, we all won stuffed animals by the end of the day, but this was the largest.
There was a dolphin show. I'm not sure what this had to do with Asterix, except that dolphins are fun and Asterix is fun. So let's all laugh together! It certainly gave us twenty minutes of dolphin-filled tricks to rest our feet.
You were not permitted to take off your shirt. The fellow in the forbidden sign is wearing an winged-helmet like Asterix, but looks suspiciously like Bozo hair.
Children (and adults) were encouraged to climb the menhirs.
And at the end of the day everybody was happy. I didn't take any snapshots of rides, not even the infamous Goudarix -- the seven loop rollercoaster. Fortunately, it's all on video, so you'll have to wait until it comes out at the theatre. By the way, Goudarix is a pun on Gout du risque (taste for risk) and the names of the Gauls, which typically end in -ix.
For those of you who would prefer that I used the generic "in-line skating" over the trademarked "RollerBladingTM", you should be aware that I am using RollerBladeTM brand RacerBlades. You should also be aware that the French refer to all carbonated beverages as coca, regardless of whether it is CokeTM, PepsiTM, FantaTM, SpriteTM or OranginaTM.