Back to Paris

We're back in Paris at long last -- back in the apartment of rue General Renault at any rate. We arrived Sunday morning, and spent most of the day coping with cold, jet lag and finally crashed, sleeping 12 hours.

Saturday morning we finished packing up, loaded the car and headed north to Douglas, MA, to meet up with Susan's brother Dick who drove us to Logan Airport. Our Air France flight was delayed 45 minutes leaving Paris so we had plenty of time to relax in the comfort of Terminal E, where Wi-Fi is now free, by the way.

The flight proved a bit bumpy at times but generally uneventful -- always a good thing when crossing the Atlantic by air, or probably sea for that matter. Still, one can't help but think how much easier and quicker it is to get from one continent to the other today -- no little ships bobbing in the water at quayside, spending 2 weeks at sea retching along with farm animals. No, we just sit in small chairs (and getting smaller all the time it seems) 5 miles up in the sky sliding across the earth's atmosphere.

Although nearly 7am it was still dark when we landed in Paris. After breezing through passport control we had to wait more than a half hour for our bags; in fact ours were nearly the last to come off. It was then another wait of nearly an hour for our shuttle before we were cruising south into the city center, and soon dropped off at our apartment.

We had a bit of a hiccup in getting the keys but since Drea had not one but two back-up sets of keys in the city we were soon inside and unpacked.

 (I left Susie inside the building's vestibule riding herd on our bags while I headed to the Metro line 5 and north to the 19th arrondissement to find the second set of keys. Although I still had one Metro ticket from Susie's spring trip I planned to buy a carnet, a pack of 10 that we could use before topping off our Navigo electronic pass. I walked up to a kiosk to buy a pack of 10 tickets, something I had done many times before, and yet stood dumbfounded. Whether it was jet lag or something more profound, I drew a complete blank on how to do this simple task. An older gentleman took pity on my stuporous behavior and walked me through the steps necessary to buy the tickets.

As I was sitting on the train, a line we took many times in the past, somewhat zoned out from travel and a lack of good food, I couldn't help but notice an odd sensation come over me: just hours before I was sitting in Boston in a room full of strangers all equally eager to get to destinations all over the world, and now here I was back where I long to be, on the Metro no less, as if I had never left.)

After settling in and turning on the heat we headed back out and over to the huge outdoor market on Richard Lenoir, near the Bastille. The idea was to pick up a few things for the week and to just absorb the incredible wonders of Paris' largest outdoor food market. So we bought some cheese, bread, fruit, and finding ourselves at La Bastille we walked up one of our favorite streets, rue de la Roquette to Place Leon Blum. Across from the Place we picked up a small freshly roasted chicken (with matching roasted potatoes) at our semi-regular boucherie and then walked across the street to Nicolas' for a bottle of sparkling Alsatian wine ("Cremant d'Alsace"). A few minutes later we were back home. We dozed on the sofas under multiple series of covers before finally rousing our bodies to have a bite to eat, a glassy of bubbly and just relaxed before eventually heading off to bed and the warmth proved by two down comforters.

It is now Monday morning and the sun is desperately trying to break through the overcast and make its point. The plan right now is to pick up a few more things at the nearby Franprix grocery store, have some soup with cheese and baguette, top off our Navigo at the Bastille and head over to the BHV department store for slippers and a space heater. Eventually we hope to meet up with Andrea and Barbara this afternoon and all of us enjoy Vietnamese food at "Lao Lane Xang" in the 13th later this evening.

Food is fast becoming the determining factor in this trip and I sense it will only grow more so in the days to come.

We're in Paris.

Wish you were here,

Steve

Paris Travel Plans - the lodging part

view from our apartment but without the leaves

OK, we have a place to stay in Paris. No surprise here, though: it's the sweet 4th floor apartment on rue General Renault in the 11th, a place we've come to know well and a place to call home even for a few days. We love the location; just a few blocks down from Pere Lachaise and a few blocks from Place Leon Blum up Avenue Parmentier. 

(In case you need to know, Parmentier is the guy who not only brought the potato to France but persuaded everyone to eat it. Really. In those days, the 18th century days when texting was still new and largely untried, there were many folks who believed the potato was unhealthy and some were even convinced it caused leprosy. Go figure. we now know  that touch screens cause leprosy. Oh, and by the way, he's buried in Pere Lachaise, division 39.)

So we arrive in the City of Light early Sunday morning and after we pass through the bureaucratic entanglements we'll grab the RER into the city, and either change to the Metro or the bus at Gare du Nord, and get off at or near St. Ambroise. A short two-block walk, a la schlepping, unlock the door (digicode of course), up four flights of stairs and voila! 

We're home.

East Bay Bike path and sunset along Broadway

Teaching Kids and Adults to Bake at the Alliance Francaise in Providence

Over the past several months Susie has developed quite a relationship with the people at the Providence Chapter of Alliance Francaise, the worldwide network of Francophiles. She has moved from taking classes to giving them; well, at least baking classes.

This past weekend she taught a kid's baking class on Saturday, and together they produced a vast number of chocolate diamants and lemony madeleines:

On Sunday she teamed up with local French chef Alain Hugard and his collegae Lucien Arsac to do the pastry portion of AF's Gourmet Club. The club meets several times a year to learn French cooking techniques and benefit from their efforts by eating the lessons. The savory portion consisted of salmon presented three different ways, while the pastry course focused on Sabayon and the infinite variety of ways it can be used in desserts. (Susie paired hers up with an incredible pear almond tart.)

Alain, Lucien and Susie:

Columbus Day and a Road Trip to Maine

It's been beautiful here in the Ocean State. The past week or so has seen fall-like temps and rapidly changing colors, at least in our neighborhood.

So, we didn't need much prodding to take a road trip to see more autumn color and spend some time with family in the bargain. With Columbus Day being a major holiday here in New England - even though Columbus never technically came to New England -- I had Monday off. Susie and I took off Friday afternoon for Orono, Maine, up to the North woods to see her sister Joyce and her husband Carl.

The day was fine, sky clear-blue and traffic light as we pulled out of downtown Providence onto I-95 and headed north. Less than 5 hours later we were pulling into the driveway on Cromwell Street. before we knew it, wine was opened, potatoes in the oven and marinated chicken on the grill.

It was a quiet weekend spent relaxing with family in the Maine North Woods. Aside from being with Susie's sister and her husband, the highlight was a trip to Mt Hope cemetery in Bangor on a gorgeous fall afternoon.

We left Sunday to stay ahead of Monday traffic returning to the banality of city life. A quick stop at one of the many outlets in Kittery, Maine, just a mile or so short of the New Hampshire border -- plates was the objective, safely fulfilled thank you very much -- and we were soon back on I-95 heading south for Providence and home.