Cheering Against the Irish

Today, I cheered against the Irish. Not my beloved Fighting Irish from the University of Notre Dame, regardless of how badly the season is going. But rather, I was cheering against the Ireland rugby team. (with apologies to all of my Irish friends) Tonight, France beat Ireland in an important game in the rugby World Cup preliminary rounds and I couldn’t help but cheer for the French.

I really do miss American college football though, and every Saturday I keep track of when kickoff is for Notre Dame. Anne and I are already plotting to attend a game next season and I still religiously read The South Bend Tribune for any scrap of news about even this really terrible ND football season. For unrelated and unexplained reasons, I even find myself humming “Hail to the Redskins” as I walk down the street—a rare departure from the Notre Dame obsession.

But I have to say, its just not as much fun to watch a Notre Dame game when you are one of six people in the worst room of a bar at 11PM trying to see the game—the circumstances in which I saw the only ND game I’ll see all season at an unfortunate bar called "The Fifth Drink". The game was pretty terrible (the 38-0 loss against Michigan), but the circumstances were even tougher. A game of beer pong, embarrassingly drunk Americans and the TV propped up just inches from a trash can were enough to make me change my mind on which sport I would follow the remaining time in France.

So, I’ve decided to give Rugby a whirl. While seemingly not as international as the soccer World Cup, the rugby World Cup is a big deal, and France is hosting it this year. A quick bit of background: the tournament is every four years, the USA does have a team that’s not that bad, and the game is fast and makes American football look tame. There is a lot of hard tackling and there is virtually no protective equipment. I like that the rugby refs say things like, “No, you cannot kick him in the head” or “I saw that, don’t do it again”.

Rugby is much faster (and in my opinion, more interesting) than soccer and the players are fascinating. Most of the players have necks the size of their heads, which seems unnatural, and there is one particular French player who looks like a caveman and is super fun to watch play.

Sometimes I need a map to find the countries playing—does anyone know where Tonga is? I still don’t, but I know the US lost to them in an early game. The New Zealand team (knows as “The All-Blacks” because of their uniforms) is really great and the French are hanging in there.

Tonight’s game against Ireland was broadcast on a big screen right in front of a 16^th century church just a couple of minutes from our apartment. We went and watched it with a crowd of people, which makes any game more fun. It was unclear if the two carloads of cops were there to control the crowd or just so they could watch the game. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the crowd ranged from teenagers to middle age women.

During today’s game, when there were breaks in the action, the TV flashed pictures of the French president throwing his head back and cheering and also a group of about seven beautiful women clad only in black bras and lace underwear in the stands. Guess which got a bigger cheer from the crowd…

The tournament wraps up in a few weeks—and I suspect a few more games are on our agenda to check out. Perhaps a few pieces of French Rugby Gear will even make it onto our shopping list and maybe, just maybe, the French National Anthem will replace Hail to the Redskins as my sidewalk song of choice to hum for the next few weeks.

sPg

PS: Here's a photo of a Scottish rugby/football (soccer) rally at a bar near Josh's office.

My Favorite Things, Paris-style

First, as seems to happen at least once every month or two, a quick apology for the lag time between my blog posts. And thanks to Sara for filling the blog vacuum while I was MIA (now, if only I could get her to empty the actual vacuum…)

One quick plug: more photos are online now at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/ . Check out the Paris Artsy, People, and Touristy pictures for shots of our last few visitors plus sites like Mont Saint Michel, Chartres, Versailles, and others. If you’re not a Flickr member (free and easy!), just e-mail me and I’ll add you.

Now, the blogging…

As we get older, certain line items that were once on our resume eventually get bumped off, since they are too outdated, not important enough, etc. Other items are so laughably offbeat or absurd that either you put them at the end of your resume as a fun conversation sparker, or you wouldn’t put them on your resume for a lifetime supply of ice cream (the basic form of currency in Joshland). Want an example of the latter? Here you go: in the spring of 1990, I was the Props Master for my high school’s production of “The Sound of Music”

[Yes, this is very far afield from Paris 2007, I know, but stick with me, I’m coming around the bend…]

Maybe it doesn’t get more lame/obscure/bizarre than Props Master (it’s just one word away from “Dungeon Master”), but I have to say, I had a hell of a good time working on that play (despite one late-night closet-wood-stain-fumes prop preparation incident that probably insured that any future Gibson kid(s) will all be born with “Dark Walnut” colored skin and/or internal organs…)

As a result of that Sound of Music gig, I had to hear the (in)famous song “My Favorite Things” a zillion gajillion times, over and over and over again. This is why, seventeen years later, the idea popped into my head to periodically use this blog to highlight some of my favorite things in Paris. (Ah, good segue, Grasshopper!)

Now, a list of “macro” favorite things would help no one, because any schmuck can give you that list (Eiffel Tower, tasty bread, saucy Parisiennes, etc.) No, I want to give you, Maria-style, a list of the “micro” level, everyday things in Paris that I think are great. And rather than just hitting you with a mega-long list all at once, I’ll just post a couple at a time, when the spirit moves me (or when the other “spirit” reminds me that I’m not holding up my end of the blog bargain…)

Just to refresh the memories of those of you who didn’t have these song lyrics mercilessly drilled into your skull during several months of your hormonally-active late high school years, let’s go to the audio tape:

"The hills are alive...with the sound of Gibsons!"

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, Brown paper packages tied up with strings…Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels, Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings…Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, Silver white winters that melt into springs, These are a few of my favorite things.”

So, my take-away from this is—weird chick, probably wouldn’t know what to do with a Circuit City gift certificate, so a couple balls of twine, a McRib, and one of those “Hang in there” kitty-hanging-from-a-tree posters would probably make her whole damn year.

Similarly, my Paris “favorite things” list tells you something about me—I’m detail-obsessed and still have lingering “urban life” interests from my last couple of jobs.

If it’s any reassurance at all, I’ve shared most of these “favorite things” with our visitors, and they seem to go above and beyond their normal level of humoring me in response, so despite their obscurity, maybe these things are actually worth noticing by normal folks too.

With those prefaces and warnings, enter the dark recesses of my brain, where we can discover together tiny details that continue to entertain me here in Paris. Here’s one quick “favorite things” example, look for more to follow, a couple a week, for the next few months.

FAVORITE THING #1 (numbers here are for counting, not for ranking)
BI-BOP STICKERS
Back in the spring of 1993, as I was wrapping up my junior year in Paris, a bunch of blue, white, and green sticker bands started appearing on tall, metallic objects (streetlight poles, building downspouts, etc.) throughout Paris. I was entirely clueless about what the purpose of these stickers might be, until shortly thereafter when the modern miracle of carpet-bombing saturation advertising brought one word to everyone’s lips: Bi-bop.

What was happening, it turns out, was that the French national phone company was rolling out the nation’s (and one of the world’s) first comparatively low-cost, comparatively widespread, cellular phone program. The phones only worked, however, when the user stood next to a special Bi-bop antenna, which was, you guessed it, marked with a blue, white, and green sticker band. (A quick correction to past visitors—I’d told you, and I’d always thought myself, that any tall, metallic object would work as a Bi-bop antenna, but thanks to French Wikipedia I know know that only the selected poles with stickers got the job done.) From what I’ve just read online, apparently it worked a bit like a wifi (in French we say “weeee feeee”) hotspot, but for phones: you had perfect reception, as long as you didn’t wander too far off from one of those stickers.

Obviously, the Bi-Bop phones are history (except a few in museums), but the stickers remain, the sign of a technological era gone by. All I can think of whenever I see them is: what a crappy job placing those stickers must have been: hauling a ladder around, climbing up, sticking on the Bi-Bop band, climbing down, scooting your ladder a few hundred feet down, repeat. Definitely a job you would take off of your resume as soon as you got a chance!

Josh

PS: Proving that the Bi-Bop stickers are not just omnipresent, but also found everywhere, when I realized I needed another picture of one, I found three on our somewhat obscure street, within a couple hundred of yards of our door.

PPS: One of the Bi-Bop pictures includes a sneak preview of another of my favorite things...

This Call is Interrupted

A longer blog entry is forthcoming from both of us, but this “bloglet” seemed worth sharing.

Summer is officially over. We had a blast with our August round of visitors. The Sitar Gang, former colleagues from the Sitar Arts Center--Maureen and her husband Chris and even a quick visit from former Board president Heather and her husband Justy--were great fun. Having a visit from Kim, a Chesterton friend and former college roommate, made Paris feel even more like home. We saw many sights and walked over 75 miles as we toured Paris with them. I especially loved Mont Saint Michel (an island town and church built a long time ago), Chartres (with its amazing stained glass and medieval prayer labyrinth) and the Rungis Market (which has replaced Les Halles and is now the centralized market for Paris--http://www.rungisinternational.com). It was also just good to talk and hang out with good friends over coffee and an occasional glass of wine.

But just as our visitors left, the promised Rentree (French for "Back to School") happened and, as predicted, our lives have gotten busier. Paris has awoken from its summer nap and wherever Parisians were for the entire month of August, they have returned in force. We’ve been working on catching up and starting our own fall schedules here.

Today, as I scurried back home on the metro after a few appointments, Josh called and a funny moment worth sharing occurred. This is how the conversation went with Josh:

Josh: Hi, how are you? Do I need to pick up bread for dinner?

Sara: Hi there…I’m running late, I was at the school longer than expected and I need to call Diane at 7:15PM. Is there any way you can also….

STATION STOP—Man with accordion enters the metro train and begins playing loudly

Sara: …pick up 250 grams of ground beef and onions and red…

Josh (in an angry/annoyed voice): Where ARE you? What do you need? I can’t hear anything over that accordion. I’ll call you back in 10 minutes. [and then he hangs up]

Needless to say, when the musician came around asking for tips, I did not give him any change, but perhaps I should have because I found myself laughing at the absurdity of the situation—I mean, only in Paris (and maybe on Dyngus Day, but that’s different) is it even remotely likely that a conversation is interrupted by accordion music.

Maybe next time I need to have a rare metro phone conversation, the puppet show guy will be on the metro instead.

sPg

What's for Dinner?

I figured it has been a while since I’ve offered a food-centered blog, and since “What’s for dinner” is on my mind, it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to offer some thoughts about.

Even if it still doesn’t feel like summer here, I’m hell bent on cooking like it is. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve whipped up gazpacho (while we were housesitting since they had a blender and we don’t), tabbouleh (a new recipe that “cooks” the couscous with lemon juice), tzatziki, couscous, and tomato salads. And for dessert: a big watermelon, of course.

In a nod to the actual (as opposed to hoped-for) weather that rarely breaks 65 degrees, I’ve also made vegetable soup, which is normally a fall dish, and it was the soup that never ended. I seriously think it lasted a week or more—it just kept getting stretched and stretched with new broth and/or veggies, and somehow kept tasting ok.

This last weekend, we headed to one of our favorite markets: Joinville. It is more on the edge of the city and the prices are much cheaper than our beloved (but pricey) nearby rue Mouffetard market. At the Joinville market there is always a lot of shouting by the vendors of “one euro, one euro”, which is my litmus test of a good market. Basically, if everyone is quiet, it’s a lot more peaceful, probably more relaxing, but you pay for that. I like knowing the vendors really want my business.

So, for 20 euros, this is what we procured:

-½ a watermelon

- 2 kilos of peaches

- 4 avocados

- 1 head of good lettuce (iceberg thankfully doesn’t exist in France)

- 1 kilo tomatoes

- 1 small melon

- Bundles of mint, parsley, basil and coriander

- 4 onions

- 4 eggplants

- 4 enormous bent cucumbers

- 3 heads of garlic

- 1 red pepper

- 1 green pepper

- 2 sweet peppers

- 2 hot peppers

- 4 lemons

Clearly, this is more than enough veggies for Josh and me for the week and I relish the challenge of using every last bit of it. So here, here is what is on my menu for the week with said ingredients.

For dinner tonight, it’s couscous with red peppers, onions, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers along with tzatziki and a bit of lamb. I also bought these little tiny marinated hot peppers stuffed with feta that are simply fab.

For this week, I’m envisioning recreating a Portuguese garlic and bread soup I loved in Lisbon (that’s where some of those three heads of garlic mentioned above are going) or a French soup called aigo bouido, which uses at least 16 cloves of garlic and isn’t harsh at all. The eggplant will be a main course at least one night. I’m contemplating making an eggplant souflee, but I might decide that its too advanced. As a backup, I’m thinking stuffed eggplant might supplant the usual roasted eggplant stacks that I’ve already served Josh a couple of times. I have to admit, I’m fond of those eggplant stacks—they’re my own twist on my friend Becky’s wonderful eggplant recipe that she would make for me when we lived together in Virginia many moons ago.

Every night, there will be roasted veggies and a few salads that both include and exclude lettuce. There will also be fruit—we each had 4 slices of watermelon last night—no room in our small fridge so we have to move fast!

Bread continues to be an issue in August. What we are finding is mostly adequate, but soon enough, our baker will return. Fortunately, Josh picked out one of his best cheese selections since we arrived at the cheese shop this week.. I especially love the fresh goat cheese with fig, the aged Gouda (which almost tastes like Parmesan), and this creamy goat cheese that tastes a bit like butter. There are also a few others, but those are the memorable ones to me.

With the summer slow season, I’ve also used this time to dive into some new food experimentation. With the weather providing me some inspiration, I’ve made French onion soup that I think was one of my best dishes ever and the Beef Bourguignon was tasty, but I just can’t have a recipe that requires constant tending for five hours. It joins the ranks of “Dishes too needy to make”, which has at least one other member: risotto.

Our foray into Middle Eastern cooking was inspired by a tasty lunch with two friends of Bobi’s: Sheryl and Sheldon. Upon return, Sheldon send me an electronic version of a Syrian cookbook and I’ve both read it and used it for inspiration.

Another source of inspiration: my mother. My vegetable soup resulted from a “911” call to my mother in which I said, “What should I make for dinner? I’ve got no vision!”

Speaking of vision, I really couldn’t live in Paris without my borrowed Julia Child cookbooks. I use them weekly. They explain what French cuts of meat mean (who knew “faux filet” was sort of like a strip steak?) and for general French baking techniques (how many eggs *do* I need for a quiche?). I also think Barefoot Contessa’s French cookbook is pretty solid and has been a helpful addition to my Parisian library.

Dessert also deserves at least a small note. It’s sadly the part of dinner I’m really the least interested in, much to Josh’s dismay. I think I can now make a respectable tart, but I gotta tell you, my heart isn’t in it. A good dessert to me is one that can be whipped up as an afterthought. Normally, we just skip dessert—we don’t need it and I don’t think of it, but lately, I’ve found that a few spoonfuls of this wonderful artisan honey (Sea lavender, which tastes like taffy made from honey) has been the perfect ending to my dinner.

So, that’s all from Rue Broca this week. It seems right to sign off with a Julia Child quote, “Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music."

Yep, I wouldn’t recommend coming to any concert I’m singing in, or bothering to see any picture I’ve painted, but I would suggest trying to make it to any dinner party at the Gibsons.

sPg

August and Artesian Wells

Since we have arrived, Parisians have been “warning” us about August. They told us how everyone leaves, no shops are open, how it’s possible to walk down the middle of large streets because there are no cars out driving. They then usually continue to tell us of their August vacation plans, which interestingly enough usually seem to involve a trip to the States.

As August drew closer and closer, when we were asked where we were going for the month, we said “Nowhere” and tried to explain that essentially taking a vacation from a vacation was absurd and frankly, we were intent on staying in Paris and enjoying the city.

After we agreed to dog sit for some friends who live across town in the 15^th arrondissement, Josh and I joked that we could now say, “We decided to holiday in the 15^th”. But somehow, I don’t think the Parisians would get our joke.

A usual response by Parisians to our reluctance to travel during this time is to look at us with honest pity and suggest, ‘Well, perhaps you can get away for a day or two.” It’s funny—there seems to be more understanding of my poor French than of our decision to stay put.

And then August arrived. For a few days, we were skeptical of this true emptying out of Paris. We still saw people and they weren’t all tourists, but something happened yesterday—everyone seems to have really disappeared.

As we were walking Chaco the dog across town in a neighborhood a bit more upscale than ours, it was a literal ghost town. We walked for 20-30 minutes before we saw an open café or bakery—something that can usually be counted on every block or two. As I went out to get groceries for dinner yesterday, I knew I would have to walk a while to find an open bakery and even then, I couldn’t be sure I would be thrilled by the bread.

Of course, not everyone leaves. One newspaper said 60% of Parisians leave, but what they forgot to mention is that the remaining 40% are especially unhappy about being left to deal with tourists and obviously insane Parisians who don’t choose to exercise their right of vacation.

The customer service we’ve experienced in Paris, which up until now has been truly welcoming and open, has dipped quiet a bit in the last week. From the bakery to the café, if they are open, someone will eventually help you, but not usually with a smile.

But for us, this is our time to be true tourists again. Each week we pick a new part of Paris to explore and we spend a full day being tourists. We’ve seen some really neat things. My favorites have been the Chateau de Vincennes (a castle built in the 13^th Century by Charles V at the edge of Paris)--and the Basilica of Saint Denis (a church where all the French kings are buried, from Clovis, the first real king of the Franks, crowned in the year 481, to the guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

We also visited a park that was once a large Citroen car factory and is now full of trees and fountains. Josh took a hot air balloon ride while we were there (I chickened out since I wasn’t sure I thought I would like the heights). We’ve also had a lot of ice cream (even if our favorite ice cream shop is closed for the entire month, we’ve managed to find a few other vendors), seen a few movies (including the Simpsons and Harry Potter, with French subtitles) and even spent a few hours here and there sitting down in a café reading.

One of the more random things we’ve ever visited is a true artesian well right in Paris. The well has been known for over 100 years and people come from throughout the city and the suburbs to fill water bottles since the mineral water from the well is said to have restorative powers. You know you have time on your hands when you trek 30 minutes for water, and even consider it fun!

In general, we don’t really think of ourselves as tourists any more, but for August, I’m happily changing our status from “temporary expat” to “long-term tourist”. And heck, with our temporary tourist designation, I don’t even feel badly for not being able to speak French very well and wearing tennis shoes out sometimes. Just for emphasis, today I am wearing a t-shirt I dare only to wear in August. It says, “Everyone loves an American girl.”

Parisian life for everyone will speed up in a few weeks. We will begin to work normalish hours again and we hear that the “rentree,” or return to work and school after vacation, is a big event. Several people are promising to check in to say hello after “the return”, but until then, I’ve got a picnic to pack and a guided tour to catch.

sPg

France and Fantasy Island

Greetings everyone,

[Just a quick plug for some new photos, check out the Paris People and Paris Artsy pix at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ for photos from the end of Sara’s brother’s visit, our friends Anne and Corey’s visit, and Sara’s and my trip to Alsace.]

Now onto the blog…

I know, I know, everyone likes Sara’s blog entries more than mine. Hers are natural, mine are didactic (and use words like “didactic”). Hers put people at ease, mine make people feel “creepy.” Hers provide a disarming peek into daily French life, mine provide an alarming peek into my disturbing thought process.

OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating the dichotomy (there I go again…) for fun. But just in case Sara’s got ahold of a winning formula that maybe I can imitate, I figured I’d take a stab at a blog entry, Sara-style. Sara supports this, she knows I’m just teasing, and that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s more of a tribute than a spoof. Okay, maybe 50/50.

From my careful analysis, a Sara-style blog entry requires three things:
1.) a compound title for the blog entry, X and Y, or to put it in Mad Libs format, [noun] and [noun]
2.) a pithy but satisfying moral in the conclusion, beginning (in spirit, if not literally) with the clause “Well, I guess that just goes to show that…”
3.) gratuitous fruit and vegetable references

Well, without any further ado, here’s my shot a Sara-style blog:

FRANCE AND FANTASY ISLAND
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I grew up on re-runs of 1970s and 1980s TV shows. Some of my favorites were “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The A-Team.” These shows were great, because they had some characters that returned each week, there were also new faces each with their own new plotlines each week. These new characters generally were in just one episode, stating their life problem at the beginning of the show, and usually having it resolved by the end of the show.

In “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island,” the folks with the problems were a bit more proactive, actually going to the trouble of showing up on the Boat/Island. On “The Incredible Hulk” and on “The A-Team,” our wandering heroes would show up in town and discover the locals’ life problems that way. (I’ve never seen the show, and it’s more recent than the others, but I think “Touched by an Angel” is in this camp too.)

Well, the other day, as I was putting away some zucchini and plums, it occurred to me that we definitely have the makings for the same kind of “problem solver” TV show right here in Paris. Our show would be “Love Boat” / “Fantasy Island” style, though, since our help-seekers come to us, in the form of visitors. Is stress affecting your health? Did you just suffer through a tough break-up? Do you need to get out of your small town pronto? Do you want to finally see if all those insults about the French are really true? Need a romantic getaway? Want to get engaged? Want to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary? Just need to eat, drink, sleep, read, shop, and/or walk an enormous amount? These are all reasons for which people plan to visit us, have visited us, or conceivably could visit us.

You can almost imagine Sara and myself on the gangplank of the Boat or the dock of the Island, greeting our guests Stubing/Roarke-style, shaking hands with our new arrivals as they show up, and hearing their tales of woe. Then, at the end of the episode, we’d be back in our same places, receiving thanks for making everything better. Sara and I would have to film the scenes in the dark and dreary “arrivals” area of Charles De Gaulle Airport, which is unfortunate, but I think it could work. (Of course, we would have to eat lots of mushrooms and other things rich in Vitamin D to make up for the lack of sun.)

[Silly blast from the past, a bad joke from elementary school: What kind of M&Ms does Tattoo like? “The plain, the plain!” Did you know, by the way, that Herve Villechaize was French? And close but no cigar, but “The Love Boat” theme just came up on my iPod?]

When we see how much joy our visitors get from their visits here, and how it goes such a long way towards helping them put their priorities in order, it reminds us just how lucky we are to be here. Being here is not just a gift for us, it is also a gift for our visitors—how many would not have come to Paris if we hadn’t provided them with a convenient excuse/deadline?

For our visitors, the week or two they spend with us are the highlight of their year. We get 52 of those weeks, and even though we realize how spoiled we are, it’s still a very humbling prospect. (Don’t worry, we don’t really have the God complex, we just figure any help or fun folks get out of their visits here is pure gravy!)

Well, I guess that just goes to show that life is like a box of chocolates, or in our case, the two euro grab-bag produce bins at the market—you never know what you’re going to get.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t really pull off a fully Sara-style blog entry. David Letterman says, “There’s no off position on the genius switch.” I suppose there’s also no off position on the Josh wordy/lecturing/sarcastic/vignette switch either. But I guess that just goes to show up…oh, never mind.

Josh

Louis Vuitton and Bastille Day

Summer seems to have truly arrived in Paris—the weather is now warm and sunny for the first time since April (literally). The Parisians seem to talk only of their August vacations (yes, they seem to go away for the entire month), and promise to call after “the rentree” in early September. But as summer has rolled in, so have a few stories from Bastille Day and Anne and Corey’s visit.

The Keiths and Louis
Anne and Corey’s visit concluded our first round of visitors. I think we’ve gotten pretty good at hosting and our guests have all been fantastic. Recent changes: Due to complaints from the peanut gallery (AKA my parents), Josh’s “Death March” of Paris has been modified and now only includes about one third the tour that Jess so graciously endured with a smile. We now have a few more dining spots that we actually know. I would say my cooking has improved but I’m still mildly sulking over the duck that didn’t quite turn out as I would have preferred over dinner with Anne and CK.

Understandably, our visitors have their own agendas, which gives Josh and me a chance to see things we might have missed on our own. In one recent case, we got an unexpected look at one of Paris’s luxury icons. In the quest for a wallet for Kristi Keith (Corey’s mom), we found ourselves accompanying Anne and CK to Louis Vuitton. Josh and I were definitely not dressed appropriately, but since it was pretty clear we weren’t the purchasers, we were mostly invisible.

The store, located prominently on the Champs Elysees, was interesting, extremely large and was so busy, they literally had bouncers at the door. The demographics were a little surprising to me—it was filled primarily with people seemingly from Asian countries. I actually would have guessed I was in Tokyo or Seoul, not France.

Josh and I were enjoying the store’s sites and commenting on next year’s fashion and I found several purses that I would never consider buying since I *know* I saw the same thing on M Street in Georgetown for $10. Anyways, just as Anne and Corey had found the wallet they wanted for Kristi, Josh’s “art” caused a bit of a scene. He reported in on his ‘trouble’ and our conversation went something like this:

Josh: “I had a bit of a run in with the security guard.”

Sara: “You did what? I told you they wouldn’t be keen about you taking pictures in here.”

Josh: “Well, the guy told me not to take the pictures so I nicely asked him to show me where this was written, where the sign was indicating that this was the case. Besides, he was kinda skinny, I could take him.”

Don’t worry, it all ended well—the wallet was procured, Josh did get a few forbidden photos and he even waved nicely to the irritated French Louis Vuitton bouncer on his way out. The guy probably knew Josh and I were just there with friends and wouldn’t be back too soon. Still, it would have been fun to go back, Pretty Woman style, dressed to the nines, carrying many shopping bags from pricey stores, and tell the guard he made a “big mistake.”

Bastille Day

Having missed the Fourth of July in Washington, normally one of my favorite holidays, we decided to vigorously participate in Bastille Day. We figured it would tell us more about the French and seemed like a good excuse for a day of excursions. We went to the parade, to a concert, saw the fireworks and ended our night at a firehouse party (which is apparently a tradition here). The weather was sunny, the Bastille Day events were great, plus we even took a walk through lots of Paris’ sites and enjoyed a nap in a park to boot.

Perhaps the most confounding part of the day for me though was the parade. It was super cool—lots of planes and helicopters and military equipment, but I couldn’t help but think as a lot of military personnel and equipment were rolling down the Champs-Elysees that it felt like recreating an invasion. I also kept thinking, “No wait, I thought only Russia and North Korea had parades like this. Do the French even care this much about the military?.” It was interesting and I wish my dad could have seen it since he would have really appreciated it.

Once again though, just as I thought I “understood” a bit more about France, it tosses me a curveball and a militaristic parade is certainly one big curveball for a seemingly anti-war (at least in recent times) country.

If France were a song, Josh and I have decided that the song that seems to best fit is “I’m Every Woman” or “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks (“I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint…”).

The firehouse dance was a great way to wrap up a big day. Many firehouses across the country host events on the 13^th and 14^th and so we headed toward our local “pompiers”, which is just around the corner. We walked in, mostly expecting old time French music and gruffy French guys playing the accordion due to some of the things Josh had read, and were a bit surprised to see an outdoor dance party complete with fog machine and hundreds of people dancing to techno remixes of American 80’s music.

It was pretty wild. We were pretty tired by that point so stayed long enough for a glass of champagne (because Lord knows you wouldn’t have a party here without bubbly) and a bit of dancing, which is always fun here because while the French are quite cultured, they really are no better dancers than Josh and me.

So, this is July in Paris—all good stuff. Today, after a picnic with some friends, I learned how to play petanque—a bocci ball-esque game that is wildly popular in France. As I finish this, Josh and I just toasted over a chilly French rose (called Cote de Thongues—go figure) and I suppose life could be better, but some days, I’m simply not sure how.

sPg

Even More Vignettes

Greetings everyone, apologies for the prolonged absence from blogging. After much travel and many visitors (all enjoyable but a bit tiring), Sara and I are looking forward to a long summer of…not much. We’ll have good “quality time” together in July and August, enjoying the city and each other, until the next batch of visitors arrives in September.

I have another blog in progress that will be a bit more…coherent, but for now, here are some more vignettes I’ve been sitting on. As we all know, “vignette” is how a Russian mechanic would respond in the negative when asked if there’s a Vehicle Identification Number on file for a certain customer.

· More photos are available for viewing. You’ll see pictures from Andorra (People, Artsy, and Touristy), plus if you look at the three sets of Paris photos, you’ll see our most recent shots, including pictures from Sara’s brother David’s visit (the newest photos are always the first ones you see in each set): Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ If you have any trouble accessing these, just let me know and I can easily fix it.

· Speaking of Andorra, given that we’re already essentially on vacation here in Paris, you have to wonder how we have the gall to take a vacation from our vacation to go someplace like Andorra. A vacation-within-a-vacation is like a ship in a bottle; you just have to wonder: how did it get in there?

· Also, here’s a progress update on Sara’s and my prolific walking: Sara’s just over, and I’m just under, 2.5 million steps since we got here in January. We’re both well over 1,100 miles walked in that same time.

· Sara and I had a brush with celebrity the other day. We were meeting up with two of my mom’s friends in the lobby of the tony Plaza Athenee hotel, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw an older man with curly bleached hair and white sunglasses slip out of a hidden elevator and through a side door. It was unmistakably Michel Polnareff, arguably France’s best-known singer currently (http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6058.asp). He was famous in the 1960s and 1970s, then exiled himself to Los Angeles for decades, making only periodic appearances, before staging a comeback this year. A few days later, Sara and I joined over 600,000 people who saw Polnareff play by the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day. He’s really a cult figure, it’s a bit like Elvis coming back to perform after decades of…exile.

· Not much more than a year into our marriage, Sara and I continue to learn things about each other. Here’s my latest upsetting discovery: in our six months in France, Sara’s used up a kilo of fresh sea salt, several liters of various vinegars and olive oils, cases of sparkling water, bottles of Martini rouge…and approximately one half of one tube of toothpaste. And to think, I kiss that mouth! (Sara points out in the way of explanation that she does brush twice daily, just using very little toothpaste...)

· A few musical items: first, during our recent Alsatian trip, Sara and I were sitting in the first car of train, awaiting our departure. The conductor got on the train and walked into the cabin, all while very clearly whistling… “The Final Countdown.” Perhaps that’s not surprising, since it’s appropriately by…Europe.

· Second, during a recent cab trip, I saw that my driver had one and only one CD in his musical collection…Shalamar!

· Third, a forgotten and overdue musical vignette and iPod update: while watching a Good Friday procession just blocks from Notre Dame, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” came on the iPod. Even I felt sacrilegious. And later that day, when the “Golden Girls” theme came on the iPod, I just felt…icky.

· Not far from our apartment, there is an enormous, truck-sized vending machine that sells everything from milk to sandwiches to vibrating condoms (you may remember there was once one of these machines in Adams Morgan). The other day, I bought a camembert cheese from the machine (mainly because I could). I also bought a can of lychee juice, only noticing later that it was “Cock Brand” lychee juice. I’m guessing it’s a translation error.

· When I got the camembert home and opened it, I saw this funny “we’re not in the US anymore, are we?” disclaimer on the wrapper: “The fat percentage listed on our cheeses is now calculated taking into account their water content, as is the case for other milk products…Only its labeling has changed, to better inform you and permit you to more easily manage your diet. This means that your President camembert, which was formerly listed as containing 45% fat will now list 20%, without changing recipes or ingredients.” In other words, they were apologizing for having to “downgrade” their cheese from being 45% fat to just 20% fat. You can bet that in America, someone would have figured out the “water content” game a long time ago, and would have been selling the camembert as “diet,” due to the new “just” 20% fat content!

To close, a few recommendations:

- We may have found a new house wine, called Fitou. See if you can find it, it should be available in the US.

- For two enjoyable and hysterically funny French rap videos (by a guy named Kamini who’s the one black resident in a small rural town), check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJ-xRaw2l8 for and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gV5rsO2u_o

- For a funny video of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, possibly drunk after a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G8, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzPEH-Ea3DI&mode=related&search=

Hope all's well,

Josh

Polish Politics and Pagan Festivals

Taking a Hoosier-born, self-declared Polish prince to one of the tiniest countries on the planet is always a bit of a dicey idea. As we left Paris for our short trip to Andorra by way of Girona, Spain, I was hoping that locals wouldn’t mistake my younger, 6 foot 4 inch brother David as either a giant (like he is in Paris) or as a diplomatic mission from the “Kingdom of Indiana” because none of us speak Catalan (the language spoken in Andorra, northeastern Spain, and southwestern France).

Side note: It’s possible that you’ve never heard of Andorra, since I hadn’t until a week before we set foot in the country. In case you are like me, here are some top level glimpses of Andorra. Andorra is a small mountainous nation in the Pyrenees between Spain and France that is one sixth the size of Rhode Island. There are no airports or train stations in Andorra, you can only get there by traversing windy roads. Andorrans have the highest life expectancy in the world. and the country was once actually almost taken over by a clever Russian man who called himself Boris I. Other than that, the country is governed jointly by a bishop from Spain and the president of France. There—that’s Andorra in a nutshell.

The locals didn’t seem to stare too much, and in the end, David even built a few intra- Europe ties. One afternoon he was wearing a classy T-Shirt (a gift from Josh, see photo) with the phrase “Poland is for Wieners” and he was stopped in an elevator by a local who wanted to discuss Polish politics. The man asked David his opinion on Poland’s status within the EU. It was a fairly brief conversation and I think it’s fair to say the local didn’t quite get the nuance of the shirt, thankfully.

Never being ones to miss an opportunity to celebrate an obscure holiday, or frankly anything obscure, we were thrilled to hear that our visit would coincide with the celebration of the Feast of St. Joan in Andorra. The holiday was billed as a celebration of independence for the Catalan people (which seemed a bit confusing given that there is no Catalan nation per say, but I may have missed something), but we were excited to hear about the tradition of fireworks, bonfires and dancing.

It didn’t quite take shape as we thought. There were a lot of fireworks, but not the official variety--most of them set off by teens sporting mullets, M-80’s and lighters. That was not my most favorite part of the country.

At midnight, a crowd had started to gather (no small feat when the entire country only has 70,000 people) and so we waited to see if the big bonfire-ready pile of wood was actually going to be lit as some symbolic moment.

We were not disappointed. There was a parade with witches, devils dressed in white fireproof capes carrying fireworks on spools, drums and men dressed in black with fire on a chain. As Josh said, “I think that this might actually be the dictionary definition of a pagan festival,” I think David and I were wondering if we shouldn’t immediately break out some holy water. But everyone seemed friendly and still smaller than David, so we figured it was all probably OK, so we joined in the parade to the bonfire pit.

After marching through the streets, the band of witches and fire people danced around the big pre-bonfire and then a teenager who had some sort of beauty pageant-esque banner lit the fire. With fireworks still going off very close, we decided we had seen all of what we needed for the moment and headed off for a late night dinner at a tapas restaurant, which was not particularly noteworthy except that it was decorated with actual hams with their hoofs still attached hung from the ceiling.

In stark contrast to the fireworks and parades was the time at the spa. The spa, which was more Ikea-esque in its functionality rather than Elizabeth Arden in its luxury, was the perfect way to spend several hours. I was happy that not all of the women were size 0s (I guess there weren’t many Parisian women there) and I suspect that we’ve definitely convinced David that vacations are even better with real r&r built in. I think we might have relaxed so much we forgot to breathe at times.

And now, David has returned back to the States and we have been left chairing the “Dave for French President” fan club. It was a heck of a visit and I even think we might consider launching a small-scale invasion of another country in years to come.

sPg