Musée de la Grande Guerre

in English under the line _________
Ce n'est pas si nouveau que ça. Ouvert depuis prèsque trois ans, déjà, le Musée de la Grande Guerre a reçu une couverture médiatique récemment. C'est vrai que cette année marque le 100è anniversaire du début de la guerre de 14-18 et la bataille de la Marne marquera son centenaire dans quelques semaines. En tout cas, nous avons décidé, il y a deux semaines, lors d'un matinée un peu maussade, d'y aller.Ce n'est pas loin de chez nous, juste au nord de Meaux, à peine 40 minutes de route.
Le bâtiment n'est pas beau. Je ne dirai pas qu'il est moche. C'est une boite, pas tout à fait régulier, posée sur des piliers d'hauteurs différent, donc en porte-à-faux, sur une parterre en béton, qui ressemble à une carte régionale. Le bâtiment est entouré d'un grand jardin. Dès l'entrée de l'espace, on entend des bruits de chevaux et à l'approche du bâtiment, il y a des bruits de canons. Le rez-de-chaussée par lequel on entre est le niveau technique: toilettes, consigne, snack-bar, ascenseurs. On monte au premier par un grand escalier pour arriver devant la billetterie et la boutique.
La visite commence avec un court film pour remonter le temps jusqu'à la guerre de '70, car pour les français, c'est ça le début. Il y a deux parcours: chronologique et thématique. Les deux sont bien fait et à la porté des écoliers comme des adultes. On montre bien l'indoctrination de revanche du côté français, l'industrialisation en vue d'une guerre de tous, les alliances qui liaient les uns et les autres. C'est déprimant tellement on voit des choses similaires encore aujourd'hui. Il y a des petits films, des présentations vidéo qui montre le rapide engrenage à partir de l'assassinât de l'archiduc à Sarajevo. Il y a des mises en scène de tranchées. Il y a des armes, des avions, des transports, y compris un taxi de la Marne. Il y a, à la fin, un épilogue qui montre comment la fin de cette guerre a alimenté la suivante. Dans les salles thématiques, on voit comment les civiles et les militaires on vécu cette guerre. J'étais très impressionnée par la créativité artistique des soldats -- fabrication des instruments de musique, transformation des pièces métalliques (douilles d'obus qui deviennent chopes, par exemple) et la gravure. Il y avait aussi la salle des soldats des colonies, la salle de l'engagement américain, la salle de la médecine....
Il y a, en ce moment, une exposition temporaire sur les troupes Britanniques (du pays et des colonies ou du Commonwealth).
Ceci complète les visites que nous avons faits l'année dernière sur des sites de bataille, et le fort et l'ossuaire à Douaumont. C'est une visite à faire.
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About two weeks ago, on a gray day (and we've had almost nothing but that since we got home), Paul and I decided to visit the Musée de la Grande Guerre, which is not far from us, about 40 minutes away, just north of Meaux. It's been getting a fair amount of press recently. It opened on November 11, 2011, fittingly, but this year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, or what the British call, the Great War. France has been spotlighting this anniversary and next month is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Marne, which took place, at this spot.
The building is not particularly beautiful, nor ugly, for that matter. It's a sort of box, not quite rectangular, set on pillars that are not all the same height over a concrete map. There's a garden, like a field, around it. As you enter from the parking lot, you hear horses and, as you get closer, cannons. The ground floor is the technical level, with the toilets, cloakroom, elevator access, and snack bar. The stairs lead to the ticket and boutique on the first floor.
The visit starts with a short film to take you back in time to the beginning. The beginning, for the French, at least, lies in the disastrous Franco-Prussian war, which they lost. Alsace and Lorraine were annexed by Germany and the French were bent on revenge. This is well-documented, here. As you meander through the rooms building up to the war, you can see the propaganda, the training, the industrial build-up. From there, the museum splits into two paths: you can go through the war chronologically or step into the rooms on the side for a thematic visit. There are short films and maps to show the rapid entry into combat after the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo. There are tanks and trucks and a Marne taxi (a brigade of Parisian taxis was sent to the front.), planes and so on. They've set up some trenches so you can see what that was like. At the end, there's a bit of epilogue, showing how the end of WWI set the stage for WWII. In the thematic rooms, they showed the medical care, the gas masks, and just the daily life of civilians and soldiers. I was quite impressed by the soldiers' artistic creativity in the trenches. They recovered shell casings and transformed them into drinking mugs with elegant engravings. They made musical instruments from helmets. They drew and painted. There are also rooms dedicated to the soldiers sent from the colonies and a room for the American engagement, although I was disappointed not to see any mention of the Escadrille Lafayette of American volunteers; the room starts with the official entrance of the US.
Currently, there is a temporary exhibit that goes into more detail on the British soldiers -- how they were recruited village-by-village, the ones sent from the colonies and the Commonwealth.
This museum is a perfect complement to the battle site and Douaumont fort and ossuary visits we did last year, in June.

Georges Braque exhibit at the Grand Palais

Just the week after we got back from La Réunion, Paul and I took in the Braque exhibit at the Grand Palais. It's one of those monumental exhibits, taking in all of Braque's periods. Therefore it is crowed. We went in the afternoon, after my stint at the library. That was not a good idea. I hope we get to go back, early some morning. I remember first seeing Braque at the Jeu de Paume, in 1970, when that was the Impressionists and early 20th century museum. I remember Claude's Tante Edith, our art history teacher for the semester telling us about the breakthroughs in art. Most of all, I remember Tante Edith's clasp, which I spotted on a visit to her apartment, and her telling me "Ah, oui, Georges me l'a donnée." And I took a closer look and asked, "Georges Braque?" and she sighed and said, "Ah, oui." Somehow, talking to someone who connected to the past was fascinating.
That was running through my mind as I went through the exhibit. Also, how much Braque and Picasso inspired one another. And how I think Matisse was inspired. Art is long chain of inspirations.
If you go, be patient; go early; take your time.

Philadelphia Weekend

I went to Philadelphia on Friday to attend a class reunion on Saturday. I arrived home this morning, Monday. No time for jet lag!
I am not really going to talk about the reunion, here. Not much. It's the first real high school reunion event I've been to. Five years ago, a group of us who have remained friends over the years got together for a weekend in the Catskills and three years ago, a larger group, 16, spent a weekend at Barnegat Light. In the five years, an email group and then a Facebook group have grown and grown and I've made lots of virtual friends. Some have become real, in the flesh friends on their trips through Paris and I've made an effort to meet up with them on my trips -- old friends and new ones that I never knew in high school. I've said it before and it continues to astound me how strong and supportive a group of women friends can be. I'm very glad I made this special trip for this reunion. There were around 120 of us.
Thank you again, Tony and Barbara, for picking me up and driving me from NY to Philly. I'll try to remember the next time I'm looking up flights and have separate browser windows open that I should not click so quickly on the least expensive flight. I loved seeing you. If I had flown into Philly direct, we could have met there and not had that long drive. Of course the long drive did give us time for a good chat and I loved it. Best to avoid Friday rush hour out of N.Y., though!
Jon, thank you for driving over. I enjoyed dinner with you and Eric and the speedy view of the Barnes.
I almost missed going to the Barnes and if Jon hadn't gone through the trouble of getting himself a ticket, I wouldn't have gone. I arranged for a shuttle ride back to JFK and for my 7:10 flight, with the recommended check-in 3 hours before, so the shuttle was to pick me up at 11:30! You kind of forget that you get a tour of Philly as the shuttle picks up customers all over town. I was not the first, so I can't complain. We got a nice tour of the Northeast before heading for the first drop-offs at Newark. The traffic delays on the N.J. turnpike going north were as bad as the ones we had southbound on Friday and we got to JFK at 4:30.
Back to the Barnes. I liked it. One hour is not enough. The museum building is interesting; the reproduction of the rooms of the original house is well done, so the works are shown as they were in the house in Merion. Barnes' disposition is, in my opinion, coherent. I could see the way the colors flowed from painting to painting to Pennsylvania Dutch chest. I liked the chairs and the pewter ware. I could see how the door hinges and other hardware guided the eye and framed the works on the walls. I could connect the works of different origins, different painters, and see their similarities.
I was not surprised that viewers are not allowed to photograph the rooms, but I was surprised that you can't draw or sketch, either. There's a lot of Renoir and I am convinced that I don't like Renoir as much as I thought I did years ago. I merely mentioned back in 2009 that Paul and I had been to see the Renoir exhibit and that it was too crowded, but I forgot to say how disappointed I was in seeing so many Renoirs. Barnes collected a lot of Renoir - the portraits of little girls, the family paintings, nudes. When I see a lot of Renoir all together, I just don't like it all that much. Cézanne is different. I like some of his landscapes and stilllife paintings, but I get depressed when I see his portraits. Barnes collected a lot of Cézanne, too. He also collected a lot of other painters, so I let my eyes wander away from the familiar Renoirs and Cézannes to look at the others. I'll take a notebook next time to jot down thoughts as I go through the exhibit. And I'll make it to the second floor!
Honestly though, a weekend trip to another continent with considerable time zone differences is not a reasonable thing to do.





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Vacation?

Somehow, I think of vacations as being longer. I'd call this a long weekend, except the weekend part of it was short; we got home early on Sunday. It's going to be a long post, though, and I'm linking sites and towns to the Wikipedia entries (sometimes in French, sometimes in English) to keep it a bit shorter.
We managed to keep almost a week free of volunteer duties and doctors' appointments, babysitting, dinners out and other nice or not-so-nice obligations. We almost went to England, but the family, there, had other obligations -- very nice obligations -- congratulations to Nigel and Valérie! The big question was "where?" We've had such a horrible spring; should we head south? Or go see friends?

Well, we called P and J in Basel and they were home from their trip and we called M and K in Freiburg-im-Breisgau, so that settled it. We headed east; I programmed the GPS to not authorize highways, so that forced us to a leisurely pace on our way to Metz, where we planned to spend the first night. Our route took us through the village of Epine, which has a basilica. This is a village of 700 inhabitants in the Department of the Marne, near Châlons en Champagne, with an enormous church! It's a Gothic church; it didn't get its basilica status until 1914. The name of the church, Notre Dame de L'Epine, and the town, does not come from the crown of thorns; the legend is that the statue of the virgin was miraculously saved from a burning thorn bush. What surprised me most, aside from its cathedral size, was that the statues all had their heads. In France, most church statues lost their heads during the French revolution. The next thing was the gargoyles, which are in incredibly good condition, too. There's a plaque near the entrance, honoring Captain Louis d'Hangouwart, who, it seems, single-handedly saved the basilica from destruction on Sept. 9, 1914. That was very close to the beginning of World War 1, and very far west already! There is, of course, also, the miraculous well, over which the church was built.
We were on the WWI battlefield road and made a stop at the Butte de Vauquois. There was once a village at the top of this hill. There was a city hall and a church separated by the street. It was a battle of mines. The deep mine crater line what was the street. The French trenches are on one side and the German trenches on the other. The German trenches are permanent structures, in stone; the French ones are more basic mud with walls made of woven branches and sandbags. The whole hill is pitted with mine craters. The forest has grown back, but you can still see the craters; you can't walk off the paths.
After that, we went to Verdun,  the Douaumont Ossuary, which on the site of the demolished village of Douaumont. There's the fort dug into the hill just before you get to the ossuary and walked on the hill/roof, full of shell holes. Military cemeteries are impressive, especially the big ones. So many graves for the ones identified; so many bones of the unknown.
It was a fairly short drive to Metz after Verdun. P-F and N lived in Metz about 20 years ago and loved it. Now we know why. It's a beautiful city, with a vibrant city center. I guess it helped that the weather was nice and people were out. Not tourist people, but local people. The cafés set up on the plazas and sidewalks were packed. The shops were busy. I could live here.
The next morning turned south towards Mulhouse. We stopped to take a look at the Château de Lunéville, a kind of mini-Versailles, built by Léopold, Duke of Lorraine early in the 18th century, but his son had to give it up to Stanislas, the exiled Polish king, who was Louis XVth's father-in-law. They are in the midst of restoring the building that was pretty much destroyed by a fire in 2003. The gardens will be the last part to be restored; there is currently a contemporary sculpture exhibit, there.
We continued on down through the Vosges mountains. We stopped in Gerardmer for lunch and remembered our vacation there more than 20 years ago. Our route took us past Xonrupt, where we stayed. The Linvosges textile factory is one of the very few textile works still functioning and we visited the factory shop. The rest of the afternoon was taken up driving along the crest line from the Col de la Schlucht to Mulhouse. As we came down on the Alsacien side of the mountains, the weather was hot and sunny and we had time to walk around Mulhouse a bit. It's a dying city. On entering the city, you drive through the same warehouse-style shopping centers that surround almost all French cities, and in the city center, you see the closed shops and restaurants. There were people, but not nearly as many were out and about as in Metz. Our hotel was an old hotel near the train station, very nice and friendlier than a chain. We were next to the Museum of Printed Textiles, which we visited not the next morning, but the morning after. It's an interesting visit, because as in Manchester, you see how much was invented for the textile industry. In Manchester, it's the creation of the fabric, in Mulhouse, it's the chemical industry for fixed colors in printing. There's a bit of the history of dyeing fabrics, which was copied from the Indian tradition of tie-dyeing and batik, before creating stamps and then engraved cylinders.
The trip to Basel was to see P and J. We saw them last year, when they were in Paris. For Paul that was the first time in over 40 years and for me, it was the first time. They are delightful. The urban heating infrastructure is in upheaval in Basel, so the GPS had to work very hard to find their apartment building, but we did find it. They have a sumptuous apartment with a beautiful view, lots of greenery and tall trees, and they are a short block away from the tram that gets them into the city center in just two stops, no more than 5 minutes! It's perfect. We took the tram and connected to another to go to up to the other side of the city to the restaurant, where we were lucky to eat on the terrace, in the sun. We had an excellent basque chicken and then ambled down the hill, through what seemed more like a village than a city center, down to the city hall and the church and the old streets, to the other side, where we got a tram back to the apartment. The city was packed with people visiting for ArtBasel, the contemporary art sale. On our return to the apartment house, we got in the car and went over the border into Germany to visit the Vitra production site at Weil am Rhein. Like the industrialists of the 18th and 19th century, the site is an architectural showpiece of contemporary architecture: Jean Prouvé, Frank Gehry, Buckminster Fuller, to name a few. This is where they make the famous Eames chair
and so many other pieces that have become iconic, like the Panton chair.
Back to the apartment for more conversation and a great dinner of asparagus and ham before heading back to Mulhouse for the night.
The next morning, after visiting the Museum of Printed Textiles, we went to see the Schlumpf collection, which is now the National Museum of Automobiles -- acres and acres of cars. Interesting, but a bit too much of a good thing.
Back into the mountains to take the high road to Colmar, via Munster. Colmat is lively, clean and filled with tourists. Like all these pretty Alsacian towns, it's Disneyesque, maybe a bit more so than the other towns. We took the little train around the old town. The hero of Colmar is Bartholdi, the sculptor who did the Statue of Liberty. Everything is named for Bartholdi.
On Saturday morning, we took the slow route to Freiburg, in Germany, to see M and K. Their daughter, S, was there with her baby girl, so that was a treat. We had a short visit all together and then S left and we went into town for lunch. Lunch was taken as we walked around the market in front of the cathedral, first stop at one of the sausage stands for the main dish, followed by the lightest, creamiest cheesecake I've ever had. Having filled up with food, we went to a beer garden for some beer. There was a band playing. The town was bursting with people happy to be out in good weather on the weekend. We walked around a bit and then went up to one of the restaurants on the mountain for coffee and a slice of Black Forest cake before going back to the apartment. We had dinner -- asparagus and ham -- at a restaurant just down the street.
Sunday, we were getting tired of taking just the country roads, so we allowed highways, but spent most of the morning on the country road about half the distance back to Paris, and this took us right through Ronchamp, where we saw a modern-looking church on a hill, which I remembered (from a documentary) as a Le Corbusier, so we went up there to see it. There is a whole Clarisse community up there, but you can't see anything except the chapel from below. Renzo Piano did the new convent and oratory, also invisible from below.
As this is not vacation season and the road was empty for the return to Paris, so we got back in time to see Dominique Weil's exhibit at La Charpente.
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On the way home

We're waiting at the airport for our plane to load. I didn't manage to see everyone I had on my list, but when we got to L.A. on Thursday, we went to the L.A. County Museum of Art for a short visit and Michael G. came with his friend L, so I got to meet her. I hadn't seen Michael since before his wife suddenly passed away. I had seen them both at the library for a movie night. I have become a fan of his books and have all four that have been published so far. I had originally planned to meet up with another high school mate in the evening, but she ended up with some appointments that made it too complicated. When we stopped for a night a San Simeon, on Tuesday, I had time for a nice long phone call with her, so that made up for not meeting her.
Yesterday, Friday, we went down to San Diego and went over to Terry and Roger's for the afternoon. Emma had dinner with a friend, but she was able to spend some time with us before she took off. It was a great visit and they treated me to a wonderful meal at a restaurant not far from their house, in Balboa Park before they took me back to the hotel.
Today, back to L.A. with a visit with the Giesbergs. I'm sorry Dan had had to go away on business but I got to see Dick, Carol, and Susan and her family. We had a fine afternoon.
Our flight is delayed an hour. I've had time to load up the last of my pictures. For some odd reason, I'm not able to upload one or two to this post. For those who know me, get in touch with me directly if you want the link to the album. I'm sure that by tomorrow, I'll have a decent connection.

Busy, Busy

I'm going to start with today and work backwards. It's been a busy month!
This morning started out with breakfast with Representative Carolyn Maloney (Dem. NY). AARO organized this breakfast on very short notice. If we had had more time, we might have organized a real event around her coming to Paris. She is the founder and chair of the Americans Abroad Caucus. She's looking for a Republican co-chair, so if your representative is a Republican, suggest it. She has been our champion in Congress. She talked a bit, but mostly she listened to us. We (AARO) gave her a certificate expressing our gratitude for all that she has done, so far. I'm honored to have attended this breakfast and to have met her.

Actually, I met her yesterday evening at the Democrats Abroad event in her honor. There were more people present and she was there to speak about what she and the Americans Abroad Caucus have accomplished and what's to come, but she also spent considerable time listening. In addition to our issues as Americans Abroad, she alerted us to the number of measures that are being passed (although struck down afterwards) against women. Not only the invasive anti-abortion measures and now, anti-contraception. I've been reading about it in the paper, but I must admit I had no idea the extent of the movement. It was a really short trip: arrival in the morning; meeting with the Ambassador Rivkin in the afternoon; the cocktail event followed by a fundraising dinner in the evening; breakfast this morning; train to London for more of the same and return to Washington tomorrow.
Thursday evening was the AARO board meeting followed by a little party for RB, who has left the board after 10 years of being the events manager. 
We had dinner with the P's yesterday evening (after that event). It was a nice, calm meal. They've signed up for a trip to China in the fall, so we compared their itinerary with ours from 6 years ago.

Last Sunday, after casting our votes in the first round of the legislative elections here, we set off for Six-Fours to visit the Lebelles down there for a few days. That's always enjoyable. G cooks up a storm and it's so good, it's hard to resist eating too much. Lots and lots of conversation, of course. P has been delving into family history and shared his genealogy files with us. We also spent an afternoon with Ch and Y. We returned on Wednesday. 
All the time we were gone and until yesterday, I was working in the background on the certificate for Representative Maloney. I was supposed to do it, but I ran into a little problem because I no longer have very sophisticated image software, so a colleague from the board ended up having to actually do it. It looks great and now we have a good template and an image of our logo at 20% transparency to use as background in future documents.
Paul and I went to the Matisse exhibit at Beaubourg at the beginning of the month. That was fantastic -- all the work he did drawing over and over the same subject. Those fluid lines are not so simple; they come after having drawn the subject so much the hands seem to know what to do automatically. Paintings are the same. He painted, took a picture, scraped the painting and started over for a year, a year and a half!
The first weekend in June was the exhibit of our paintings at La Charpente, followed by a visit from Sacha and his parents. He's getting that Bouddha look about him! I visited him and Gwen yesterday before going to that cocktail event. He's really growing so, so fast. He's smiling at people, now!

Short Visit to England

 These photos of the kids on the slide were taken at the  Imperial War Museum at Duxford. I recommend you visit the website for more detailed information, because, as you can see, the girls really loved the playground. Aurelia was also a bit in awe of all the "big planes". She wasn't the only one; so was I. Charlotte didn't say much, but she was interested and a good, uncomplaining trooper. We were all interested, but Paul and Geoff were able to dig up all the information on aviation that they had stored in their brains, as well. The museum is still a working airfield for small aircraft, so we saw a couple of little planes take off and land, as we walked miles from one hangar to the next. It was sunny, not too cold, and very windy, which is perfect for an outing.

The girls were happy; we had a nice, late lunch; it was a perfectly nice day. Charlotte and I also had time over the weekend to do some knitting. I finished a ruffled scarf for Claire and Charlotte worked on a scrunchy to match the headband her mummy made. (For the men reading this, a scrunchy is to hold ponytails.)

Sunday, we went out to eat and then Paul and I had a little rest while everyone else went to the swimming pool.

Monday, we came home. The round trip train fare Birmingham-Northhampton is less expensive than the round trip RER fare Nogent-Roissy CDG! And it seems to go faster, only 50 minutes. Well, yesterday, it certainly did go faster!

Our plane arrived on time and we had to walk what seemed like several miles before arriving at baggage claim, but the baggage still took longer, so we didn't get out of that until almost an hour after arriving. Then, the long walk to the RER station, where we went through immediately since I had thought ahead and we had our tickets. (I remembered the long lines at the machines from some time ago.) Our tickets were stamped in the turnstile at 20h38. The train was waiting; we got on and waited, and waited, and waited. No announcements. Finally, the train left and stopped at the CDG1 station and then at the Paris-Nord Exhibition station, where we waited and waited and waited. When we got to Villepinte, the driver announced, at last, that there were some technical problems and some aggression somewhere on the line and that we'd have to wait 5 - 10 minutes at all the stations. We waited a half hour at Sevran, where he announced that the terminus would be Gare du Nord when we finally made it into the city. We made some more long stops and then another long, long, long one at the Stade de France before arriving at the Gare du Nord at 23:10! I was beginning to understand why some people might have been aggressive. Yes, 2 1/2 hours for a 30 minute trip and very little information. None in English. The people in our wagon thanked me over and over as I translated the little announcements the driver made. Normally, we would have stayed on one more stop to Châtelet-Les Halles, but we had to get off and take the métro. It's another fairly long walk from the train station to the métro station, but by this time, we didn't really care much. Then, after several stops, connect from the métro to the RER A, wait for our train and finally arrive at Nogent at about midnight. By this time, our tickets were no longer valid! We had to call for assistance and were let through with no problem. Arrived home a little after midnight! Somehow, driving door-to-door seems like a better option for the next trip.

Musée d'Orsay - all new!

From the viewing platform

We (Paul, Emma and I) went to the Musée d'Orsay last Tuesday: It's a completelly new museum, all re-decorated and the art is all re-distributed throughout; so if even if you've been there before, it's most definitely worth revisiting. Des Racines et des Ailes did a special report on the refurbishment a couple of weeks ago. (Click the link to the show to check if the video is still available.) It was an excellent show that incited us to schedule our visit for after my return from England.
One thing that bugged me is that this museum still has a "no photo" rule, although photos from the viewing platform or in the non-exhibit areas are tolerated. I saw plenty of people taking pictures, trying to hide or hold their smartphones awkwardly to do it. Why not just allow it and request people not use flash. Plenty of the artwork has been photographed and if you open the links to articles here, you'll see them.

In no particular order, if you head right from the sculpture gallery on the ground floor (that hasn't changed, but they've cleaned the white sculptures that had been dirtied from so many hands caressing them over the years) you see many of the pre-Impressionist influencers and post-Impressionist influenced. Actually it's quite mixed. I started making associations. For example in Gustave Moreau's symbolism I saw the influence on Ensor (wrote about that in Jan. 2010) who was about a generation later. Moreau has his own museum in Paris, In Puvis de Chavanne I saw an influence on A. Wyeth. (Maybe I'm thinking of Wyeth because there's an exhibit I'd like to go to at the Mona Bismarck foundation.) Puvis de Chavanne also did some patriotic, sepia-colored art during the Franco-Prussian war -- a woman holding a rifle, looking out over the city. Very sad. And I loved the vibrant colors in Odilon Redon's pastels.

5th floor, in front of the clock

There is a collection of Vuillard (Jardins Publics), Bonnard (En Barque), and Toulouse-Lautrec (cabaret scenes) and they all go together perfectly. One of the new things at the museum is the wall paint. They've gotten rid of the white walls. The walls are deep green, red, blue-gray, slate colors. They pick up the colors from the paintings and the paintings stand out all the better for it. The lighting is perfect.

There's a tryptique (three paintings framed together): a Sisley, a Pissaro, and a Monet.You could think it was all done by a single artist. On the ground floor, the artists are all mixed together, in collections. I loved the Mollard collection of Degas, Renoir, Pissaro, and Sisley, and more, all jumbled together.

Then you go through the Barbizon school of painting: Daubigny, Rosa Bonheur's cows, Millet's peasants, and Corot's landscapes. You still haven't hit the Impressionist exhibit! That's now up on the 5th floor. I've seen so much Monet in the past year, at Rouen and then at the Grand Palais, and Renoir at the Grand Palais, so I was able to skip around a bit. Manet's Olympe is on a deep red wall -- fantastic effect.

I didn't make it to the 2nd floor for Van Gogh and other post-Impressionists, Art Nouveau and so on. That'll be for another time. I did take a look at the temporary exhibit "Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde". Lots of Whistler! And beautiful furniture (William Morris and Godwin), ironwork (Thomas Jeckyll) and silverware (Christopher Dresser)!

As you can see, I loved it!

It's summer

The other rose bush from England -- Hot chocolate

 Last Sunday I was a tourist in Paris. The Ps were here with grand-daughter and a friend of hers, 15 years old, so they wanted to pack in the Eiffel Tower, the Orsay museum, and maybe a few other sites. Sunday morning I arrived at the Eiffel Tower at just past 10 and found them in the North tower line after a couple of intercontinental text messages. It was starting to get hot, but we were in the shade. We talked; the girls went off to the souvenir stands to check out prices. After about an hour an a half we were waiting for the elevator to go up to the second level where we got in another line to reach the top. At least while you are in line you are also looking at Paris below and getting your bearings. A walk around the top, I did not climb up the stairs for the outdoor peek, and in line again for the elevator down. By the time we got down, we were all pretty hungry and the heat was already weighing on everyone. I'm not complaining. It's just that you forget so fast how long it takes to "do" the Eiffel Tower. Grin and bear it and be sure to be in good conversation with such pleasant company.

One of the rose bushes we picked up in England

 We continued our gabbing through lunch. We walked over to the Boulevard de la Bourdonnais, near the American Library and stopped at a corner café. We waited for menus. We waited to order, and when we finally started our order, the waiter shouted at us that we couldn't order sandwiches from him; you could only do that at the bar. That, in spite of the fact that others of us were ordering other dishes. He just walked off to let the sandwich eaters choose something else and then kept ignoring us. We finally got up and went to the opposite corner and had an excellent lunch that was even cheaper than if we'd stayed at the first café. I think we were seated and served in less time than the first guy had shown up to take the order, too.

Herbs: parsley, (no sage), rosemary, thyme,  and mint

Rhubarb -- in fact I harvested 2 lbs. this morning
 and made rhubarb pie!

After all that standing in lines and then sitting at lunch, we walked to the Musée d'Orsay. The girls felt this was a really long walk, but I just mapped it on mapmywalk.com and it's not quite 1.6 mi. or just over 2.5 km. We walked in the shade and stopped at some souvenir shops, and to get water. Then, R stood in line at the museum while we girls stood in the shade by the side. There's some renovation work going on, some of the post-impressionists are grouped together in a side room, making it very convenient to see the major pieces together. We were all pretty tired before a full hour had gone by, so we finally left to catch a cab back to the hotel.

Zuccini

Well, on Sunday afternoons there are no taxis to be found at taxi stands. We had cool drinks at the corner café and still no cabs came by, so we took the metro, which is, of course, always the best solution. It's just that you can't always convince the others that it's going to be faster. After a short rest at the hotel and showing  off our respective photo albums and R showing me some cool apps on his Ipad, we headed back to the metro to go to the restaurant. There was no way I could get them to walk (less than the earlier walk, but still a little over a mile), so we got back on the metro. Anne met us on our way from the metro station to the restaurant for dinner. Louis and Gwen were already there when we arrived.

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Firmin le Barbier on the rue de Montessuy, again, near the Eiffel Tower, is excellent for a small group. It's been written up in several guides and deserves its excellent reputation. It's not too expensive. It's small, so you really do have to reserve.

My throat, which had been scratchy since our return from England, was fairly sore. I thought I was just talking too much. But on Monday morning, I had no voice at all and even today, Saturday, it's still not normal. Seems other people are dealing with laryngitis, too, so I guess it's a virus going around.

Hope you've enjoyed the pictures of our vegetable patch.

Caillebotte brothers

 Paul and I just got in from seeing an exhibit at the Musée André-Jacquemart. You might know the name Caillebotte from the famous painting of the floor scrapers. Well, there were two rather wealthy brothers and one, Gustave, was a painter. He exhibited with the Impressionist and was a collector and patron. His brother, Marcel, took up photography. One of the things about Gustave was the way he chose the point of view for many of his paintings -- looking down on the floor scrappers, taking a plunging view from what seems to be a fifth-floor apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann (Marcel's apartment) and almost photographic, modern points of view. Marcel's photos, when you consider how expensive photo development and printing were, are exceptionally banal, everyday photos of family in their activities or at rest, people in the street, street scenes. They are not so different from what catches the eye today, like seeing two guys perched on ladders at the Place de la Concorde would be something I'd take a picture of, too. And this is modern because most 19th century photos were formal productions. Marcel took advantage of the new techniques that allowed for faster shooting. There is a lot of similarity between the two brothers' subject matter. Of course, there's family, but even the boating scenes or the railroad bridges are shared. As you can tell, I enjoyed it.

On the way home, we stopped to eat at Le Relais in Nogent and ate in the courtyard. The prices seem to have gone up there since the change in management, but the food was good, so no complaints. We've had such summer-like weather for the past month, I just know we're going to pay for it one way or another. Might as well take advantage of it, though. Paul is out reading (or sleeping?) in the backyard. The tomato plants are coming up just fine. I should buy more plants for the vegetable garden this weekend.

A day of rest

It's been a busy week, starting with Claire and Aurelia's visit Friday to Monday and ending with Ken and Sandy from Monday to Friday. I took them to the airport before dawn this morning. OK, before dawn is not a big deal in winter, since dawn isn't until 8:30, but it sounds so early!

No complaints, though. It was a wonderful week. With Aurelia we mostly stayed home and went for walks in the neighborhood. Claire was out with her friends a lot, but Sunday afternoon was a family day. Louis and Gwen came here, as did Anne.
Monday morning I made a blanquette de veau (veal stew in white sauce) for lunch. I left home before lunch to pick up Ken and Sandy. I diligently checked the flight status before leaving and it was showing up with a 5-minute delay. There were no major traffic delays and I got to the airport about 10 minutes before the flight was due and spent a good deal of time finding a parking space. I got up to the welcome area for flight arrivals a little after the flight was due, but the flight was still not in. It was still expected at 12:30. At 1, it was still expected at 12:30! I went over to the information booth and asked if they had any better information and they told me it was now due just before 2:00! I remarked that their arrival board needed updating, since the plane had obviously not even taken off at the expected arrival time. Needless to day, Ken and Sandy did arrive and their baggage was the first off the plane, so we got home by 3:00. They had just enough time to say hello to Claire and meet Aurelia before Paul took those two to the airport for their flight while we had our lunch.
Jacques came over after work to say hello. After a weekend of cooking, I hadn't wanted to make another dinner. Plus, we had had a very late lunch, so I, for one, was not hungry. I had the perfect solution. Quenelles de brochet, which Wikipedia translates as pike quenelles, and I would translate quenelle as a big dumpling, in a fish soup. I didn't have to make anything. I bought the quenelles and the soup at the market from the fishmonger and she's the one who suggested cooking the quenelles in the soup and serving that way. It was a hit. Salad and then cheese and that was the meal. No work.
Tuesday we all went into Paris, but with different things to do. Paul left us to see his friends from work; I got off to go to Michel Cluzel to get some chocolat before going on to the library; and Ken and Sandy continued to the Grand Palais to try to see the Monet exhibit. Turns out the exhibit is by advance purchase only and is all sold out, so they saw the Bulgari exhibit instead. We went over to Jacques' for dinner, where we saw Julien and Gaetane and their children. It was Julien's birthday! Jean-Paul and Anne, other friends who know Ken and Sandy, came in for a before dinner drink. We miss Christine. Still, we had a good time, a good dinner and a good birthday celebration.
Jacques lent Paul his card for the Grand Palais, and we were able to take Ken and Sandy to the Monet exhibit that way. The exhibit was very crowded. Not at all like it was when I went with Rita. Paul and I left Ken and Sandy there because I had to get back for a dentist appointment and Paul had something else. We all met up later at Anne's with Louis and Gwen and went out for a family dinner nearby.

Yesterday, I went into Paris with Ken and Sandy and we went to the Marais. Had falafel for lunch on the Rue de Rosiers and then went to see what was on at the Museum of Jewish Art and History. They've rearranged the permanent exhibit since the last time I went there. It's better, less dense. I think we spent too much time in the permanent exhibit and didn't leave enough for the current exhibit of Felix Nussbaum. What a discovery! What a shame! By looking at the paintings you can see history unfolding -- from the seaside, happy scenes in the 1920s to the masks (like his friend, James Ensor) in the '30s and then premonitions of the concentration camps in the '40s. He died there only 40 years old. But we had to leave to meet Jacques at the Grand Palais for the France 1500 exhibit. For me, it was the second time and I was looking forward to seeing the Belle Ferronière again, but she'd been taken back to the Louvre! A pity. They could have at least put up a nice reproduction of it, but no. If you didn't see it before November 18, then you weren't going to get a glimpse. I felt sorry as I had encouraged the choice of that exhibit for that painting. The rest of the exhibit is still worth seeing. I was able to pay more attention to details this time. We had dinner at a pizzeria on the Champs Elysées and then met Paul at the Théatre des Champs Elysées, which is on Ave. Montaigne, near the Place d'Alma, not the Champs-Elysées, for a fantastic concert of Sibelius and Prokofiev, which I am listening to as I write the blog. It's available for listening for a month. Wish I could download it.

Made it to the Monet exhibit

This is a picture by Jacques Demarthon/Agence France-Presse, used to illustrate the critical review in the New York Times. I'm glad I didn't read the review before seeing the show for myself. It's a great review and a great show, but I'm glad I decided it was great on my own. Well, not entirely on my own since Rita also got up before the break of dawn this freezing morning to get the RER and be at the exhibit entrance at 9:00.
There was already quite a line, but since I had that Sésame card, we went in first and didn't have to stop at the cashier's desk. We got rid of our coats and went into the absolutely empty Grand Palais. They weren't empty for long; Rita and I took our time and by the time we were through the first room, the crowd had caught up with us. It wasn't a horde, though, we were able to go at our own speed and look carefully at whatever we wanted to. That brings me back to why I chose this picture; I was most impressed by the many series. 
Back in September, when we went to Rouen with Jackie and Ed, we saw the Impressionists in Rouen exhibit and, of course, the series of the Rouen cathedrale were there. Well, they finished the exhibit in Rouen just in time to make the trip to Paris. Each painting in a series belongs to a different owner -- museums for the most part -- all over the world, so you really don't get to compare the cathedrale, haystack, or parliament paintings. Here, you do. They really did get paintings from all over the world, with the exception of the Marmottan museum in Paris, which has its own Monet exhibit and doesn't want to share. So you get to see the haystacks at different times of the day with colors and shadows more or less intense, or in sunlight or under snow. I just loved the Parliament paintings from the early 1900s. 
Another thing I noticed about Monet is that he doesn't seem to have a signature brush stroke. Each painting is done differently. Reflections on the water are fantastic, but there doesn't seem to be a certain way to get that result; it's all in the color, and there doesn't seem to any right way to do that, either. Sometimes the little people in a painting are really vague tiny splotches, but with a little different color in the middle of the splotch, it's a woman's dress. On the other hand, the details in large paintings with people are exquisite and exact. 
So now, I'm back home. No library today. Anne has kindly taken the afternoon slot for today. She has to stay in town for an evening activity and just preferred staying at the library. I understand her reasoning. It's such a schlep to go back home that the mere idea of schleping back out makes you want to just crawl under the covers and not go. I've had an excellent left-over turkey lunch. It's very cold, but the sun has come out. Rita and I walked up the Champs Elysées from the Grand Palais to the RER station at Etoile and then, of course, I walked home from the Fontenay station. That added to my walk to the station should be enough for today. 
Here is the link to the exhibit again: Monet 2010 and another to the post about our trip to Rouen in September.

Other than the rally

I completely forgot to write about the fascinating exhibit that Paul and I went to last Friday. It's France 1500: between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (That's my translation. I didn't bother to look up theirs.) We're always thinking of the Renaissance as coming up from Italy. It did, but it also came down from Flanders. France sits in the middle and was as much under the influence of artists from the north as from the south. I hadn't realized how much or, at least, how it was all happening at the same time. In my head, I had Italy first and Flanders following. They have paintings, of course, but also sculptures and illuminated books and tapestries. The books were interesting because they weren't all religious books. There again, I was stuck in thinking that it was prayer books and manuscript copied bibles and other religious books that were illuminated, but it turns out all kinds of books were. Of course, by 1500, they were printing books and they were printing them with ready-to-illuminate woodcut illustrations, just like coloring books. Well-known artists were filling in these coloring books, so there!
Some of the scuptures they have in this exhibit still have traces of their colors, some have even more vibrant colors than just traces, so you can really see how they were originally -- very lifelike. On some of the Italian-influenced ones, the fabric, carved in the stone, is so delicate and fine, it's hard to imagine how that could be carved. There is also a lot of wood carving. There is a piece from the Palais de Justice in Rouen and since we were in Rouen admiring the Palais de la Justice just two months ago, I found it particularly interesting.
There's a Leonardo da Vinci portrait of a young lady -- the photo at the top of this page. She's got the same smile as the Mona Lisa, doesn't she? There's no landscape behind her though. It's "La Belle Ferronière" (commentary in French). She's very pretty, I think. Also, we could get up close to look at her!
Much of the art was on order. Anne de Bretagne, first, wife of Charles VII, then Louis XII, started and was followed by Louise de Savoie. It was the women who were the patrons of the arts. And since Louis XII and François I won some wars in Italy, a lot of artwork and artists came from Italy as war booty. The exhibit is interesting, varied, and the works come from lots of different places we don't have access to, so it's not the same as some eshibits that pull in pieces from the Musée de Cluny and the Louvre. I believe this exhibit will be going to Chicago, but I can't find my way back to the page where I think I saw that, so you'd better check.
If you're planning a trip to Paris, you can prepare for Grand Palais exhibits on line and you can download the audio guide (€3 via paypal) if you want. I can't wait to go back again and concentrate on certain pieces.
When we left home on Friday, the idea was to see the Monet exhibit, also at the Grand Palais. But, I had to renew my "Carte Sésame" and as we approached the hall, I figured the line would be longer at the desk at the Monet exhibit than at the France 1500 one. I think I was right, because there was no line at all at France 1500. If you are in Paris for any length of time that would permit you to see several exhibits, the Carte Sésame is worth it. You don't have to stand in line to get into the halls; you can go as many times as you want; with the duo card, you can go with anyone you like because only the cardholder has to be the same person; you get access to the conferences and you get a discount at the audio-guide desk and souvenir shop. If you already have a card for the Louvre or Orsay, you get a discount on the Carte Sésame, or if you have the Carte Sésame, you get a discount at those museums for their cards. And to top off the advantages, cardholders can get into the Monet exhibit as early as 9:00 from Friday to Tuesday, so I think we'll take advantage of that one.
So, that's what we did last Friday. After the exhibit, we walked up the Champs Elysées to the Charles-de-Gaulle RER station, stopping on the way for a coffee and tiramisu at the McDo Café! Very cheap and very good tiramisu and coffee for much less than anywhere else.
Today is Tuesday and I have to get ready to go into town to the library.

Visits from classmates

Been trying to figure out how to write this post for a couple of weeks. I keep putting it off because there's always something coming up that I'll want to add and I figure I want to get it all in one letter. This probably comes from the old reflex of trying to pack everything into a single aerogramme and save on postage plus just plain laziness.
I've spoken about making acquaintance with my high school classmates (Girls High, 212) before. There was a walk with Sylvia (http://ellenlebelle.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-walk.html), a day with Rachel, and several short visits with Candace, who comes through Paris on business. Well this month, it's a long visit from Jackie and her husband. They are not staying with us; they rented an apartment in St. Germain des Près, in the center of left-back Parisian life. It's a perfect location for anyone coming to Paris.
We met up for a coffee a day or so after their arrival, when they weren't too jet-lagged and had a nice, long, catching up chat. We've gotten to know a bit about each other through facebook updates and, more intensively, through an e-mail list group. Those classmates of us that are on this list write about anything and everything without any PC. On facebook, one tends to censor oneself; well, I do, and I know others do, too, because it's so public. In fact, I don't say much at all on facebook; I stay away from political comments, from judgmental things. The e-mail list does not. We are free to say what we think and have those who might not agree discuss it. I must admit that, for the most part, we seem to agree on most things political. There is wonderful perspective on things racial. There's great warmth and understanding and commiseration on things familial, like in-laws, aging parents, separation, children, grandchildren, illness....

Back to this visit. On Monday, the 6th, the four of us (Jackie, me and husbands) went to Giverny and Rouen. Here we are standing on "the" bridge at "the" lily pond at Giverny. It was a cloudy day and the lilies were shut tight, so it was not as spectacular as I've seen it on other days. Each time I return to the Monet house, though, I see the Japanese prints he collected in more detail and like them more and more. More on Monet's house and gardens at Giverny
I guess it's because the weather was not so gorgeous that we more or less sped through the gardens and finished up earlier than I thought we would. We did not wait around to have lunch at the hotel up the street. We headed for Rouen.
Rouen is not far from Giverny. Giverny, itself is about an hour and a half from Paris, but can take longer if you spend an hour just getting out of Paris! Rouen is a city-museum all by itself. It is, or perhaps was, a major port, where goods were transferred to and from barges for travel further up the Seine. There are still lots of buildings from the 15th and 16th century, with their visible wood structure -- corresponds to Tudor style. There is still a street named Rue des Juifs, harking back to the Jewish ghetto. Rouen is where Joan of Arc was tried and burned at the stake. There's lots of history, here. There's also lots of war damage. The allies bombed the center of Rouenpreparation for D-Day. So next to an old tudor-style building, you'll find a 1950ish cement block of public housing. The Palais de Justice, still has bullet holes and artillery damage wherever it did not affect the structure. All the structural damage has been repaired, of course. We walked around the center a bit, had lunch and then headed on to the Musée des Beaux Arts.
The museum was the reason we were in Rouen. This year has been the year of Impressionism in Rouen and this particular exhibit is of Rouen as the subject of Impressionist art. Bridges, countryside, and, of course, Monet's Cathedral impressions. We remarked that of those paintings of the cathdral, there are only two points of view and all the paintings from each point of view seem to be done from sketches that were identical. I asked Francine about this and she said that of course they used copy methods and he would have had his canvasses all prepared with the main sketch and ready for paint. Jackie's husband has an especially good eye for detail and it was fun. It seemed we all share a distinct irreverence for art exhibits and feel free to comment.
Instead of taking the autoroute back to Paris, we took country roads and saw cows and horses -- but mostly cows.
A week ago, I met up with Jackie and Ed at the flea market, the Marché aux Puces. Originally, the idea was to meet up with Candace, who was supposed to have been at the dubbing studio nearby, but she ended up having to go straight elsewhere and skipping the Paris stop. So, the three of us window-shopped. The objective was to find a wedding gift. And we did! And we had lots of fun looking for it! They are very knowledgeable about Art Nouveau and Art Deco and we were immediately attracted to some very nice silver, which unfortunately was not quite right for the wedding gift, but was just beautiful to contemplate. That reminds me to send them the link to Roger's site; he makes beautiful Art Deco-inspired furniture and sculptures.
Let me now go back to before they arrived! Claire et al came through on their way back to England after a week at Pierre and Gillette's. Too short a visit! Barely enough time to celebrate both Gwen's and Aurelia's birthdays!
More photos: Ellen's album for August

The frosting is so much better than that candle!

The Williams's visit

Eric arrived on his school exchange trip in mid-June. He was in Lyons and had a great time in spite of some really cold and rainy weather. Tobi and Jon arrived on the 25th and brought the sun with them. In fact, they brought a bit of a heat wave, which, in our non-air-conditioned house, was pushing it a bit far. We all managed well. We even went to the movies to seek air-conditioning. We saw "Babes", which Tobi and I thought was very cute, but that's probably our mother status coming out. Jon and Eric seemed more indifferent to it.
Getting back to their arrival on the 25th. Most of the day got lost in a long nap, but they were up and bright and cheerful for dinner, so I invited the Pachters over. They had met Jon at the wedding last year. I had made some carrot soup according to Gillette's recipe and had enough in the freezer to defrost for the first course. That was good; followed by roast chicken and potatoes and salad; cheese and then a raspberry/rhubarb crumble with berries and rhubarb from our own garden.

Saturday, we spent a relaxing morning in Nogent and after lunch, we went to the Musée des Arts Premier (Quai Branly) and saw the permanent exhibit on African masks and then the temporary exhibit on contemporary Indian art. There was a little live music and it was very pleasant. What was especially pleasant was finding a really convenient parking space behind the museum. Our idea, originally, was to go from the museum across the Seine to the terrace restaurant at the Palais de Tokyo, but there was some urban sports thing going on -- extremely loud music and basketball hoops -- so we walked to the Place d'Alma and back across the Seine to the car and went to Montparnasse for dinner in a Moules-Frites restaurant on rue de la Gaïté -- nothing great. They had the world cup on, of course. After dinner, we headed towards Eric's hotel to pick him up. We got there early and saw the end of the US-Ghana game (I think it was that one). The US lost.

Sunday, we stuck close to home, just going out for a walk along the Marne in the afternoon. Eric needed a little down time after two weeks of intensive tourism. We did have dinner with Anne at the pub in Fontenay, which was alright. The service was slow, certainly due to the World Cup game on.
Monday, we went to Giverny to see Monet's house and gardens. The flowers are magnificent in this season. We had lunch in the same very nice restaurant I went to with the Pickars last year. I think it's the Musardière. As you come out of the Monet museum onto the street, turn right and walk down the road. The restaurant is on the left where the road turns right a bit. They have a big terrace to the side.
We finished lunch in good time and decided we had enough time to go to Chartres! The country roads were relatively empty and we made good time, visited the cathedral for a short visit and got back to Paris in very good time. We walked around the Latin Quarter for a while and then settled in at "Chez Clément" at Place St. Michel to wait for Louis, Gwen, Anne, and Paul for dinner. Chez Clément is good, but not exciting. We were there for a family get-together.
On Tuesday, Tobi and Eric went to Disneyland and Jon went to see an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Bibliothèque Nationale, F. Mitterand. I spent the afternoon at the library.

We headed off to Normandy on Wednesday after Paul picked up Nadine and the kids at the airport on their return from China. He got caught in traffic, so it was later than I had hoped to get out. We got to the American cemetary at Omaha Beach just a little before closing. They've changed the visit there. Now you go through a visitors' center introduction exhibit that leads out to the beach and you see the cemetary at the end. I think I prefer the impact of entering the cemetary first, before going to the beach. Still, it is moving. We were there when they sounded taps when they were taking down the second flag. Not a sound from any of the visitors who all stood still. We found a hotel in Bayeux and had dinner at a place recommended in the Michelin Green Guide -- very decorative and very tasty.

The next morning we started with a visit to the Bayeux tapestry, which is much improved since the last time I visited. The audio guide is good and the tapestry is well-lit and easy to see and examine. Then, on to Arromanches for the visit to the D-Day museum describing how the British brought over their port. Still interesting. And you still see the vestiges out on the horizon and on the beach. Tobi and Eric took a walk on the beach at low tide. By the time they turned around, the water was starting to surround the cement blocks and by the time we finished in the museum it was high tide and you could hardly see the openings in the blocks. After lunch we headed to Le Haras du Pin to arrive just in time for the Thursday show. I took a bunch of pictures, but I think they are the same as the ones I took just a few years ago! We got home and Paul joined us for dinner at the Moroccan restaurant down the block.

Friday and Saturday were lazy days, but on Sunday we went to Provins for the day: visited the Tithe Barn, Caesar's Tower, the Rose Garden and all the walking to and fro. We had a very disappointing meal at La Villa Rosa on the Place du Chatel. First the waiter could not seem to get our order straight, although I was the one giving it and the people at the table next to us assured me that they had understood it (it wasn't because I was loud, it was because I had to keep repeating everything!) Then, when Jon presented his card to pay (and NOT the Amex card), the waiter couldn't figure out how to swipe it and refused to take it. I don't know how they are going to handle other American tourists who might not have the advantage of traveling with someone who has a French card. They were rude; the cooked food was not very good; there were only four tiny bites of lamb on each persons brochette; the potatoes were lukewarm and the service terrible.
Today Tobi, Jon and I went into Paris while Eric stayed home. We took the RER to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs Elysées with a stop at Louis Vuitton, where we went up to the cultural center and I said a quick hello to Claire's friend, Catherine. After lunch we continued down the avenue and crossed over the Seine via the Alexander III bridge to continue our way to the Rodin Museum, which we found out was closed today, but there was a big Christian Dior event going on there and we got caught in the paperazzi. We caught a cab and went straight to Notre Dame and then came home. We're a bit washed out. One more meal -- along the Marne -- tonight and tomorrow, I'll take them to the airport. Then, we'll get ready for our trip to England next week!

Ready, Set, uh oh

I didn't go to Washington. This is very disappointing. I was all excited about it and there was a big delegation going. Unfortunately, a volcano in Iceland disrupted plans for me, several other delegates, and thousands of other passengers.
Last week started on a sad note, with Christine's funeral. I wrote afterwards to Ken, Sandy and their network of shared friends with the Touzés:

"We went to Christine's funeral today. We've been to quite a few neighbors' funerals there and have never seen it packed as full as it was today. St. Saturnin is one of the biggest churches in our department. It was quite something. But knowing Christine and how she was, it was not really surprising. We saw friends, former neighbors, current neighbors, her colleagues, probably some patients all grown up and some parents of her patients. Steve came, for Julien, and Rosette because of fond memories of Christine. And family. Christine's sisters spoke, Emmanuel prepared something but had someone else read it because he just couldn't. It was, indeed, very moving. Christine died just on the eve of his birthday. Julien and Jacques also spoke, and if they did not break down, I think we nearly did. She will be missed. You already know and feel it.

"We came home and I immediately made a batch of my cracker brownies and as soon as they were cool enough to cut, we went over to the Touzes' with them. The house was bursting at the seams with people, but since it's a beautiful spring day, the garden took the overflow and is as beautiful as always. 

"By the way, Julien and Gaetan are expecting a baby girl towards the end of May and they are moving back to France. They've found a place in Montreuil."

Tuesday was Anne's birthday, but since it was Tuesday, we didn't get together. She had dinner plans with friends. I went from the library, at 6:00, to the AARO board meeting across the river, which I left a little after 7:00 to return to the library for the movie night. In the series of cinema adaptations, she presented Schindler's List. A little background story of how the book got written, how the movie got made, comparisons between the book and movie with some reading and a few scenes from the movie. What can I say. With just a few scenes, the whole movie came back to me and I wasn't the only person in the audience with tears. 

Wednesday was a day to take care of me: hair, nails,etc. And packing! Thursday and Friday were taken up entirely with the STC France and STC Trans-Alpine chapters' Content Strategy Forum. This was the first time that I wasn't so involved with organizing the event. It was a great conference. The workshops and conference sessions were fully booked. In fact, they had to add 20 additional seats and could have probably filled more. (http://www.regonline.co.uk/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=766137) I didn't get to really attend anything as I was volunteering at the registration desk. I did get to two conference sessions as room monitor. I did get to see many friends, including David Farbey, who wrote a great review of the conference and Mike Hamilton, who manned the MadCap table. Mike came with his wife and I hope they had a good stay in Paris before heading to Amsterdam. I hope they are able to fly back home to California without any problem.

Rahel Bailie, one of the keynote speakers, was stuck in Paris. We spent some time online on Saturday to find a hotel room and then we met on Monday for some fun. We met at Denfert-Rochereau and walked north, through the Jardins de Luxembourg and St. Germain des Près to the Louvre, where we took the metro to the Grand Palais. There we went to see two exhibits: The way of Taoism and Turner and his painters. Well, I thought the jade carvings were extraordinary, but the silk paintings looked all very much alike and, of course, I couldn't read any of the texts. Since I know very little about Taoism, I was intrigued but not enough to spend a lot of time. Then, we went to the Turner exhibit. I'm not a great Turner fan, but I do see how he could be a considered a precursor to the Impressionists. In this exhibit, his paintings are side by side with painters who influenced him, such as Le Lorrain, and later, by those he influenced. I preferred the painters who influenced him in landscapes. It's not until you get to the really late paintings that you get those fantastic skies of his.

Today, I was planning to go on the Ile de France walks hike, but I ended up on the wrong train. Stupid me. So I came back to Paris and hiked home from the Bibliothèque François Mitterand, through the Bois de Vincennes.

De Miro à Warhol

Last Saturday I met Oriane, my friend from back when I was preparing the teaching certificate nearly 20 years ago. She lives in Lyons but comes up to Paris every so often to attend seminars in linguistics at the university. Her speciality is in swearing and use of vulgarity, which of course involves shifts in what is considered vulgarity over time, according to age, origins, and class. But now I'm getting off subject.
We had arranged to meet at the Musée de Quai Branly, but Oriane was delayed an hour and after having spent that hour on a bench outside, I no longer wanted to wind my way through the museum. Besides, we wanted to talk. So, we decided to walk to the Musée du Luxembourg, part of the French Senate building in the Luxembourg gardens. Let's say it was about 2 km. from one museum to the other. And we stopped for lunch. So we were still pretty fresh when we got there. There was no line to get in! And the exhibit is great. It's the Berardo collection of 20th century art. It takes you from Surrealisme and its origins (Miro, Magritte, Dali, and more) through Abstraction (Mondrian, Souza-Cardoso, Pollock, Reinhardt, Stella and more), on to Pop Art and beyond (Wesselmann, Indiana, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and so on). There are only 75 pieces and it's a varied collection, so you don't get bored.
We walked through the gardens and had a cup of hot chocolate. Then, down Boul. St. Michel, across Ile de la Cité, to the Beaubourg Museum, where we did not stop (oof!), through the Marais, all the way to Anne's apartment (just to show Oriane where it is) and then to the Gare de Lyons. All in all, with backtracking here and there, I guess we covered about 7 km., not including the museum. Our legs had had it and we managed to talk ourselves out, but it was a wonderful day.
For any of you coming through Paris, there are some great exhibits on:

• De Miro à Warhol until Feb. 22
• Picasso et les maîtres until Feb. 2
• Jackson Pollock et le chamanisme until Feb. 15

and more. Paul went to the Musée André Jaquemard yesterday to see the Van Dyke exhibit. He came back very impressed with Van Dykes portraits, comparing them to hyper-realistic art, and he said the old Italian masters, the mainstay of the museum, were great to see, too.
Also, earlier in the week we attended the Phd. dissertation of our nextdoor neighbor, Rob, on the Ordinance of June 18, 1349, regulating laborer's wages. A result of the plague? The first national regulation of the sort? Wow, I never realized what "defending" a thesis was all about. It's horrendous. But he came through with flying colors.
I left the dissertation ceremony early in order to accompany Anne to her signing for the appartment. It is now hers and she's moving in this weekend!