Getting ready to go somewhere, anywhere!

 Am I getting ready, really? No. Until we know what the schedule for deconfinement is, it is hard to get ready. Mentally, I am ready. We think that the weekend in mid-May will be free, but that is going to be a '-day weekend anyway from Ascension Thursday. We fear there just may be too many people on the road. I don't really care. We could leave a day or two before that and or come back a day or two after. I would simply like to go down to see E and G. The car needs to go on a trip!

Over the past few months, a bunch of my classmates wrote some essays that we have compiled into a book. That book will be coming out, soon. Our editing team is expecting the second version from the publisher. We hope there will be no more changes, that they get the cover right this time. If so, publication will follow! This is what comes from our now regular Zoom reunions!

Paul and I have been having even more frequent Zoom reunions with our Pierwige friends. We are a group of 5 couples. We've travelled together to Malta (and some more), to Portugal , to Valencia, Spain, the Camargue, France, and Andalusia, Spain. We're talking about a possible trip to Germany towards the end of summer. 

Meanwhile, here, in the Paris region, the weather is fine. I bet they'll start talking about a drought before too long. We had a cold snap a couple of weeks ago and that has guaranteed us higher fruit prices, again, this year. Every year, there is something that means production will be low and prices high. That's not always true. This is asparagus season and the news reports a couple of weeks ago were about the glut in the asparagus market. At our market, though, a bunch of 11 spears cost €13! That's outrageously expensive. You'd think that if there is a glut, the prices would be lower.

This confinement period meant that the kids, who had been in school with regular vacation breaks since the start of the school year in September, had a short week (Easter Monday is a holiday, here) of online school, then their 2-week Spring vacation. We had them for a few days, so their parents could work calmly from home, then the parents took a few days off and delivered them to their other grandparents. Normally, the Paris region's Spring break would have been a few weeks later, but the confinement, in all logic, had all the zones on the same schedule. This week, the primary school kids all went back to class. They've got saliva tests and at the first sign of Covid-19, the class goes back to online sessions. Middle school kids go back to class next week and high school kids, in mid-May in split in person and online classes. Our grandkids are still in primary. 

Baseball practice has continued. With the nice weather, I can walk over to watch. In fact, L had practice last Sunday and his family sat by the bleachers for a picnic. A hopped on a bus to the Bois and joined them and I walked over after our lunch at home. Next Sunday, the N°1 and N°2 teams will warm up together and play a practice game. I hope the weather holds up. I also hope that I do not have a severe reaction to the second Pfizer shot. I had my first dose on April 2 and the second one is this coming Friday. My arm was a little sore after the first shot, but no worse than after any other vaccination.

I need to go into Paris to return some books to the library. Maybe I'll pick up a lunch at Breakfast in America and walk home from there. It's a long walk but I need motivation to get out and walk. A destination, a purpose. A and I went to the arboretum a few weeks ago. We should go back now that all the trees have leaves out. I walked there. We also have a walk planned in the Bois de Vincennes to discover parts we are less familiar with. Maybe next Monday afternoon. 

Catching up these past few months -- Happy New Year!

 

A Journal, sort of

January 9, 2021

A friend reminded me that I hadn't written a blog post in a long, long while. I didn't feel like writing, frankly. I made a sweater for Co. on the renovated machine. In September, after consulting again with the surgeon, we decided to proceed with a hip replacement in mid-November. Then, in France, we went on partial reconfinement -- for us, it was the same as the first one. One-hour out-of-home activity, curfew, etc. There were a few high school classmate reunions on Zoom and the following journal is a result of those meetings. I have configured it so that the reader bores down to the past. That way, once it was started, the reader doesn't have to scroll down all the way to the latest installment; it's at the top. I've edited slightly for the blog, taking out full names. (My friends and family can figure out who's who; other readers don't really need to know.) This, then, is a long post, with a lot of catching up.

January 7, 2021

I can't believe what I saw last night when I turned on the TV. But let's get the good news out of the way.

Yesterday, before 7a.m., I left on a 5-hour drive to Mulhouse in our 14-year-old Prius. It was a very smooth trip. I got to the dealership before they were closing for their two-hour lunch break. I left after 1p.m. to return home in our new-to-us one-year-old Prius. 

I can't describe the pleasure I have on long, solitary drives. I can listen to the radio. I can drive as I like to drive. I got home just before 7p.m., before our 8p.m. curfew. A long 12-hour day.

After a bite eat, I turned on CNN. The thugs were still "just" on the Capitol steps; they hadn't yet broken in. The scene brought me to tears. I've been to the Capitol. I've been to the office of Nancy Pelosi -- when she was the Minority Leader. I've been to the office buildings, especially Cannon, where my Representative from PA-3, Dwight Evans, is. Seeing an attempted coup in Washington is just too much. 

This morning, I woke up to the Pennsylvania electoral college vote being objected to. As I write this, they are getting back to the full session to continue the tally. It's. 3:23a.m. in DC, 9:23 in France. I'm confident the procedure will now continue smoothly. 

I'm not confident that the inauguration on the 20th will go smoothly. I'm afraid that even after the inauguration, President Biden and Vice President Harris will be in danger. I'm sad and angry to see how low our country has fallen.

January 5, 2021

Good news first. Yesterday, I wanted to go for a walk and P agreed to go, too. Then I suggested that maybe R and M could join us. They've been our dear friends since our daughters, now 45, started école maternelle when they were going on 3. R and I have been out walking together a few times since December. It was time to get our husbands out. We went into the Bois de Vincennes and went around the lac des Minimes. For us, from home and back, that's precisely 5km. As we chatted away, it was a smooth walk. I think I can declare my recovery complete.

It's the doctor who will really decide if I'm fully recovered. My appointment with him is this afternoon. 

Not such good news. Cl is still coughing and exhausted. G is still so exhausted he couldn't take Ch to the halfway stop for N to meet them and take her home. N came all the way to Northampton to pick her up. A, the 11 year old, has become the family chef. She loves to cook. As Cl says, the meals are not balanced, but at least they're eating and she's having fun. She's also been a bit anxious with both parents sick. C, 7, is very quiet. As of today, the U.K. is back on full lockdown. Cl says it'll give her more time to get back her strength as she didn't feel she'd have been able to walk Co to school starting today.

We discussed the catastrophic vaccine distribution strategies in the U.K. and in France. In two weeks, France is still counting vaccination in the hundreds, not yet reaching 1000! In the U.K. they've decided to delay the second dose.

Trump should be arrested for trying to tamper with an election, with extortion of a public official. The Senate runoff in Georgia is today. Will there ever be good news coming from the U.S. again. Biden has such an uphill struggle to get some sort of bipartisan peace again.

January 2, 2021

Here’s wishing us all a Happier 2021 than 2020 was. Covid is still rampant in Europe, where we seem to have better governance than the U.S. does, and in the U.S. where better governance should be coming after January 20. France is taking a tiptoe approach. First only those in care facilities are being vaccinated and in a week, they’d only managed 332, whereas Germany had vaccinated in the many thousands. After much protest, the French have added medical workers over 50. They do not anticipate reaching people with high risk and over 75 until late February and we younger folk will have to wait until March or April. Maybe, by then, they’ll get rid of the “informed consent” document. My thought is that if you are reticent and do not consent, then you don’t get the shot. To have to see the doctor beforehand, get informed, and then make another appointment to get the shot and a third appointment for the second dose is overkill. Still, it’s better than what the British have just done -- put off the second dose to a later date so they can give more people a first dose. Pfizer has not done any study as to whether that approach will work.

Update on the UK family -- so far, so good. The kids are fine and keeping occupied. Ch is doing a great job on that front. To prepare for her upcoming exams, she’s been playing school with the others, teaching them what she needs to be studying. If they (7 and 11 years old) get what she’s saying, then she’s got it down pat. She’s also been doing watercolor workshops with them. Cl is still coughing a lot during the day, but sleeping fine and her husband is stuck with a stuffy nose and a headache. But the symptoms have not gotten worse.

Update on the car -- I’m going to pick it up on the 6th. I will probably have to spend the night on the way back. It’s a lot of driving for a single day and there’s a curfew in effect, so I’ll play it safe.

Today, an Italian woman currently in Paris is coming over to check out my knitting machines. She may decide to take one of them off my hands. I think I only really want to keep one standard and the mid-gauge so getting rid of two of the standards would be nice but I’m still too attached to them to create an ad and put them up for sale.

December 26, 2020

Christmas gift? Cl and G spent Christmas morning getting tested for Covid. They got the results, today -- both positive.

After Christmas Eve dinner they went to bed feeling a bit under the weather and woke up on Christmas Day coughing and feverish. G was supposed to drive Ch halfway so she could transfer home to her mum, but of course, that did not happen. That is a good thing because she's about to turn 16 and with both Cl and G ill, she will be the adult in the house. I'm sure A, 11, and Co, 7, will be as helpful as they can possibly be but I'm reassured that Ch is with them.

My own inclination would normally be to get on a plane or train and go to them, but it's just not feasible. Thank goodness they have wonderful friends who are already volunteering to drop off shopping and food for them. I feel so damn helpless.

December 23, 2020

I woke up this morning with one of my high school friends on my mind and how sorry I was that she would be missing her usual holiday travel for Christmas with her family and the missing people in her family who had died from Covid earlier this year. This has been a terrifying year.

Another reason she, in particular, came to mind is something she had said about never leaving the country to live abroad and eventually abandoning U.S. citizenship. Certainly not at the age we are, now. I did not leave with such an intention. I came to France as a student, just turned 19, and fell in love. Just like Kathleen Damerol, whose story is much like mine, with the added distress that she has because she had a business and a tax-advantaged account in France that was specifically for retirement but is not recognized as such by the IRS.

https://youtu.be/UaTILxfPs0M

What's extraordinary is that Keith Richmond, a mutual friend (also participating in the video), sent Kathleen and me an introduction email just last month. It was when I had my surgery and I sent her my phone number but we never talked. Yesterday, I wrote to her again and we agreed to a call this morning. Then, I saw that video, so now I feel I already know her. I'm looking forward to our call even more.

The distress of considering renunciation is very real. I go through thinking of it every year, sometimes several times a year. I haven't done it. I always manage to reason with myself that I can manage the status quo. But I don't have my own business. I don't have a job that would require signatory authority on company accounts. My friend D-L vomited when she left the embassy after renouncing.

PS: I just got off the phone with Kathleen.

December 21, 2020

Okay, it looks like this is going to be a once-a-week deal. First thing, very early this morning, I looked at my emails and found a flurry from some GHS friends about an upcoming class-wide announcement/invitation to the GHS Stories. It was a pleasant thought and I went back to sleep. However, that reminded me that I needed to do some cleaning tasks in the group’s folder that S had requested last Friday. That led me to catching up on some stories that had been modified or added since the last time I looked. Reading P’s piece reminded me that I should probably update this journal.

One thing leads to another and the days go by. It’s raining so I don’t think I’ll go out for a walk unless it clears up. I took a long (for me, at least) walk, yesterday, to the Picard frozen food shop in Fontenay. According to “Map My Walk”, that’s 1.23km. Let’s just say it was 2.5km round trip, with the return trip a bit slow because I had a backpack full of frozen food on my back. P estimated about 15kg. I don’t think it was that much but it was heavy and my leg was a bit wobbly by the time I got home. I think I was more sprite a week ago and have been overdoing it since then. I walked a bit over 2km with R on Friday. When I see the pictures on Facebook of wonderful hikes in the snowy woods, I wonder if I’ll get anywhere near the stamina to do those kinds of walks again. 

We are going to buy a car. Our Prius will be 14 in May and I think P is just tired of it. We got it as a recent used car in 2008. Once shops were reopened, we scheduled a meeting (can’t just walk in any more because of the limits on the number of people allowed inside at one time) and got the info for a new Prius, leased or bought, cash or credit. Then we were told that one would be available in April. On a used car website, we found just what we were looking for, a 2020 model, only 4000 km, in Mulhouse. That is not the town next door. Now that restrictions on going from one region to another have been lifted, we thought I could drive there on Saturday, trade in the old for the new one, and drive back, either the same day, or the next. Oh, no. The vendor is treating this as an online sale with a retraction period of 14 days. Plus he’s now on vacation for the holidays. Then, he has to handle the transfer of registration paperwork (which is really online work) and does not anticipate our coming to get the car until January 9. I hope that France is not back to shopping and or travel restrictions, again, by then. 

I am not hopeful about the progression of Covid. I’m pretty sure that this fast-spreading variant that has forced a strict lockdown in the London area is not limited to London, nor to the U.K. The numbers have gone back up in France over the past week instead of staying at their plateau or going down, as hoped. I’m sure this is going to mean stricter measures are in store. The hospitals are okay, so far. The percentage of Covid patients in ICU is holding steady at less than 55%. The famous effective R number is creeping back up -- now at 0.9. Vaccinations start in France this week. We may be in the “elder” category but we are not the top priority, nor should we be. First the health care workers and the occupants of care facilities. Those of us in our own homes, with no health problems, can wait a bit.  

14 Dec. 2020

During the Zoom meeting on Dec. 13, it was suggested that we might add a story 6 months on. I had already left the meeting at that point, so I don’t know exactly what was discussed. Susan told me about it today.

That brings me to bringing this whole Covid business up to now before I carry on with the future.

In France, it really started hitting us hard in March. There were municipal elections scheduled in the middle of the month and there were already questions about whether they could go through, as scheduled, or not. (An aside, here, for non-French readers. There are no absentee ballots, here. If you know you are not going to be able to go to the polling place on election day, you have to go to the police station and fill out a proxy to allow someone else in your town to vote for you. You trust that person to vote as you want.)  At this late stage, it was a matter of delaying the election or carrying on as scheduled. To delay would have required a special law. The President went on the air to announce that France would be going into lockdown (called “confinement”) after the election. The many parties involved in the election had met with the President and had decided to go ahead with the election. 

My husband and I went early to the polling station, which is our usual habit. We are usually the first, or at least in the first 10 people present. We voted and walked home with our friend and neighbor who was just behind us at the polling place. We were already keeping apart, scarves over our faces, no kissing cheeks, shaking hands. 

The second round of the election, two weeks later, was postponed. We were in lockdown. Our neighbors were wonderful, checking on us to see if we needed anything. Spring was coming. Days were getting longer. We could open our windows and hold conversations across the street. There was a festive air about it. Every evening, after the Italian and Spanish models, we were all at our windows clapping our appreciation for the medical workers. Festivity is one thing but the grim numbers of people getting sick and dying is another. 

By May, things were looking up and by the end of the month, confinement was over. We no longer needed permission slips to be out of the home. We could finally see our son’s family in their apartment into which they had moved just the weekend before the confinement started. We could see the grandchildren. We could see our daughter who lives in Paris. The French confinement eased just in time to fit in the delayed runoff election before it would have been necessary to start all over.

Zoom had started to enter our lives. Our daughter in England, has a step-daughter whose grandmother is a talented artist and a great teacher. She gave us watercolor lessons every week over Zoom. She lives near Tours, France; I’m just outside Paris; Cl and the girls are in Northampton, England; and V, Ch’s mom, is near London. We had a great time. We also had a few family Zoom meetings with immediate and more distant family.

Then, S suggested a 212 Zoom meeting. From Europe, all across the United States, some classmates joined in the meeting. Covid was on our minds. Long-term care facilities everywhere were hard hit. Hospitals were under considerable strain. Although statistics show that Europe was really more severely hit in terms of numbers of deaths per 100,000 population, it seems that the governments tried to flatten the curve and succeeded to some extent while the states in the U.S. were not reacting in concert and the President was not taking the illness seriously, at all. Europe seemed calmer and reports in the U.S. seemed more panicked.

I missed the July Zoom because we were in the southwest of France with our Parisian grandchildren, visiting our daughter who lives down there. Cl and her family came down with their trailer and parked it at E’s. It was great that the cousins were able to spend about 10 days together. Anne even came for a few days of her vacation. With hindsight, this could have been a risky gathering. We spent all our time outdoors at E's. It was wonderful. Luckily for us, no one became ill. 

In September, people started going back to their offices; the children went back to school. The English family, too, started a more normal routine. Cafés and restaurants had set up service on sidewalks and in the parking spaces in front of them. We could eat with friends. At our age, we were still being very cautious. 

By the time of the October 212 Zoom meeting, the second Covid-19 wave was hitting Europe and in the United States, there was debate as to whether this was the second or the third wave! Schools in France did not seem affected. Our grandchildren have not missed a day of going to school. In England, one of the children had to remain at home because there had been an outbreak of Covid in her section of the building. It was becoming evident, though, that a second confinement period was coming. That came in early November.

Stay at home -- except for medical appointments, to take care of someone, to shop for necessities, to walk the dog, to go for a walk (limited to 1 hour). However, I do not consider this a hardship. I’m fine. I’m not doing much, but I’m not particularly bored. 

Between April and November, I had made each grandchild a sweater. I had picked up another old knitting machine in July and restored it. I feel no urge to knit every day. I even started some projects by hand. I’ve read several books. I’ve watched lots of YouTube. 

After my shoulder replacement in September 2019, my hip problems became more noticeable. This ended up with a hip replacement on November 18. Luckily, the confinement was decided early enough to avoid the strain on hospitals and clinics, so this kind of elective surgery has been able to continue. 

The numbers in France have not declined to the desired level, but have gone down and stabilized enough. Our confinement has been eased. We can go out for 3 hours. As of tomorrow, we’ll be able to go to other regions of France. There is a stay-at-home curfew after 7pm. This will allow for limited family gatherings at Christmas. However, we will be home. A will come over. The other Parisian family will go to the other grandparents. The U.K. family will stay in the U.K. 

That brings me to today. We went to the Toyota sales point in Vincennes. I walked to the bus stop without a crutch. That’s the longest walk I’ve done without a crutch. The second bus stopped almost in front of the sales office. We think we know what we are going to do, now. We’ve gone over the recent used versus new, and buying versus 3-year lease. This is the future. By this coming Spring, we will be ready to head out on the road. I hope we will have been vaccinated by then. 

 

 

Spring Update

It's no surprise; I don't feel like writing much these days. Looking back, though, over the past 3 or 4 months, I haven't been sitting, watching the world go by.
We went to the UK at the end of February for a lovely visit with the family, there. No, we didn't do much -- just appreciated the family! That's enough for us. On my birthday, the very day, at the beginning of February, I found just the knitting machine I'd been on the lookout for -- a brother "bulky" machine with its ribber. It was my birthday. I figured it was meant for me, so I arranged to buy it from the very nice lady in Bedford -- not far from Northampton, really. I asked G. if he could pick it up for me, pay the lady in cash.... And he did. So, when we arrived at the end of the month, by car, it was waiting for me and all I had to do was pay G. back.
I managed to set the machine up just before leaving for the US in mid-March. I even managed to make a scarf for T. for his birthday! There were a few sloppy patches -- dropped stitches in the Fisherman's Rib -- that I had to repair by hand, but nothing catastrophic. I also made a scarf for my high school friend in Florida, T.
This leads to the trip to the US -- first a night in Philly with M. T. and her husband. Very enjoyable evening with these old, old family friends (our grandparents were close friends, already) and then into Philly in the morning for an agreeable meeting with the Commissioner for Elections at the Election Board to discuss some of the glitches in the absentee system -- between the Board of Elections and the pavoter site.
After the meeting, I took the train to the airport and caught my flight down to DC, where I got a new metro card and hopped onto the metro to go out to T. and B.'s. Friday evening was T' 90th birthday party! Earlier that day, I had a cup of coffee with K. and talked about what was happening as far as our overseas Americans issues were concerned. He's been working with the Republicans Overseas on their tax proposal, which promotes territorial taxation. He's also been involved with setting up a Congressional hearing on FATCA, to be held later this month. He's also very homesick for France. When I got back to the house, I saw my cousin T. and R. for a little while, before we all went off to get ready for the party. It was a wonderful family reunion. Cousins not seen for a long, long time. Family never met before. My brother, J., and T, of course, down from Pittsburgh. Lively conversation. A successful party!
Sunday, I moved out of their house to go to the airbnb room I had rented in DC. It was simply a room this time, not a whole apartment, as I had no one to share with. The apartment belongs to a charming young engineer. We didn't run into each other very much. The only complaint I could have was the spotty wifi connection. I could connect if I was in the living room sitting in front of the box, but as soon as I went back to my room, the connection was gone. It was not far from the U-street station and just a little farther to the Dupont Circle station.
On a map, nothing looks far. I got off the metro at Dupont Circle and walked down to the Staples at 19th and L to pick up the printing of our position papers that I had ordered on line. It was a bit longer walk than I had thought it would be, but since I stopped for lunch on the way, it was a nice walk. On the way to my room though, it was a much longer walk, even if I didn't go back up to Dupont Circle, and dragging my suitcase and the printing was not pleasant. The room was on 15th, between R and S.
Early in the evening, I walked over to Dupont Circle -- the others were staying close by. We met at the Cosmos Club, which is just behind the Phillips Collection. I arrived early enough to spend a little while at the Phillips. They had a Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit on. My back gave out after only half an hour, so I wandered off to the Cosmos and ran into N. just as I entered the building. I distributed our position papers to the others.
We had some interesting meetings both on and off the Hill. I've written my reports and talked about it since coming back and do not want to dwell on it, here. For me, the week was over after the meeting at the State Department on Friday. I went back to my room to collect my suitcase and then took the metro to the airport.
There was a big P family gathering in Orlando to celebrate Roger. BIG. On Saturday, 18 of us went to the New Smyrna for a day at the beach. I fell asleep and the back of my legs got a bit burnt. In the evening, there was a big dinner party for family and then more people came as dessert time for the celebration of his life. G. has published a wonderful book of his musings, poetry, and artwork, which I was able to pick up before leaving. Sunday morning, we all gathered at the house for brunch. It was ever so pleasant to be with the clan. The day went on and we had scrumptious leftovers and not just leftovers. After the week in DC, I felt relaxed, at last.
Monday, I took off, on my own, to visit T and her husband on the west coast of Florida. First, I left the road to go to a yarn shop in Winter Haven, Four Purls. They couldn't have been nicer, but they did not have the kind of inexpensive cotton I was looking for. They had plenty of other beautiful yarns and if any Floridians who knit or crochet are reading this, I recommend the place. Then it was back roads through rural Florida -- horse farms, mostly -- to T's. And we gabbed and gabbed and gabbed and watched a movie (Lion) and gabbed and gabbed. I must compliment her husband on his patience with us. They treated me to a great buffet style restaurant -- nothing special, just plain good food.
I guess I wasn't as relaxed and back to my normal state as I thought I was. I managed to convince myself that my flight back was on Tuesday, so instead of spending the day and another night at T's, I ended up rushing back to Orlando, picked up the book from G., and rushed to the airport. There, I discovered I didn't have my passports and French wallet. I had left them in the safe at the hotel in Orlando on Monday morning! Panic. Calls to the hotel and finally the receptionist on the phone with me got into her car to bring them to me. Then, the realization that my ticket was for Wednesday, not Tuesday. I was so upset. I gave the receptionist a nice tip and thanked her but did not mention the date mixup! I couldn't. All this had taken quite some time. I would have missed my flight had it really been for Tuesday. I was still upset at having gotten all mixed up. I went to find an inexpensive hotel near the airport with shuttle service (I had turned in the car, of course.), ordered a pizza, and watched TV until I fell asleep. The next morning, I spent about an hour by the pool and took the shuttle back to the airport with lots and lots of time before my flight, so I managed to get off my thank you notes and have a nice lunch.
Back to France and departure almost immediately for four days in Valencia with our Pierwige friends. Not all of them. This time we were a group of 3 couples. Valencia is a beautiful city. The architecture is grandiose and each building is different. It's a change from the Haussmann uniformity of Paris. Different colors, different styles. This was a pleasant break. M. had done all the organizing, so kudos to her, and I just relaxed and got over my jetlag.
Upon return to France, this time, we had the AARO annual general meeting on March 31, which I had had the responsibility of organizing. It went off well. A. had gotten us our guest speaker, Jim Bittermann, who was exceptional. He spoke on the state of the media. It was a refreshing subject -- not American-centric, not Paris or French-centric. The following week, it was the Tax 202 seminar (Tax 101 was on March 6) and I had had the responsibility of that one, too. During that week, we also had a 5-year-old grandson staying with us. We had done some gardening in the gorgeous Spring weather and my back was killing me on Thursday. It still is, in fact.
The first week of Spring break, then, we had S. with us and this past week, he and sister and mother have been at her parents'. It was A's birthday, this week. We went to the Al Thani jewel exhibit at the Grand Palais.
I've done some knitting, but can't sit for long periods because of my back. Writing this has taken me to the limit, today.

A Week in Portugal

This post got delayed because of the big family visit almost as soon as we got back from the trip.
Last year, in October, we went to Malta with friends, four other couples and us, the husbands of which all lived at the Pierwige when they were in engineering school. I lived at the Pierwige when I spent my first semester abroad in the Spring of 1970. This year, one of the couples was unable to join the rest of us, so there were only four couples all together, two from Paris and two from Biarritz. There wasn't so much catching up to do, since we did a lot of that last year. We only had one year to go over, which was enough to keep the conversation going for the whole week.
The Parisians arrived in Porto in time for lunch, which was excellent. The bonus was warm sunshine. (I had spend a month in and out of a really bad cold -- maybe it was two very similar colds close together. I ended up with a touch of pneumonia symptoms and the doctor had me come into the office the day before departure to check that the medication was working and the lungs were clear, so that I could go. We had already cancelled our trip to England at the beginning of the month for Constance's birthday.) Anyway, I enjoyed my fish and Paul had his first cod dish. Portugal is known for cooking salt-cured codfish in every possible way and he was determined to have his dose of cod. After lunch and a rest, we all set out to discover the city a bit.

There was a tram right in front of the hotel, so we jumped on and did a little tour. Porto is a hilly city. The streets are narrow. The tram, which is small, does not leave much room for people on the tiny sidewalk, and forget about cars parked wherever they can find a space. There are churches everywhere and they are all decorated with azulejos, the tiles that cover most buildings, but on churches they are blue, generally, and tell a story. This gave us an overview of the city before the others' flight arrived. They got the to the hotel just as we were settling in for a cup of coffee. Once they got registered and the baggage was up in their rooms, we set out on foot. (A word about the hotel -- the Hotel Infante Sagres -- we were all happy with it. I forgot to mention, in my review, that if you opened the windows, it was noisy at night because of the clubs nearby, but if you used the air conditioning, it was OK.)

Because we were going to take the train to Lisbon, we headed towards the train station, which looks like any other major train station until you see the tiles inside! We wanted to get information and see about getting tickets. It was a well-advised stop, since the trains to Lisbon leave from a different station. It was good to find that out sooner, rather than too late. From there, we continued up hill to the Cathedral, where there is a terrace with a magnificent view of the city below. The inside of the Cathedral was our first glimpse of the golden opulence of Portuguese baroque. Not my cup of tea. We had a beautiful sunset view from the terrace, though.
After the visit inside the church, we headed downhill into the city and we ended up going down and down and down until getting back to the hotel meant a climb back up. Dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel with our 10% discount coupons -- even with the discount, this was the most disappointing and expensive meal of the trip.
Wednesday and Thursday, we spent walking around Porto and more sightseeing. Friday, we took taxis to the right train station for our trip to Lisbon.

Rainy day in Belem

Lisbon is much bigger than Porto, more majestic, which is logical, since it's the capital. It also has more hills, and, in my mind at least, steeper hills. It was completely rebuilt after the terrible 1755 earthquake and, we learned, the new buildings were built with seismic tolerance in mind, the first such building code. Since the country was very rich in the 18th century, the rebuilding was quick and majestic. We visited Belem, the convent, the cathedral, the tower... We walked around, took trams, buses, and walked some more. We went up to the Castle St. George, where there is a wonderful view of the modern city below. The castle itself, what's left of it, is a big, 11th century castle, much like the Norman castles in France and England, but maybe with a bigger floor plan. From there, we walked back down to the modern city and ended up walking all the way back to the hotel after a late lunch! I haven't calculated the kilometers, but my feet felt them.
We had good meals. Unfortunately, we missed the art museum, just steps from the hotel, because when we decided to do a little museum visiting, Monday, it was the day they were shut, so we finally took the "hop on, hop off" tour that gave us a better overview of the city.
It seems to me that there was so much in Lisbon, that I have less to say than for Porto. I think I enjoyed Porto more. I need to go back and take a real look.

GHS 212 Mini-reunion in Paris

Last weekend, we had a mini-reunion -- in Paris. It was not a "big" year, like a decade year; the next one of those will be the 50th and I'm sure it'll be in Philly so the maximum number can attend. No, this was the 47th and not an official reunion, of course. It all started at the 45th, two years ago, with people saying how they would really like to come to Paris. Over the years, several classmates have come to Paris, individually, and occasionally their trips have coincided and we've had lunch or dinner together. I always enjoy meeting up with these visitors. As I've said before, most of these women and I did not know each other in high school. It was, and still is, a very big high school, with hundreds of girls in a graduation year (what the French call "une promo"). Class 212 graduated in 1968.
A little over a year ago, I created a poll to find out how many of our classmates wanted to come to Paris, thought they could do it, and when they would prefer to do it. Of course, not everyone could come and of those who could, not everyone could come at just any date, so I had to find the best solution. For the teachers in the group, we had to do it before classes started, and that pushed us to August instead of September and this year just seemed more popular than next year. I wrote to a couple of tour directors I know to ask about how to organize a group. I had about 25 classmates interested and if I added in spouses and other travelling companions it could have been a very large group. Gary Kraut, of France Revisited gave me some very sound advice: involve a travel agent in the US and get a deposit from the participants at least 6 months before the reunion. No one used the travel agent, but she was nevertheless very helpful in suggesting they make their own flight arrangements and even suggested a hotel or two. And once the request for deposits went out, the group size dropped, too, which, for me, was easier to deal with.
I'm not going to name names in the blog; I don't know how each person feels about having her name out there, so I'll just use initials, if I talk of anyone specifically, at all. If you decide to leave a comment, it's up to you to name yourself, but please leave out others' names unless they have already identified themselves. This is also why I am only going to post the "official" photo that was taken before we went for our walks, because Tom, the photographer asked if anyone minded it going up and no one did.

The reunion was from Friday evening to Sunday noon. Some arrived a few days before, some stayed a few days after, but the part I took care of was just that bit. (a couple GB and EZ with E's husband) arrived for a great stay with us and a little trip to the southwest of France -- preceding posts) First off, a dinner cruise on the Capitaine Fracasse. We met at the loading dock on the Ile des Cygnes between the Bir-Hakeim and Grenelle bridges. Four of the group were in a taxi whose driver did not know how to get onto the Bir-Hakeim bridge to leave them off and drove them around and around. But they made it! And one whose flight was via Moscow came running across the bridge trailing her suitcase, and she made it! All 17 of us (11 classmates, spouses and friends) made it. It was a warm evening and the banks of the Seine were packed with people just hanging out, drinking, eating, dancing. We didn't see much of the monuments; we were too busy talking! The food was excellent, much better than I think anyone expected. After dinner, we went up to the upper deck to see the sights and just before we docked, the Eiffel Tower did its hourly show of blinking lights right in front of us. (I can't seem to add the image google made of the assembled burst of shots -- quite nice, but sorry, not here.)
This was the real reunion.
On Saturday morning, everyone dragged herself out of bed to meet at the Splendid Hotel Tour Eiffel, where most were staying, for our 4-hour bus tour of Paris. To start, the four at the Hotel Albe had a taxi driver who took them to a different Hotel Splendid and they had to walk fast to be on time. (By the way, everyone was satisfied with the hotels. The Splendid will be completely renovated starting next month, so I imagine it'll be more expensive next season.) On the way, they were able to take in the cavalry horses in training at the Ecole Militaire, not a sight most tourists get. The guide was a few minutes early, but the bus was an hour late!
Our guide, Richard, is from Madagascar. His English is good, when just speaking with him individually, but on the bus, in the fuzzy mike, giving his tourist spiel, well, no. His accent got in the way. It's not a typical French accent. He didn't stress the right syllables (NA-po-leen), and he mixed up some syllables (lily water flowers - liliwarflor), so if anyone was really listening, it was next to impossible to follow. We had to cut the tour to 3 hours, and we did get a discount. We stopped at Montmartre and most of the group climbed all the way to the top. As requested, we got dropped off at the Place d'Odéon and were able to get a bit to eat before the walking tours started at 2.
Most of the group went on the James Baldwin in Paris walk with Monique Wells. I wasn't on this walk. The impressions I got later in the evening were that it was a very hot day and the pace was perhaps a bit too fast. They heard a lot about the fights he got into and not much about what he wrote in Paris or the political circumstances. On the whole, though, they liked the walk. A suggestion to tourists on a guided walk would be to give the feedback as you go, so the guide can adjust the spiel.
I had the privilege of leading the smaller group in the Marais. We caught the 96 bus at Odéon and got off at Saint Gervais, to start the tour at the Shoah Memorial. I think it went well. It was a very, very hot day and we stopped about half way through for some drinks or ice cream. (I had the advantage of being part of the group, not an external, hired guide.) This stop also allowed us to readjust our expectations, so we cut out going all the way to the Museum of Jewish Art and History and I cut short the commentary on the mansions north of the rue des Francs Bourgeois. We ended at the Place des Vosges and went on to Bastille to catch a bus back to the hotels.
Dinner on Saturday evening was at the Grand Bistro on the Place Breteuil. The terrace was open; it was almost like being outside. It was perfect. By this time, we had decided to cancel the Sunday picnic at the Parc Floral since it was going to rain, and it did rain on Sunday morning. Some, not all, of us gathered at the Splendid and then went to a café on the deserted rue Cler for a coffee/late breakfast. I left the group, there, to go home and flop on the couch, while the others continued their tourism. From the pictures they've shared, I think they got a lot out of their short stay and I'm so, so happy they came.

To Pechmerle, Albi, Najac and back

There's quite a lot of catching up to do.We are home from a vacation in the southwest and last month we went to England and before that I think I've already forgotten what we did. This and the following couple of posts are not in chronological order of events

When we go home, a bunch of high school friends, 16 counting spouses and accompanying friends, came to Paris for a mini-reunion. This is similar to what we did in the Catskills, except there were only 8 in the party. We did it at Barnegat Light five years ago and there were 16 of us. There was a major reunion in Philly three years ago and at that time, some said how much they'd like to come to Paris.So, they are coming! Not everyone who wanted to – it was impossible to fit everyone's scheduling needs or finances, but enough to call it a mini-reunion, of sorts. But, before we get to the reunion, we (Paul and I) had a week with Er... and Ga.. and Er's husband, Mor...

They arrived on Wednesday morning and Paul accompanied them to pick up the rental in the afternoon. It's a Nissan van. I've never seen such a poorly designed van. Supposedly, it corresponds to a « grand Espace », which is what was described on the rental site. I know that in a grand Espace, there are real seats in the back and room for baggage. This thing is a short van. The middle seat in the middle is a hump, for a kid.The seats in the back have no legroom – also for kids. We managed. Since we didn't need both back seats, we folded one to the side for baggage room and folded the short part of the middle seat forward to give the person in the back some legroom. We were traveling light, so we found room for the baggage.

We left on Thursday morning and spent all day on the road – a long drive down to La-Tour-De-Faure, across the river from Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, a "must see" village in the region. By the time we checked into the hotel, found a gas station and then headed into the village it had started to rain. By the time we found a parking spot in a lot at the high end of the village it was pouring. There was a mass exodus from the parking lot, which means we found a parking space easily and it also meant that, in this very touristy spot, we were able to walk easily in the streets. So, we walked. Like so many of these villages, there's a castle at the very top of a hill (in this case, it's just a ruin of a castle) and the town grew around the castle. St. Cirq has several streets, so it's not just along the crest, but they are all narrow, steep streets with 12th and 13th century half-timbered buildings and then later stone houses. You can see the shop window/workshop architecture of the period. As I said, it was pouring, so we did not do as much browsing as we might have done otherwise. We retreated into the first little restaurant that looked open at such an early hour (6 pm) and got ourselves a table. We had very low expectations; all we wanted to do was get out of the rain. Big surprise! The fish, the cassoulet, the confit de canard – everything was good, very good at Lou Faoure

The hotel in La-Tour-De-Faure, Hotel des Gabarres, was comfortable and I had chosen it because it is not far to Cabrerets, where the cro-magnon Pech Merle is. Paul and I had visited Pech Merle 14 years ago and I knew this was not to be missed. Our visit on Friday morning was reserved for 11:15, so we had plenty of time to spend in the museum. It's a tiny museum, but worth spending time in. It rained most of the morning, but that's not a problem when visiting a cave. Our tour was in English, very well done by a young man who took his time, kept making sure we all understood him and making sure that everyone got to see what he was highlighting with his laser pointer. This is the cave with handprints and spotted horses, lots of mammouth and bison. Geologically, it is a very big cave with high and wide chambers and narrow passages, but beautiful calcite « marbles » in one place, multicolored discs elsewhere, fountain-like stalagtites and stalagmites. It's got bear claw marks and human footprints that go back to the cave painting period from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. Because there is so little charcoal used in these paintings, they can't date them precisely. All they can figure out is that there were several periods. Some paintings are superimposed on others – there's a fish, in red, that you can make out beneath one of the spotted horses. The panel of spotted horses was done in black with the spitting technique – the painter put the pigment in his or her mouth and spat the outline of the animals, the spots, the handprints. The pigments were manganese oxide for black and ferrous oxide for red. There's a tiny bit of charcoal filling in the mane of one of the horses, which is how they can date that, but was that added later or is it contemporary to the horses? I just love this stuff!

We had lunch – a good lunch – in Cabrerets and headed for Albi.The car's GPS does not let us see the itinerary or choose an itinerary, but I had the map in hand. On a Michelin map, red is a major road, a former national road; yellow is a bit less major, a departmental road; and white is a local road, often just an unmarked lane barely wide enough for two-way traffic. The shortest route took us on lots of white roads and that's what the GPS wanted us to follow, but they were bumpy and uncomfortable, so in spite of the temptation to go on the road past Emma's, we ignored the GPS and took the road via Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The GPS's pleas that we turn around got on our nerves, but we persevered and arrived at Albi at exactly the time it had originally said we would. We found our hotel and set out almost immediately to wander around the city. It was too late for the Toulouse-Lautrec museum and the cathedral was too dark to see anything really well, but we meandered and found ourselves at a very nice little restaurant for another excellent dinner.

The next morning, we opened the Toulouse-Lautrec museum and had the museum to ourselves for most of the visit. I like this museum; it is made up of work rejected by the Paris museums after his death in 1901. It's full of sketches and early renditions of paintings and posters we know well. There are plenty of drawings and watercolors from when he was only 11 years old. You can see how his art evolved. It's housed in the former bishop's quarters, next to the cathedral, so just the building merits a visit. You can see the medieval paving blocks that made the floors look like cartpets, the painted ceiling beams and painted ceilings. It was a palace. In the 16th century, the then bishop turned the farmyard into an elegant garden.

The cathedral has been restored inside and they are in the process of cleaning up the stonework on the outside at the entrance. We were too late to get tickets to see the most interesting section, the inner sanctum and we needed to leave before mass at 11. It was Assomption, a major holiday in France. That gave us time to finish up the visit at the museum and see more of the gardens.

Before leaving Albi we stopped at the market and got ourselves the wherewithal to make a nice picnic lunch, which we ate on the way to Cordes-sur-Ciel at a turn in the road with a wonderful view of Albi in the distance.

Cordes-sur-Ciel is a planned town. In the 12th century, during the Cathare heresy, the count of Toulouse was in a power struggle with the king of France. He created this town at the top of a hill, of course. There was no castle already there and he did not build one. Instead, he created a walled town and invited farmers and merchants to live in the town and farm the fields below – tax-free. In exchange, they were to protect the town, which was on the border of the king's territory. The center of the town at the very top of the hill was the market place not the church. The town was Cathare and resisted the inquisition and the imposed return to Catholicism (from Albi) until 1321. Once there was no religious or power struggle to worry about, the town florished and the early Renaissance homes along the main street are magnificent. The town has become a bit more touristy than it was 14 years ago, the last time we were there.

We allowed the GPS to direct us to Najac along the white roads that wind through the countryside – again a stone's throw from Emma's. Next installment.

Summer is over

Not officially -- that's in a little less than a month. Not weather-wise -- it already happened, or maybe we just skipped summer. This morning, the British contingent left to go back to England. We had a lovely weekend with them. Constance is quick on her knees -- halfway up the stairs before you realize she's left the living room. If she can grab a hold, she'll stand up, but can't let go, yet. It looks like she's going to master letting go, soon, and will stand up without grabbing onto a support, soon after that. She almost stands up, now, but falls back to sitting just before it happens. We went for a walk, yesterday, and she talks (squeals) to all the animals she encounters -- dogs of all sizes, cats, ducks, and especially ducklings, swans, geese, pigeons. She loves the trampoline as she tries to crawl around while Aurelia jumps, as long as Aurelia doesn't jump too hard. And Aurelia loves the trampoline, not just to jump on, but also to do cartwheels and somersaults.
We celebrated Aurelia's birthday a week early, yesterday. She helped me make the cake and decorate it. She's in the "I love horses" phase and got a lego set -- a horse farm -- and a playmobile set -- a farm with a horse -- in addition to a diabolo, a fresh bag of elastics for the rainbow loom elastic bracelet fad (It's a fad, here and in England; I don't know about elsewhere.), and "My Little Pony". She's very, very happy! Anne spent the afternoon helping her build the lego farm buildings after doing her stint on the trampoline with her.
We thought Charlotte would be with us, too, but she's off finishing her vacation with her mum -- she'll have spent absolutely the whole school vacation in France, this year. We got to see her just at breakfast the day we left the Verdon, but since we're planning to go up to Northampton in a month, or so, we'll see her, then.
During the week, we went down to Gwen's parents' and spent a lovely afternoon with the family. Sacha is now pedaling a bike, with training wheels. The big step is the pedaling. He's also learning to balance himself on a bike without pedals, because the new theory is that one learns to bicycle better that way, without pedals and training wheels. When the kid gets the balance down and braking, you put the pedals on and he's off. Chloé is growing fast. She looks just like Sacha.
Instead of going straight home, which was the original plan, we spent the night in a hotel and went off to St. Aignan the next day. We stopped off at a wine co-op that Ken (Living the life in Saint-Aignan) recommended -- just across from Chenonceau. Nice; they gave us his discount and put the fidelity points on his account. We then meandered slowly to St. Aignan, where we stopped to look around and have lunch. The church is interesting. Ken has written about it and posted pictures. The lower part, the crypt, pre-dates the more recent (early gothic, 12th century) church on top. The paintings, apparently, were done later, but it is still amazing that they have survived. The main church is clean as a whistle; if there ever were any painted features, they've been scrubbed away. There were a few people inside setting up some decorations for something -- maybe a wedding. From the side of the church, there is a path to the Cher (river)-side of the château. We wanted to get the view - nice - and then continued walking until we got to the side entrance of the château grounds. It's a private château, but one is allowed into the courtyard. As you enter, there is the 10th century tower, followed by a beautiful Renaissance château -- not very big, really. In another corner of the courtyard, there is an 1830 structure, not nearly as nice. From the courtyard there is a majestic staircase that takes you winding down to the church entrance, and from there, back on to the main street. The town was empty. We stopped at what we thought was going to be a mediocre creperie for lunch, Le Crepiot. It turned out to be an excellent little restaurant that happened to serve crepes. We took the plât du jour, pork filet mignon with Meaux mustard sauce and pasta. They served wine by the glass and it so happens that the wine they served was from the winery whose grapes grow just behind Ken and Walt's house!
So, on to Ken and Walt's for post-lunch coffee. It's a pleasure to see them. When they come up to Paris, it's always one at a time, because Callie, the dog, doesn't like to travel. Ken took us over to the Renaudie winery, where we bought some more wine, we had our coffee and just a short visit before heading home.
The week before, we went to the Musée de la Grande Guerre, but I'll write about that later.

Out to Lunch

I've been out to lunch quite a bit, recently. Last Thursday, it was with Ken (Living the Life in Saint-Aignan) and some of his friends whom I felt I knew already, from comments left on his blog. It was at a couscous place in the 15th, not far from CHM's apartment, where Ken was staying. Paul and I both had brochettes and merguez. We were nicely seated in the courtyard room with a nice artificial sun roof, so that, even if the weather had not been nice, we wouldn't have noticed. The food was good; the conversation excellent. We were among the first to arrive for lunch and were the very last to leave, more than a couple of hours later.
On Sunday, we (four of us) went out to Verrières to see P&G and we all went out to a couscous place in Vauhallen. The couscous was pretty much the same as on Thursday. Maybe the marga was a bit tastier. Again, lots of good conversation and we were among the last to leave. And we left just so we could carry on the conversation in the cool and quiet of the living room at the house. Monday, the Verrieres Lebelles came home from China for their summer vacation. Paul picked them up at the airport, so I haven't seen them, yet. Usually, the first couple of weeks are taken up with doctor's appointments and such.
Tuesday, I met Victoria (The Franco-American Flophouse) and we did not have couscous! We went to a Vietnamese place on rue de Montessuy and got a sidewalk table in the shade for a very pleasant meal. Again, wonderful conversation. I can't get over how many blogs she reads a day, how many tweets, and how she actually follows up with phone calls. After lunch, we went over to the library, where, for once, I was not going to stay, even though it was Tuesday. She returned, and I picked up, Embers of War, by Fredrik Logevall, about Vietnam. Interesting. I'm still in the World War II part, though. As I was walking home from the RER station, later, I heard lots and lots of aircraft and then remembered that the Bastille Day parade is coming up, so they were rehearsing.
I mustn't forget that the month started with the AARO meetup lunch on the first Monday of every month! Not many people signed up, but we ended up with 13! When there are so many, it's hard to be a good host and follow conversations. D, sitting opposite me, came up with a reasonable theory for why brokerages do not want to do business with people who have foreign addresses. According to him, it might be because if they do transactions with such people, they could be deemed to be doing business in the country and subject to tax, therefore, they would avoid doing business in countries that looked at it this way. Well, if that's a reason, why don't they just come out and say so? And charge the customer for the tax, giving the customer the choice. So, unless a brokerage tells us why they have these new restrictions, it's just another plausible speculation.
Meantime, at home, we eat raspberries. I weighed a bowlful the other day -- about 375 gr. Every day, we pick a bowlful. We either save it for immediate consumption, freeze it, or give it away. We're coming to the end of the season, though. Just a few more bowlfuls left. I looked at the price of raspberries: €2.99/125gr. at the grocery store; €4.00/125gr. at the market.

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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