November 1, 2013

Well it’s been a nice week back in Paris and for the most part it has been sunny, though cold.  Soon after getting back Nancy it was time for my first Parisian social event: a birthday party.  I’d never been to a French birthday party, but here was my chance.  The birthday boy was my host brother when I came to France in 2009, when I was in high school, and we’ve kept in contact over the years, and now he lives in Paris.  

So, with Ann Lawson in tow, we headed off to the 18th and the birthday party.  I had taken screen shots on my cell phone of all of the important information from the facebook group, I had written down all the important info, I’d purchased the wine, I thought I had all my ducks in a row.  Well we got to the apartment and I smartly pulled out the code for the first door and it worked perfectly.  Okay, 1 down, 1 to go.  Well we get into the hallway and the door closed and we are completely unable to find the light switch.  And it was dark.  And it was also pretty darned toasty in that hallway.  Well I got out my iPhone and got the flashlight up and running, but then I learned that I wasn’t smart enough to get the flash light and the screen shots to work at the same time.  So I had to read the code aloud, then turn the flashlight back on, then type it into the keypad on the wall.  It sounds simple enough, but believe me: it was not easy.  Well we finally got in and up the staircase only to learn that we’d used the wrong stair case.  So back downstairs and up the correct staircase - still relying wholly on the flashlight app on the cellphone.  By now we were both shvitzing a bit (okay, a lot) and we hadn’t even started to meet people.  When we arrived at the correct stair landing we decided that we should take a minute or two so we would hopefully stop sweating, or at least let it slow down a bit. 

It turns out that we really didn’t stop sweating (it might have helped had we taken off our jackets and scarves - it is Paris, after all: you’re never fully dressed without a scarf) but we decided it was time to go in.  So I knocked on the door and a few minutes later it opened.  I asked if Thomas was there and the man said he didn’t know anybody named Thomas.  Yep.  We’d gone to the wrong door.  So he closed it, I pulled the phone back out, re-read everything and realized it was the other door in the hallway.  So in we went and had a really great time.  We met people, we socialized in both French and English, and ate birthday cake.  Really, what could be better?  Everything was great until it was time to leave, and we could NOT figure out how to open the door onto the street.  (For those who don’t know, most doors in France require you to hit a button that unlocks a super magnet that keeps them closed.  If you can’t find this button, you’re stuck inside.)  We were stuck inside for a solid 4 minutes.  In the dark.  Because we couldn’t find the light switch.

The next day Ann Lawson and I decided to be somewhat cultural so we went to the FIAC at the Grand Palais.  The FIAC (Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) is a giant exposition of art galleries from all over the world who come to Paris to sell their wares to anybody with money (mostly Middle Easterners and Chinese).  For me, the most exciting part was the Grand Palais itself, which was constructed for the Universal Exposition in 1900 as the pavilion for the art and architecture exhibits.  It is one of only a few buildings that remain today from the 1900 Universal Expo and it is, without doubt, the most impressive.  Largely built of iron and glass, the Grand Palais was a chance for France to show off its incredible design and construction talents.  The fact that the building remains 113 years later, even though it was meant to be torn down after the completion of the exposition, is a sign of its amazing success in this department.  

Like always, something went amuck in the process of our FIAC adventure.  We had planned to meet at Trocadero, which provides the best view of the Eiffel Tower, and from there we would take a nice leisurely stroll to the Grand Palais where we would enjoy the FIAC.  Well, we met up at Trocadero just in time to notice the sky getting darker, but we started off, nonetheless.  Of course it had been beautiful in the morning so neither of us brought an umbrella and we were both dressed particularly Parisian-ly: me in suede shoes and Ann Lawson in horsehair shoes.  We were just arriving on foot toward the areas of the next metro stop when the skies opened up.  So much for our stroll to the Grand Palais!  We rain into the metro with every other person who was on the street and were soon at the Grand Palais, smelling like a combination of French cologne and wet dog.  Of course we couldn’t arrive before we were caught outside in another torrential downpour between the metro and the Grand Palais itself.  20 Euros later we were in and imagining that we had the money to actually buy some of the art.  I mean really, what person wouldn’t want a Picasso or 5 on his walls.  Or a Warhol? Or a Klimpt? 

This might have been my favorite piece because it was so visually stimulating.  It was by Francesca Pasquali and is called White Straws 

I found this hysterical because I thought it was the President.  But the artist, C.O. Paeffgen, finished Nasenbohrer in 1992, so I don't think it's a young Barack.  Maybe he was foreseeing the future?

One of many Picassos available

Andy Warhol

Willem De Kooning, Untitled XV, 1977

The Clock, David Altmejd, This was a sculpture of a man made entirely of mirror.  Obviously it didn't photograph well but it was really impressive and really made you stop and look.  

Iron Tree by Ai Weiwei

Following our tour of the Grand Palais, and with the weather finally coming around, we decided it was getting near time for nourishment so we walked over toward our old haunting grounds: the 6th arrondissement.  It was just as night was falling over Paris and the clouds from the front going over the city were just beautiful.  

Sunset from within the Grand Palais

I loved the green metal on the inside, especially as the night sky became pinkish

La Tour Eiffel from the Pont Alexandre III

Other excitement of the week involved me finishing my book (which turned out to be hysterical), getting a new one, going to Shakespeare and Company, and finding multiple exhibitionists.  In one instance, I was in the Metro, walking in the hallway to get from one train line to another when I happened to notice a man, seemingly average (that is to say he wasn’t homeless, crazy, or drunk) who had apparently just decided he had to pee, so he started peeing on the wall.  Now, in America he would be arrested for public indecency, probably be forced to register as a sex offender for life, be forced to go through therapy to cure him of his evil ways, and would have his photograph plastered on every newspaper from Bangor to Boise.  In Paris it’s just par for the course.  When he was done peeing, he just zipped things up and went on his merry way.  Of course this was after a previous encounter on the Quai de la Seine where a little boy of about 5 decided to just whip it out and pretend he was a fountain while he watered the pavers.  He will fit right into the adult world, that’s for sure.

I also took a trip to the American Grocery Store (The Real McCoy) because I had an incredible urge for Apple Crisp.  Some of you might remember my baking adventures here in 2011, and how there are certain things that just don’t exist in French cooking such as brown sugar like ours.  They have brown sugar, sure, but it’s just unrefined, it’s nothing like our brown sugar.  I also had an incredible urge to make pumpkin pie (which is sort of odd because it’s not my favorite pie).  Luckily for me, the Real McCoy has it all.  Unfortunately, it’s not cheap.  It’s really expensive.  The most depressing discovery: Reese’s peanut butter cups (the regular two-pack) were 2.50 euros.  That’s almost three bucks!  And the plastic bag of the little tiny ones was over 9, I think.  They also had red “party” cups for 9.50 (so that’s almost 12 bucks) for 50 cups, and all the groceries I needed to make my apple crisp.  The pumpkin pie will come later.

Does this look like 20 euros to you?  (26 bucks?)

Obviously I had to go buy vanilla ice cream to go with it

One of the more amusing adventures this week was when I decided to get a snack of French fries one evening.  I knew that there was nothing that I wanted to eat at home (except for my apple crisp) so I decided I would have an order of French fries from one of the kebab places near Notre Dame around 6ish and then I would have a nibble of crisp later in the evening.  The fries arrived fresh from the deep fat fryer in a big paper cone thing with a healthy blob of mayonnaise on top.  In typical European fashion, they also came with a fork, because only peasants and Americans eat with their fingers.  I was sitting on the side of the Fontaine St. Michel and was just about done eating when I looked at my fork and realized my 4-tine fork had become a 3-tine fork.  Now, I’ll admit that I hadn’t really been paying attention to the fork before, but I feel fairly confident in saying that I had a 4-tine fork when I started.  I’m I would have noticed that there was a bigger than usual gap on the fork.  However I started my French fry snack, I definitely ended my snack with only 3 tines.  I looked in the remaining fries and didn’t find a tine; I looked on the ground and didn’t see one there, so I can only assume I ate it.  Luckily just that morning I had seen a thing on facebook about the disintegration rates of plastic in the ocean, so I’m pretty sure this sucker will be in my belly for about 250 million years.  Great.

Towards the end of this week I was a very busy boy.  I found out that friends from the homeland, Ken, Stacey, and Lynne, were in Paris for a couple of days so I obviously had to see them.  Unfortunately we spent to long walking around Paris and eating to see the Sainte-Chapelle, but they told me that they visited the next day, which made me happy.  (I think the Sainte-Chapelle is probably the number 1 best symbol of the French monarchy in Paris and is one of the monuments and “must visit” sites that isn’t visited, so it’s where I always take visitors when they’re in Paris.)  

That same day I had a chance to visit with one of the assistants from Chalons when he was in Paris for a day after his vacation travels throughout Europe.  As luck would have it, he was walking through my favorite museum, the Carnavalet, so I got a chance to see him and my favorite museum at the same time.  

On my way to the Carnavelet, however, I saw something on display that was so good I had to stop and work to take a decent photo.  As a part of my new special series to be incorporated in this blog called “Frenchies being French” I present the following photo depicting perfectly acceptable dress for men in Paris.  Nobody except me gave them two looks, and the entire Frenchness part of the deal is clinched with the iconic Longchamps shopping bag.  Apparently somebody had been shopping in his leopard print shoes and red shoe laces (which matched his red socks).  

I ended my week, like many other Americans, with Halloween, a holiday that really doesn’t exist in France.  Some people know what it is, I saw one shop decorated for the holiday, but in general it’s uncelebrated… unless you are American.  Or a wannabe American.  I had plans to go to the Moose, Paris’ Canadian bar (which happens to be owned by two Americans) with friends for their annual Halloween fête, but since I was running behind schedule (big surprise there…) I happened to be at home when the trick or treaters came by!  Apparently a group of 6 or 8 French kids decided to have Halloween in the apartment building and they went floor by floor, apartment by apartment, tricking and treating.  Unlike English speakers who greet the other person with a boisterous TRICK OR TREAT, these ghouls and goblins took care of things the French way: politely and understated.  The doorbell rang, the door was opened, and a chorus of prepubescent voices said their polite Bonsoir, Madames.  Then one very politely said, “Excusez nous madame, est-ce que vous aves des bonbons?”  (Roughly translated they said Excuse us, madame, would you happen to have any candy?)  Imagine if American kids were that polite.  And then, when they had their candy, they actually stopped and said, “Thank you very much, madame, it was very kind of you.”  I was standing at the far end of the hallway just looking on and I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped to the floor. 

This family went all out for Halloween.