Cinema, oui! Paradiso, non!

Friday, we met again with Claire. She is a friend of Karen's who lives here in Paris, and she has been our secret weapon, helping us with finding things, deciphering colloquial French, and taking us to out-of-the-way parts of Paris.

On Friday, she took us way out of the way -- we met her at the Picpus (pronounced Peek-Puss) Metro station (a good meeting place because it has only one exit, and is therefore moderately difficult to get lost in), walked to her car, and piled in. We headed out of Paris entirely.

North, to the area around Chantilly, we went to Senlis (pronounced Sen-lease -- it was somebody's name once, it's not TRULY French (they hold a grudge a long time -- it's been called Senlis since at least the 12th century), so you DO pronounce the "s". In this very old, very Gothic church, the Capetian dynasty of French kings began when Hugue Capet was elected king when there was no successor to the throne. It was a darned long time ago, you'd have to put extra batteries into the "Way-Back Machine" to get there -- in the 13th century or so. That's so long ago, even conservative Republicans would be a tad uncomfortable there -- largely because there were no Protestants yet.

Paris is a wonderful city -- a very private city, in fact, because so much of what goes on happens behind locked doors and high blank walls. With the exception of a couple of blocks on the Montmartre, there are no front yards in the city, buildings are on the sidewalk, or even on the street itself, and the facades, while fascinating, give little or no clue of what goes on inside.

The countryside, however, is another story. Still not many front yards, but the old downtowns are often pedestrian only, the weekly market day frequently takes over most of downtown, and everyplace just literally spews charm from every orifice.

Senlis is one of those places. Just past the forest that Jean-Jacques Rousseau used to walk through for inspiration, it's one of those French anachronisms -- just 30 miles from Paris, you would swear that you are so far out in the countryside that you might not actually be able to find anyone who had ever even HEARD of Paris. Old buildings, with tile pictures on the front to show what sort of business is conducted inside, in case you might still be illiterate. Wrought-iron signs swaying in the wind, affixed to the buildings about 10 feet off the ground. Not much neon. And yet, as always happens to me in these towns of about 20,000 people, I'm amazed at the amount, and quality, of commerce that goes on. Restaurants of national repute, full-on lingerie stores, a butcher and a baker on nearly every block, quality cheese stores, a place that specializes in foie gras, children's clothing, art galleries -- it is SO civilized, so charming. Were I to stay in a place like that for 5 weeks, I would know people by name and greet them on the street by the middle of the visit.

We stopped for lunch at a "typically French" bistro/brasserie. The room had a slightly grumpy and mildly forgetful woman very close to 60 serving us. The plat du jour was langue du boeuf, sauce piquant. Kelli decided to go native on me and order it, even after I told her it was beef tongue in a spicy sauce. Claire was quite impressed -- I, less so, because I knew how this would turn out. Claire ordered the omelette forestiere, meaning with wild mushrooms, and I had the onglet sauce roquefort, a hanger steak (near the flank) grilled and sliced, served with spinach and mashed potatoes. Well, I had most of it. Kelli decided that one slice of tongue was experiment enough - she stocked up on the boiled potatoes and had eaten all of her fish soup, which was a reddish-orange puree with a special sauce and croutons and grated gruyere cheese to put on top. I did the loving husband thing and gave her a couple of bites of the steak, so as not to have her grow faint on the ride home.

On the ride home, we avoided the Autoroute for a while, driving through the countryside. Your loyal correspondent was busy surveying all that was placed before him, and spotted the family of harts, European deer, bounding fanatically across the plowed field to our east - Papa was a 6-point buck, and mom and the two kids were close on his heels. They covered some serious ground in just seconds.

As we rolled into Paris, Claire had said she had "an appointment" at 7 pm, but when the phone rang at 4:00, I knew it was her boyfriend. It's quite a treat to be privy to young love in Paris, let me tell you -- and young love happens at any age. Claire has two adult sons, was divorced a couple of years ago, and speaks in that matter-of-fact way that Europeans seem to have -- "Peter, who I had an affair with for a while, works in the hotel field and is now in Oakland, California, of all places!"

It was Rene on the phone, and right before our very eyes, this rather demure 50 year old woman became a giggling schoolgirl.

We had already set up an appointment to meet on Monday to go shopping for curtains -- fabric in Paris is one of the few true bargains -- and we were driving down the street when, wonder of wonders, a car pulled OUT of a parking spot just as we drove up, giving Claire a place to leave her car for the weekend (if you've been reading along, you know these things just happen to us, even when they aren't really happening to us), and allowing her to gaily say "we're here, time to get out!" So, let that be a lesson to all you youngsters out there -- hormones still work, and mighty damned well, at just about any age.

We came home, and I did yesterday's long blog entry. All along, I had plans for us to go to the movies on Friday night -- to the digitally projected Harry Potter in English with French subtitles. It was showing on the Champs-Elysees (the most expensive retail space in the world). The movie was at 9:15, we left the house (four metro stops and one line change away) around 8:00.

And waited for about 9 minutes for a train at our station. This was not a particularly good sign; coupled with the fact that the blogger site was not accepting my photos (I tried for 45 minutes to post them and failed), we were off to a bad start.

It got worse. We changed at Concorde (Place de la...) to Line 1, the oldest line in Paris. They have signs telling you when the next two trains are coming. The trains usually run every 2-3 minutes on this line.

8 and 13 minutes, the sign said.

When the train arrived after 8 minutes, I thought the doors were going to fly off and drive us all into the wall of the Metro station -- cars designed to hold about 75 people had at least 95-100 each, and there were easily 150 of us on the platform waiting to get in. We failed.

The next train had room. We rode two stops to Franklin Roosevelt, got out, and were standing on the Champs-Elysees.

Pictures will come another night. I didn't bring my camera that night, I had every intention of going to the movies.

The street is lit up in a way that is hard to describe -- General Electric has filled all of the London Plane trees that line this grandest of all the world's grand boulevards with lights, and big ones -- regular incandescent screw-in bulbs -- that appear to twinkle when the breeze blows, as the lights bob back and forth behind the trees' leaves. This extends from the Arc du Triomphe almost all the way to Concorde. It's dazzling.

There were theaters -- across the street, of course, but that didn't seem right to me. So, I got my bearings for a few seconds, and realized the theater was behind us, on our side of the street. The sidewalks on this street are about 60 feet wide, so it wasn't obvious.

Now, the Metro HAD failed us -- we arrived only 45 minutes before they opened the doors, and 1 hour and 15 minutes before the movie started. As I dashed to get into line to buy tickets, the tote board behind the cashier gave the baleful, yet so-deeply-in-my-bones-expected news that the final four seats to Harry Potter had been purchased by the person in front of me.

I believe I forgot to mention that I skipped dinner entirely in order to not be too late to get tickets. This left me in a MOST festive mood.

No sense in looking anywhere else, either -- everyplace that was showing HP in English started the show at 9:15.

The Mrs., who had NOT skipped dinner, was truly enchanted with the dazzling light display, and thought this provided the perfect opportunity for us to walk up and down the Champs-Elysees to enjoy the holiday spirit. With apologies to Bill Fields, on the whole, I'd rather have been in Philadelphia.

But, good trooper that I am, we hiked up to the arch, crossed over, and back to the Rond Point, then back up the street to the George V Metro station. The Rond Point, which is, well, a traffic roundabout installed midway between the Arc and Concorde just to keep driving a lively sport, was all decorated for the holidays, with conifers everywhere dusted with fake snow. Which was pretty odd, since the wind blowing up the street in our faces produced a wind chill that made it feel like it was 5 degrees -- real snow certainly would not have melted.

Our progress up and down the streets was somewhat impeded by the mass of emergency vehicles that were attending to a traffic accident that involved a motorcycle or scooter in the middle of this avenue that is so wide one crosses it on foot in two signal cycles. I was jolted out of my black mood when we passed the accident on the way back down the street and realized it was not being attended by ambulances, but by the Coroner.

Peugeot and Citroen have their main showrooms here. I promise to walk by them and take some photos for you, and for me -- let me tell you, they don't have Cal Worthington OR his dog Spot selling cars here -- they had concept cars, city cars with no side doors, sports cars with wings sticking 3 feet out on either side......car design on acid. I'll have to get photos -- these car showrooms have a second floor which is a relatively fancy restaurant. At least, the French have their priorities in the right places -- can't decide much of anything without a decent bottle of wine, you know.

I was dumbfounded to find a McDonalds, and their French counterpart, Quick, on this too-expensive-for-words street. Also, there were several restaurants with extremely moderate prices -- fixed meals for under $20, taxes and tip included. I didn't expect this.

So, I grumpied my way down the street to the Metro, rode back to our neighborhood, and decided to take a walk down our market street -- I was pretty sure most places would not still be serving at 10 pm, but it was worth a try, even though Kelli had already eaten.

Deborah, take note: About two blocks down rue Cler, on the left, is a little Greek restaurant that has a plastic tent in front for extra seating. In the tent they have a crepe stand. The guy who runs it speaks wonderful English, along with French and Greek, of course. For about $4 he will make you a crepe with a slice of ham, a large handful of grated Swiss cheese, and a fresh egg all folded inside. I could have kissed him, but, well, he was Greek, and might have mistaken me for a graduate of an English public school such as Eton......

In fact, I went back for breakfast today.

Arranged the interview with Anne-Marie Cantin for next Thursday. Called Enrico Bernardo at the George V hotel, left a message -- his outgoing message is in French AND English -- my incoming message was in English only. Hoping to hear back from him.

We decided to do the Museum thing today, so after the cheese store stop and our lunch crepes (me: three cheeses and an egg -- Kelli -- Egg, cheese, onions, peppers, and ham, I think) we headed back to the Champs-Elysees, where I proudly marched in and asked in perfect, well, intelligible, at least, French, whether they sold tickets that early for the evening cinemas. He said "you betcha, buckaroo", or words to that effect in perfect, or at least intelligible, French, and I ordered up a couple of his best seats for the 6:00 show. Magic coupons in hand, we set off for a day of high fashion.

First the Baccarat Museum, which includes, at no additional charge, the opportunity to go through the Baccarat boutique. Not for the faint of checkbook, but it is a stunning retail space in a mansion on the Place des Etats-Unis, just up the street from the embassies of the Sultanate of Borneo, Kuwait, and the Sultanate of Oman. Hilarious, don't you think, that all the Islamic countries have their diplomatic legations on the Place des Etats-Unis? Saudi Arabia is right around the corner, too........

Hard to say exactly what was the most amazing thing -- the 4000-crystal chandelier in an enormous bullet-proof aquarium in the entry, lighted even though under water, was pretty impressive. So were the tiny LEDs buried in the carpet margins going up the stairs -- and the 11 foot high candlestick made for Tsar Nicholas II was amazing -- so was the crystal chair and ottoman designed for Edith Ann (you had to watch Laugh-In back in the day to get that reference) -- it was not a rocking chair, but the footstool would require a ladder to mount.....and the chair was about 14 feet high.

But, the bathroom!

Oh my sweet Lord, the bathroom!

Polished sandstone on the floor. The entry door had red crystal mirror tiles covering the entire surface, while the ante-room had crystal mirror tiles on all walls and ceilings. The "lavatory" consisted of four squarish legs -- they were blown crystal surrounds masking the metal legs holding up the table. The entire top of the table was flat, polished Sterling Silver. The "basin" was actually a free-form kidney-shaped piece of half-inch-thick sterling, about three inches high, which produced a catchment.

The museum had examples ranging back to the early 19th century of Baccarat work, and a movie in a ball-room of immense size and ornate beauty. Everywhere, there were crystal hurricane lamps set directly on the floor that were somehow plugged in beneath their bases in such a way that no cord showed. Items from the Paris Expositions throughout the 19th century, monumental vases 5 feet high of multi-layered blown crystal with artworks etched into the sides. For the entirety of the 19th century Baccarat kept a major factory operating at full capacity solely to provide items commissioned by the Romanov family of Russian Tsars.

From there, we hiked to the Galliera Musee -- the museum of Parisian clothing styles.

On the way, I was able to give directions to a lovely group of ladies who had somehow lost the Champs-Elysees. I told them to turn left and walk until they ran out of movie tickets, you can't miss it.

The museum of Parisian clothing styles was given over entirely to one designer's show, an Italian designer apparently quite popular in Paris, Popy Moreni. We were stunned by the bizzare nature of many of the clothes, particularly the shoes and hat that were truly intended to be worn by court jesters.

That didn't take much time, so we dashed to the Metro and went to the Opera Garnier, the old opera in Paris, and got in line to buy museum tickets. Of course, someone was rehearsing in the hall, so we could not enter the auditorium, with its 4 stories of private boxes, but we could peer through the doorway into one of the boxes. We walked up and back down the monumental staircase inside the opera -- I believe the staircase in San Francisco's City Hall is patterned after this one -- it was best described by a young lady from London who walked through a side doorway ahead of her friends and said "oh my frigging God you won't believe this".

The museum was interesting -- several rooms devoted solely to costumes designed for the Opera over the past 150 years or so, all in shades of red. The text accompanying it was a challenge for me, but I was able to decipher enough of it to get the gist of their discussion of the symbolism of the color red over the years, both in ethnology/religion and psychology. The costumes were all fabulous, but what really interested me was both the substance of some of them -- wearing them would make you perspire heavily, let alone adding makeup and stage lighting and acting and singing -- and the fact that they were too elaborate to be dry cleaned, even, so many of them were really pretty darned filthy, but you'd never know it from a distance.....secrets of the society.

From there, we got decent sandwiches at Paul, a boulanger/tea shop with outlets in some Metro stations, in business for about 140 years now. Sat on a bench on the Champs Elysees and watched the world go by for 15 minutes while eating, then decided to go into the movie theater about 45 minutes early, just in case.

The movie was being shown downstairs in the grand salon. These were the most expensive movie tickets I've ever bought, at about $12.35 each for the "projection numerique", or digital projection. The stairs took us into a circular waiting area large enough for about 100 people; there were 500 tickets sold for the showing. There was a nice, orderly line just long enough for us to get to the end of; after that, people just started filling the space from the front without regard to arrival time.

I said something in French to the effect of "screw this" and dragged Kelli near the front of the mob, which, when the doors finally opened, was so tightly packed we could only shuffle our feet about 6 inches at a time. Someone in the crowd had a recording on their phone of bleating sheep, which they played to everyone's amusement -- apparently, there was ANOTHER door on the other side of the theater, because when we entered, about #60 in line, the theater was half-filled with people who were saving 7 seats at a whack. We sat on the side aisle, with a dozen delightful American, British and Canadian children, plus a couple of French kids, all celebrating an 11th birthday with one Mom and Dad riding herd over all of them. It worked very well.

French movie seats are like Recaro seats upholstered in velvet -- back supports, two arm rests for EVERY seat, no fighting your neighbor, and the seat bottoms are fixed and don't fold up. Comfy in the extreme, we watched 20 minutes of entertaining French commercials, and were occasionally able to intuit what was actually being sold, but not always. Some previews, then the great moment began, with a hundred or more kids leaping to their feat and screaming and applauding. It died down by the finish of the opening credits, the sound system was wonderful, and because the aisles don't go straight from the back of the theater to the front, but rather radiate outwards until at the front the side section has only two seats, the seats, which are "squared up" to the aisle, are staggered and nobody blocks your view, even though the seating is not "stadium style". So, after the cattle call for entry, and the mass sprint for seats, the movie itself was a delight -- in English, with French subtitles, and my French, while not nearly good enough to allow me to watch the movie that way, is good enough to know that several of the translations were, well, lacking, particularly in the more colloquial parts -- but what really surprised me is that many of the Potter characters have different names in French -- not just phonetic pronunciations, but actually different names.

It's a fun 3 hours. See it digitally projected if you can -- there's so much put into this film, the ending credits list about 1,000 names -- see it the way they made it.

All for now. Every museum in Paris, nearly, is free tomorrow, the first Sunday of the month. We're going to make another attempt to storm Versailles. The weather report calls for clouds and rain tomorrow, and it is one of the best weather reports for the coming week.

TTFN