World Cup Win
Since it's summer our windows are often open. This summer that means that not only do we have fresh air, but we always know when a goal is scored in Germany. Last night France was playing and the cheers after every goal got louder as they pulled ahead of Spain. People stepped out on their balconies to trade smiles and an festive atmosphere built on the street.
When the match ended, it was like '82 in Toronto. For those of you who weren't there, Torontonians suddenly discovered just how big the Italian immigrant community was, as each and every member jumped in a car and sped around blowing their horns. Last night, it went on past midnight; there must have been quite a party downtown if there was that much noise out here in the 16th.
And this is only the quarter finals.
It Rained Cats and Dogs...
...and I've the pictures to prove it!
The plan for Sunday was to have a wander around the left bank and the islands, with M, an Irish friend who I used to work with in California and who's now living in Switzerland, and her sister, T, who stayed with us when she first moved to Paris and has been a willing cat-sitter on occasion. M was in town for the weekend and it's been years since I've seen her. The weather made it a slightly soggy reunion.
The cat we found upstairs at
Shakespeare & Co., where we'd arranged to meet. We went for lunch at a nearby restaurant, named
La Maison des Beaux Jours (ironically, in the circumstances). There we found the dog, one of Paris' uglier, but no less friendly for that.
Since strolling the winding lanes of old Paris wasn't as appealing as it would have been normally, we thought we'd have a look around that big old church on the
Ile de la Cité, only about a block away. It looks like tourist season is upon us, however, because the line to get inside
Notre Dame snaked around the square and through the puddles outside, causing us to abandon the idea and repair to a café for a second after-lunch coffee.
So much for a cultural afternoon, but it was great to catch up with M - and it turns out she's on blogspot too, (at
An cailín elvéiseach, which means the Swiss girl, in gaellic).
Last Wine Tasting Class
Yesterday evening we resumed our interrupted wine-tasting course. Having discussed reds and whites in the first two classes, this final one presented a variety of other wine-making techniques. We started with champagne, which we already knew a little about, then learned about the "
vins jaune", the "
vins liquoreux", the "v
ins doux naturel", and finally a unique wine made from sun-dried grapes.
A
vin jaune is one in which a crust of yeast is allowed to form on top in the cask. It ages very slowly (six years and three months, to be precise) with results of a very strong flavour and deep colour.
The
vins de liquoreux are wines in which the juice has been concentrated by the botrytis (the "noble rot" as vintners are fond of referring to it). This being a French course, the example of this that we tasted was a Sauternes, although there are many good German wines of this sort.
The
vins doux naturel are fortified wines, such as port, where alcohol has been added to stop the natural fermentation and preserve the natural sweetness of the grape. French examples are Banyouls, and the one we tasted in class, Mas Amiel.
The final wine offered for tasting was remarkable for it's thick brown colour and strong pruney nose:
Bodegas Toro Albalá. It is made by the "
methode classique", i.e. nothing unusual in the wine-making itself; but it is made with sun-dried grapes, so not surprisingly it smelled and tasted a lot like raisins. It also had the most alcohol of the lot, at 17%.
Coureur du Bois
I am still a long way from running out of unexplored routes in the
Bois de Boulogne. There are so many roads and criss-crossing paths, I can take a turn on a whim and find myself somewhere I've never been before. The other day I discovered a route "
sportif", a looping trail with some exercise equipment, like monkey bars or a wall, ever few hundred yards. I've been running by it for months without a clue it was there.
In the morning, when it's fresh and green and I'm tripping over fluffy little bunny rabbits, it's hard to imagine what can go on here at night. Earlier in the week I took another turn I hadn't before, and learned a little about that nighttime world, by its daytime spillover. Following a fairly busy road, I passed some women, loitering in that manner that suggests they're actually there for a reason and if you don't know what that reason is then it's none of your business. One striking individual in particular was tall, black, very sexy and possibly not a woman at all. My eyes open now, I noticed that there seemed to be a surprising number of plain white vans parked by the road, looking rather weathered and second hand - as did the women sitting in their front seats.
A little further on, I passed two policemen on motorcycles going up the path in the other direction.
Counting in French
Our cleaning lady always confirms our next appointment when she leaves by asking "En quinze jours?". I once tried to correct her by saying no, two weeks, that's fourteen days, not fifteen. This confused her, so now I accept that you count today as one.
On the other hand, what we would call the first floor of a building here is called the "
rez de chausée" (loosely, street level) and the first floor is the next one up; so you count floors from zero. Now why, if I have to climb four floors to get to the fourth floor, do I have to wait fifteen days for two weeks to pass?
de Lempicka Exhibit
I recently noted, from a poster seen in a local shop, that
Boulogne-Billancourt is hosting an exhibit of one of my favorite artists,
Tamara de Lempicka. The first time I saw a reference to this town I assumed it was somewhere well outside of Paris, so I was surprised to learn that we could hit it with a rock from our apartment. In fact, it's the suburb South of the Bois de Boulogne (little clue there) and directly across the périphérique from us. I was delighted to discover that we wouldn't need to take a train to see
the exhibition, but we could in fact walk.
And walk we did, yesterday afternoon. The architecture is interesting in this part of town because while many of the buildings are relatively modern (the area underwent a renaissance in the beginning of the last century, changing from an industrial to a residential area), they aren't simply concrete and glass blocks dumped in the empty spots, they work with the other buildings and have clearly been designed for space and flow. The area around the
hotel de ville includes a number of public building, shopping streets, malls and squares, and it all seemed remarkably livable. Of course, since the weather was perfect we were looking at it in the very best light.
The venue for the show is the
Musée des Années 30, which is next to the
hotel de ville for the municipality. The building in which it's housed is a cultural centre called the
Espace Landowski, and it includes a number of resources, such as a library and a cinema as well as the museum. The museum occupies three floors, and we went through the whole place after seeing the de Lempicka show. It is a marvellous collection of art deco paintings, sculpture, and design, from magazine covers and furniture to art that records life in the French colonies in those years.
The de Lempicka show itself was terrific. Perhaps I've absorbed some Parisian arrogance, because I was in stunned to see so many famous pieces assembled in this minor museum in the suburbs. Obviously it's not so minor, within the domain of the art deco movement, for almost all of her most famous works were there. I'd seen half of the largest pieces before, reproduced on posters and in books. But as always, the reproductions don't quite capture the vitality of the original.
Self-portrait of Tamara de Lempicka
Good Flight Home
We're home again, after a slightly delayed but otherwise uneventful flight. BA was kind to us again, and bumped us up to bigger seats; plus they gave us a food vouchers for the delay, which we used for snacks and a pound of coffee.
As with our last return home, Emma is all over us and being very vocal about people who aren't there for their pets every day. And this time she's also shedding like a stripper, since it's warm and humid in Paris now. We're going to have to vacuum every day.
