Movie Night
I have recently instituted a weekly movie night, partly to get out the house and partly to get out of my wife's hair at least once a week. Going to the movies in France is different in some subtle and some obvious ways. Cinemas are often small, quirky and unobtrusive from the street - but can equally be big, plush and marqueed.
It used to be that Europeans had to wait six months for Hollywood to ship its productions over, meaning that not only was some of the lustre gone, but the prints themselves were scuffed and worn; now they tend to release in Europe on the same day as in North America. In some cases they even open before. For instance, the Salma Hayak/Penelope Cruz film which opened "domestically" last weekend, Bandidas, came and went here months ago. Presumably the idea was that European audiences would not be put off by the latin flavour and the film could open at home with a history of rave reviews and box office success (it didn't work).
It's easier to find in Paris a wider range of movies than the Hollywood offerings that are 90% of what we see in Toronto (and 95+% of what is shown in the US). While all the Hollywood movies get plenty of attention, there is a vibrant French film industry, and movies from elsewhere in Europe get a lot of play too. So the films that are called "art house" at home, and would normally show up at the Carlton and rep cinemas only, are distributed almost equally with big budget American flicks. Last night I checked out a theatre that had five Hollywood films and one French production, at which the line was longest for the latter; across the street its sister cinema was showing four French films, The Sentinel (Michael Douglas thriller), and two American limited releases. Up the Champs Elysées, three smaller theatres were dominated by French films, leavened by Deepa Mehta's "Water" and one or two from elsewhere in Europe. (And, okay, I went to see Miami Vice; but I
could have seen any number of films that would be hard or impossible to find at home.)
For those who like trailers, French cinemasdisappointt. There are a lot more advertisements before the show and fewer trailers; the ads and trailers are interspersed apparently at random. On the positive side, while the published time of the showing is of course when the all the pre-feature bumf commences, the theatre usually indicates somewhere the time the feature actually begins, so you can skip the ads and not miss the show.
Finally, there's the snacks. Some places, I am finding, do popcorn and drinks much like at home, including the ridiculous prices; but the economics of running a cinema clearly aren't the same. I don't see nearly as many people lined up for popcorn, and the snack bar is often an afterthought, or worse. There's always popcorn, but some theatres have only a little trolley rather than an actual snack bar. Even where the counter is front and centre, the popcorn is probably cold and may be stale. There is one, dubious, innovation: you can have your popcorn "salé ou sucré", meaning salty or sweet. The sweet is kind of like caramel corn, although not as strongly flavoured.
As you may have gathered, there is a cluster of cinemas on the Champs Elysées, where I usually go if I'm not sure what I want to see. For most purposes, we avoid the area, since it's thronged with tourists, ex-pats, and other
flanneurs, to the point of being oppressively crowded. I think many French feel the same way, since I overhear as much Italian, Spanish and Arabic as French. It's flashy and tasteless but bright, humming and kind of fun to walk through at the end of an evening.
Southern Alps Weekend
On Friday we flew to Nice and picked up a rental car. Before hitting the highway we had lunch in the old town. The last time I was here was at least fifteen years ago, and while I don't remember it being quite so touristy, I was less jaded and in any case rather more focused on the scene on the beach.
We drove out of town along the coast, heading North once we reached Monaco. Unfortunately it was rush hour by this time, so escaping from the seaside took some time; but once we were away from the coastal towns the route took us by narrow switchbacks between gorgeous and increasingly steep cliffs. Our destination was
Saint Martin Vésubie, and we had a good map and directions from a mapping web site (
mappy, like mapquest) to our hotel; however, the web site's driving directions failed to take into consideration the fact that some of the streets in the core of the medieval town were in fact impassable to a modern vehicle. We had to improvise to reach the hotel (
Hôtel Le Gélas) but as it turned out it was only a short walk from the highway.
The forecourt of the Hôtel le Gélas
The purpose of the trip was to recharge city-drained batteries with a little bit of the outdoors and to dip Janet's toes into an Alpine environment. Before we set off on our first hike on Saturday morning, we purchased lunch from the little shops in the town. A cheese stall set up on the main street had only one kind of cheese, but it was presumably made by the jolly woman who was selling it, so we bought some. A baguette from a baker, some sliced meat from the butcher, a bottle of rosé - this was no Eiger expedition - and we were off.
"Main Street" of Saint Martin Vésubie has a stream flowing down the middle
The trail was well-made, if steep and rocky at times. We gained a fair bit of altitude quickly, and emerged from the trees in meadows that gave way to scree and talus. It felt splendidly isolated and we watched with binoculars the chamois grazing on the sides of the little valley. There were other people on the trail, but not so many that it felt crowded. We started to descend around 2 p.m. and encountered people still on their way up.
Janet with Madonne de Fenestre in the background
The next day was grey but we repeated our lunch preparations and headed off to find our trailhead at Madonne de Fenestre, which proved to be a small cluster of stone buildings including a hotel and an old church. This hike was similar in difficulty to the previous day's, although the terrain became more gentle once we'd reached the meadows. Ancient stone buildings, craggy peaks, a herd of cows with cowbells... if the sun had come out I would have burst into "Doe, a Deer". As it was, we had a light rain on and off. No chamois this time, but we did see a family of marmots.
We spent that evening in a well-located fleabag in downtown Nice (the
Hotel Felix; not horrible, but not recommended). Our flight left early the following morning (or was supposed to - it was actually delayed a couple of hours), so we wanted to be close to the airport. We cleaned up and explored a bit, looking for dinner. The Italian influence on the food is obvious here, with
antipasti on every menu, and we made up for the weekend's exercise with a bit of a feast.
Janet has a few sore muscles, but we're both proud of what we accomplished. I think there will be a return trip.
Paris Beautiful
I had some errands to do yesterday afternoon, and I wound up walking a couple of miles. I started at La Chappelle, North of the Gare du Nord, and walked straight down Rue Faubourg St. Martin until it crossed the Seine, turned into Rue St. Jacques and reached the Boulevard St. Germain. In the course, I passed several Paris landmarks from the Gare de L'est, to the
Porte St. Martin, the
Pompidou centre, the
Tour St. Jacques (click for a better view than I've so far had; it's invisible in scaffolding), and Notre Dame, among others.
Porte St. Martin (You probably know what the others look like)
Today it was back to the other side of my Paris: people that don't understand me, and computer systems that stop working for no apparent reason.
Frilly Drinks
On Saturday night we decided to explore the left bank - an area we know well by day, but somehow have never been around at night. Janet read about the bar in
L'Hotel (where Oscar Wilde expired) and nominated that for our first destination. The problem with hotel bars of course is that they tend to be full of tourists, so not the best French experience; but notwithstanding the surrounding English speakers, it did have a plush Napoleon III feel.
Janet had some kind of grenadine/orange champagne cocktail; mine was called
le 13 (from the hotel's address, 13 Rue des Beaux Arts) and consisted of champagne, lime juice,
violette and candied violets. We will be adding violette to our bar stock.
Another of Janet's researches lead us to a nearby restaurant,
Le Restaurant Christine. We didn't quite escape the tourists - hard to do on the left bank even with school back in - but we did find some excellent cuisine. Tip: if you don't want to share your yummy dessert, order the figs.
Catching Up
Some random notes from the past week:
The weekend was sunny, warm and perfect. To heck with springtime in Paris, if this is typical of September. We did a little shopping on the left bank, being tempted by an Art Deco gouache that I may return to haggle over. We also did some poking about Au Vieux Camper in preparation for our sojourn to the South next weekend. We bought trekking poles and came away with a catalogue that makes the old Sears one look like pocket novel.
On Monday I went to talk to an energetic woman in the HR department of the OECD about employment opportunities there. I don't think there are any, and it's up to the HR department to match my skills to a position if there are - but fingers crossed.
Thursday evening we went to see D & T's twins, born last week and home for only a few days. Janet was disconcertingly enthralled, but she assures me it's because they were so small to be more like hairless kittens. All babies look like Winston Churchill to me, although these ones' weak flexing movements made them look like little Winston Churchill dolls animated for a Disneyland ride. We brought them a little stuffed fox and a lamb, from a
Le Petit Prince gift collection.
Not Enough for an "Oil thigh"*
I have been in touch with my alumni association, and was invited to a Queen's pub night at the "Great Canadian Pub" on the
quai des Grands Augustins, near Place St. Michel (a stone's throw West of Notre Dame). Kind of funny to come all the way to Paris in order to find a place with same hockey on the TV, Molson's on tap and the chicken wings all just like home. But appropriate for the event - which turned out to embrace McGill, U of Ottawa, and a number of other Canadian universities. For a grand total of, oh, maybe a dozen people of which five were from Queen's. Clearly there's some work to be done on the network here.
Earlier in the evening I helped Janet prepare for a little party launching the new season at her office. She organized it for her department, which meant a number of things including setting up the bar. We took nothing for granted, and two weeks ago I investigated the availability of ice cubes at the supermarket. They come in little 2kg bags, but they did have a stock. Yesterday I went back and of course there was nothing, just large blocks where the cubes had been before. I looked everywhere, to no avail. A woman in Picard, a store that sells exclusively frozen food, suggested a café, and apparently that's the way it's done because the barman at our favorite local restaurant didn't appear surprised by the request, but happily filled up my cooler and refused payment. So almost a year we've been here and there are still lots to learn about how things are done.
*
Oil thigh na Banrighinn is the Queen's University song.
Coco and Polo
You'd think with all the tremendous restaurants of Paris to choose from, we'd go back only to those where we were particularly impressed by the food. However,
one rainy Saturday back in June we stumbled upon a place on the left bank, a very short block from the river itself, called
La Maison des Beaux Jours. The food was very good; but what made it memorable was the house dog, a slobbery, surpassingly ugly creature named Coco. Having arranged to meet for lunch some family friends of Janet's who were staying on the
Ile de St. Louis, we dragged them with us to visit Coco.
On this afternoon, Coco had a friend over for a visit, an even more playful Polo. The two of them tussled outside and and trotted around the tables. For a restaurant so close to the tourist beat, it is surprisingly peaceful and pleasant. It's just out of the way enough that it doesn't feel like it's in the traffic, nor is it crowded inside. And fortunately for those of us who like dogs but generally prefer other criteria by which to judge a restaurant, the menu is lovely and the service excellent.
The proprieter helped both dogs (Polo left; Coco right) pose with Janet. We are sufficiently accustomed to dogs in restaurants in general as to wonder for what reason we exclude them back home. Really, assuming the owners wouldn't bring them if they weren't sufficiently well-behaved to lie quietly by or under the table of their master/mistress, what's the harm? They can't be any more dirty than what is likely to be tracked in off Paris streets by the human patrons. Nor is space a serious issue, since Paris' dogs are generally found a fair distance from the St. Bernard end of the scale.
On the other hand, there was an occasion last fall in which a prohibition argument presented itself. Janet and I went to an elegant Vietnamese restaurant in our neighbourhood,
La Baie d'Ha Long. The main dining room was miniscule, with room for four or five close tables only. That evening, two of the other tables were occupied by people with dogs, one a golden lab, the other a Yorkshire terrier. The Yorkie, having detected the presence of the other (placid and well-behaved) animal, became determined to show it who was boss, and periodically erupted in yapping snarls. Dog fights in confined spaces are not something by which to garner a Michelin star. Fortunately for us at the next table, the embarassed owner was able to hold the cur on her lap throughout her meal.
