The Family Vacation

The Mitchell family Paris vacation is sadly over. 

Here is a photo series titled "The Good Photographs with People in Them"

It is roughly chronological, but by no means a complete accounting of the trip.

Museum of Hunting and Nature:

an appropriately surreal first stop for the jetlagged and tired.

Jon fought a bear.

   

eating l'As du Falafel like pros in the park by the Carnavalet Museum

Jon and Brittany enjoying their first Paris protest.

the Roman arena: also a great place for family battles

Jon ponders the fall of John Galliano across the street from the now infamous café.

Château de Vincennes

Richard Lenoir market, Sunday morning near the Place de la Bastille

celebrating the launch of his new cosmetics line

photo shoot with the Code of Hammurabi for the next Super Lawyers issue

Pop-In, a comfortable and cheap bar near the apartment.

Rodin Museum, en route to The Thinker, with the dome of l'Hôtel des Invalides in the background

Rodin Museum

Jardin du Luxembourg 

The fountain had only recently been turned on for summer. 

We sat in the warm sun and watched the kids push sailboats around the pool.

Omaha Beach, near the American Cemetery

Pointe du Hoc, Normandy

Jardin du Palais Royal

Everyday life

It has been a quiet week here on rue Oberkampf. Elsewhere, as you may have read and seen in various news outlets, things have not been quiet; a few hundred teenagers decided to change the face of what had been, up to that point, a very peaceful series of massive protests. Of course, it's the kids breaking windows who get attention from the media, so you might have thought all of France was in shambles, but for us, it's been normal. Our apartment is about a fifteen minute walk to my work, so I don't have to deal with subways and trains that might have been crowded or delayed, and I don't have a car in need of gas (problems for some of my coworkers, though). Some of my students took the day off to attend protests. But that's all the disturbance we've experienced.


Weekdays when I work are fairly routine: I get up and go off to teach, Jeff does whatever he does when I'm gone (I think he plays guitar, works on learning French, plots world takeover, etc.), and then meets me at school. Sometimes we get a coffee, sometimes we go for a walk, sometimes we go window-shopping. Eventually we get hungry and decide we need to find food, and depending on how ambitious Jeff's plans are, we either go to Lémo (humorously pronounced lame-o) the organic grocery store, or we run the gamut of butcher shop, fruits and vegetables, bakery, etc. The fruit and vegetable guy recognizes us and realizes that he can talk me into "un petit peu" (a little bit) of pretty much anything, and usually throws something extra in the bag,  so he is particularly fun.

Then Jeff works his cooking magic while I catch up on the news of the world, but I like to let Jeff talk about that since it's his thing. I've cooked maybe three times since I've been here (other than toast and such).

Non-workdays are more fun and vary more; since I last wrote, we have been to the museum in the Petit Palais, we have gone actual clothes-shopping, gone out for drinks with some of my fellow lecteurs, we have been investigating French pizza, and today we are planning to head over to the Musée de la Chasse (hunting) et Nature, which we have read is surprisingly great, full of taxidermy and weapons and paintings, all commemorating the great aristocratic pastime of shooting things.

However, our big plans right now are a long weekend in Avignon. It's Fall break for all schools in France, ending with the Toussaint (All Saint's Day, an official holiday here), so I have ten full days off. In the middle of them, though, is a band that we want to see. So we're just planning a quick jaunt down south for some sunshine and Roman ruins.

I just realized I haven't put any pictures in this post, which I usually would add for interest - maybe we'll get some up later. In any case, that's what's going on - the streets are not burning, things are quite ordinary, but some excitement of the positive variety is in the forecast.

Tous ensemble! Tous ensemble! Grève générale!

Boulevard Voltaire today. That's the door to our building.

There are just as many people two blocks away on Boulevard Beaumarchais.
The groups will meet at Place de la Bastille and then head to Place de la Nation as one giant mass.


Around the corner from our place:
"General Strike"


Earlier today we tried to visit the new Basquiat exhibit at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art. The line was down the block so we detoured to Musée des Beaux-Arts at Le Petit Palais. We checked out the 19th century paintings. The building is super cool. Here's the central courtyard:


On our way to find lunch we were passed on Avenue Champs Élysées by a very old, very dirty car that had a "Peking to Paris" sign on it. Twenty minutes later as we walked through Place Vendome, we found where it was headed. We had stumbled on the finish line of the 4th Peking to Paris Motor Challenge. It has been run in 1907, 1997, 2007 and 2010.

After lunch we bought expensive cookies from Pierre Hermé. Next time we'll hit Ladurée so we can weigh in on the eternal Pierre Hermé vs Ladurée Macarons Debate.
We got six flavors: rose, peach & saffron, salted caramel, green tea, creme brulée and hazelnut.

First Days

After saying our goodbyes to everyone likely to read this, a long and uncomfortable night and morning on Icelandair, and two hours on a shuttle bus in Paris traffic, we finally found ourselves at our apartment. Our landlord met us, showed us the apartment, and asked, “c’est pas trop petit?” (it’s not too small?) We said no, but we might have been a little generous. It is très, très petit. The bedroom is approximately 1.25 Jeff-lengths by 1.1 Jeff-lengths, or maybe 7x8 feet. The kitchen/bathroom area is about the same size, with a slanty ceiling to further reduce the useful space. However, after a couple days, everything seems fairly functional and efficient and we think it will be all right.

Formalities over, we wandered around the neighborhood a bit. You can see what it looks like if you check out Google Street Maps and locate the corner of Boulevard Voltaire and Rue Oberkampf. Our door is the blue one right next to the Bar Au Metre on Voltaire.

The city of Paris graciously offers free Wifi in many of the city parks and green spaces, but reception can be a little spotty so you have to look for the groups of people huddled over their electronic devices. We sent emails and facebook updates and made a Google phone call from the Square de la Roquette. Here is Jeff a couple days later, communicating with the world like a pro.

Originally we planned to go out for dinner, but we felt about ready to die, so instead we got pizza to take back to the apartment. Note the white splotch in the middle of the nearer pizza: it is an egg.

We started the next day by figuring out some more of our apartment’s little quirks. One of them is that you have to watch your head, especially if you are tall, but even if you are rather short, like Lia, seen here making coffee.

So far our days consist largely of finding a wifi hotspot to check in on things, wandering around the city and trying to get our bearings, and getting food. Here are a couple miscellaneous daily life in the apartment pictures, including our exciting first home-cooked dinner (escalope of veal and green beans, raw milk Saint-Marcellin cheese, really good bread) and a badass rabbit paté we had for lunch today.

On September 7th several hundred thousand people marched past our front door in protest. Something about not raising the retirement age and hating Sarkozy. From 1:00 to 8:00 there was constant chanting, drumming, disco and vuvuzelas.

It made it hard to get around the neighborhood but it was a nice introduction to the French political scene. By 8:00 the crowd had dispersed, the streets were hosed and we went shopping for dinner.

Upcoming excitement includes Lia starting work, a bank account, cell phones, laundry and maybe a toaster oven.

Our apartment's door latch adorned with MN magnet.