Random Cool Things in Paris, part 2

Here's another couple of fun or interesting things we've seen over the past couple of months, which for one reason or another we didn't write a whole post about at the time.

1) Les Passages de Paris
We Minnesotans like to take the rather dubious credit for inventing the indoor shopping mall (oh how I do loathe Southdale). But we can blame the concept on the Parisians, who began building covered, semi-enclosed shopping passages in the early 19th century. Frankfurt school philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote a great deal about them, if you're into that kind of thing. One day back in February, Jeff and I set out to explore some of them.

Some of them are lovely, with what appear to be original lamps and decorations, and are filled with high-end clothing, antiques, gift shops, little cafés and restaurants, or design offices. Others are less well-preserved and a little ratty, but still retain some charm. If you get out of the center of town, you can find passages that are full of cheap wholesale clothing shops. Up by Porte St-Denis, some of them seem to host prostitutes, but we're not sure.

2. Église St-Eustache
We went into this church on a whim - we just happened to be walking by, and we wondered what it was like inside. Pretty cool, it turns out. This church was built in the late 16th-early 17th century, so it is a good example of the late Gothic style. Here's their website, in French, but if you've got Google translator you can figure it out.

And here's the apse end, peeking out through the Passage St-Eustache.

The nave and the organ.

Not sure who scandalized Peter Lorre so much,

but we didn't know he was a Catholic cardinal, either.

St-Eustache is right by les Halles in the 1st, for centuries the largest wholesale food market in Paris and the setting of Émile Zola's novel, Le Ventre de Paris [The Belly of Paris]. But the old market was demolished in 1971 and the food vendors banished to the suburbs. The diorama below dramatizes their departure.

There is now an underground shopping mall and a large, not terribly appealing park where the old Halles used to be. The city has ambitious plans to remake the space yet again.

We have just over two weeks left here in Paris, and parts of them will be pretty busy, but we'll try to update a couple more times before we leave.

Rouen

Yesterday we went to Rouen with Pa Swope and Colleen, where we went to the very justly famous cathedral. Notre-Dame de Rouen is interesting for many reasons: it is about nine hundred years old; it was briefly the tallest structure in the world; it has inspired artwork in such people as Monet, Flaubert, Huysmans, and probably piles of other people; and it has been through fires, tornadoes, and World War II but is somehow still standing, mostly intact.

There's also a row of statues in the back part of the nave. I'm unable to find anything that explains what they were doing there or where they normally reside, but they seemed like strange, serious apparitions who had gotten misplaced somehow.

We also visited the birthplace of Gustave Flaubert. Or, as I should say, Gustave Flaubert!!!!!!

Possibly I was more excited about this than the others, but fortunately the Maison Flaubert is also a museum of medical history, so there were many grisly artifacts to entertain them. The most amazing relic for me: the original Loulou, who stood in all his stuffed glory over Flaubert as he wrote "Un Coeur Simple" ("A Simple Heart"). Here is a photo I stole from another site:

credit: http://ecoles.ac-rouen.fr/

How small is the apartment? and other matters.

We have scored several victories this week: we now have a bank account! In the U.S. it’s pretty easy to get a bank account; you just apply online and give them money and it’s all fine, more or less. Here, however, you need to offer proof of address in the form of an electric bill, and no, your lease is not good enough. When we went back with the proper evidence, we signed so many papers we flashed back to buying our house. This does not, however, mean I can just have my bank routing number to give to HR. No, one must be patient when doing business with Le Crédit Lyonnais.

We also now have cell phones! Originally we had planned to get a whole phone/internet package, but it required a bank routing number, so when we found we weren’t getting that anytime soon, we decided to just get the pre-paid kind that require no paperwork. If you need our phone numbers let us know.

Even more exciting, we found the source of cheap housewares, such as towels and sheets! It is Tati, a giant store in the 18^th that looks like the hideous monster child of a K-mart and a carnival funhouse. We now have two towels at our disposal, instead of the one that came with the apartment.

Speaking of the apartment: people have been asking us, how small is it really? So here is the answer:

I can tell you there is not much it is bigger than-maybe a sandwich, or your shoes. Eighteen square meters was the quoted size. I have no idea what a meter is, so I measured by lying on the floor and converting Jeff lengths into feet. Standing flat with my arms outstretched I’m eight feet. The width of the room is about six inches past the tips of my fingers. The length is two Jeffs plus most of the bed, about five feet.

8.5 x 21 = 178.5 square feet.

You can tape off this space on the floor of a room in your house and imagine living in it. If you wanted to create a three dimensional model, you need to know that the ceiling is about 9 feet tall for half of the room and then descends to about 1.5 feet tall at the exterior wall. Now add a closet with a toilet in it. Put in a couple sinks, a shower in the corner and call it done.

Lia’s mom requested photos of the apartment with us in them to demonstrate the size, so here they are:

This is the kitchen/bathroom/storage area.

The bathroom. The kitchen is right behind Lia and the dining room table is to her left.

The shower. The ventilation system consists of holes in the walls. So far it works, but we're a little worried about winter.

Lia in the dining corner, with bathroom sink next door. The kitchen nook is about two feet to Lia's right.

View from the bed: WC, kitchen nook.

However, as dire as this may all sound, how much space does a person really need? There’s enough space to store our things, to sit at the table and have dinner and a glass of wine, and if we sit on the bed sideways we call it a couch and watch TV on it. Is there enough space for friends to come stay with us? Er… no.

What more than makes up for the studio’s small size is the neighborhood, which was the reason we chose this apartment in the first place. Rue Oberkampf has an abundance of great food shops, including several butchers, wine shops, and bakeries, plus a cheese shop, a great produce stand, and who knows what else. There are two organic food stores nearby as well, one of which we like. Twice a week an outdoor market sets up on boulevard Richard Lenoir a block away, with seafood, game, and cheese stands that could make you cry, everything looks so good (or possibly out of sympathy for the whole rabbits with fur and gunshot wounds still intact). It’s like a farmer’s market on steroids though actually, I don’t know if any of the vendors are actually farmers. We’re still working on choosing our favorites and might do a longer post about them later.

Here’s a dinner put together with pork chops from our new favorite butcher at Boucherie Leloup and some amazing figs from our new favorite fruit and veggie guy.

Pork plus mustard au chablis direct from the Maille shop.

French cider, which is ridiculously hard to find in Minnesota but so good.

Note that we are embellishing the figs with lovely Minnesota State Fair honey, given to us by Kevin and Lisa.

In addition to the things that are exciting to us, there are numerous bars and restaurants, gorgeous parks, museums, historic monuments, and whatever else you can imagine, more or less, within easy walking distance from our doorstep. Lately we have been to Victor Hugo’s former home on the Place des Vosges, the Jardin du Luxembourg, and the Musée Carnavalet, where we went through the exhibit on the Revolution and saw Robespierre’s shaving bowl, among other things. Walking through Paris every day, you can’t help but become curious about the history of the city, so that’s become the topic of study around here lately. Jeff is reading Alexander Hussey’s Paris: A Secret History, which is much recommended to anyone interested and planning a trip over here.

The Université de Paris starts Fall semester on September 20^th, so up until now I (Lia) have only had a series of meetings intended to prepare me for the joys of being a lectrice d’anglais. I do not, however, have a class schedule yet, so I’m not yet totally sure of what I should be preparing. More news on that later, I suppose.

Here we are eating sandwiches by the Seine, so you know we are happy.