Paris Journal 2007

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Statue of Thomas Jefferson, near the Passerelle de
Soférino.  It was just installed there last year.  Here’s the
story behind it.  The artist’s name is Cardot.  In the
sculpture, Jefferson holds his design for Monticello, which
is said to have been inspired by the Palace of the French
Legion of Honor, just across the street (near the Orsay
museum).

 

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Musée de Louvre.

 

Gate at Square Lowendal, recently restored.  It is named for
a Danish count,  Ulric Frédéric Woldemar de Lowendal
(1700-1755), who became a Marshall of France.  Today,
a Dane named Michael Rasmussen won the stage of the
Tour de France.

 

 

 

Thursday, July 19

 

Karima came over to our apartment yesterday evening and we had a great time talking, eating, and watching the end of the Tour de France.  Dan and Mary were here, too, for a while, but they were exhausted from a day of sightseeing in the warm sun in the Marais. 

 

Karima is well on the way to becoming the French version of a Certified Public Accountant.  She takes a whole battery of tests in mid-September, but won’t have the results for a couple months after that.  Everywhere she goes now, she takes her book bag so that she can study at every possible moment – in the Métro, etc.

 

As I mentioned yesterday, her family owns a Jeff de Bruges chocolate shop in the 17th arrondissement.  I told her about the woman who asked me where there might be a chocolate shop on the rue du Commerce, and how I thought it was surprising but there isn’t one.  Karima said there is, and we looked it up on the phone book.  This morning, when I went out for a walk by myself, I found it.  It is such a tiny, tiny shop, it is no wonder I missed it.  It is a Jeff de Bruges shop, located at 95 rue du Commerce, just before the street ends at the St. Jean Baptiste de Grenelle church.  On display in the itty bitty front window are cute packages of chocolate formed in the shape of fish, and wrapped in colorful foil.  You can buy them in a net bag, a wooden box, and any number of other types of packaging.

 

Karima just returned from a spa vacation where the spring water is especially good for the skin.  Now she’s studying hard before she goes for another vacation later this month to Sicily, and then to London.

 

After Easter next year, she hopes to come back to Sanibel.  Last time when she was in Sanibel, Wes and Myra had a dinner party and asked Karima to make crepes for the main course.  Karima had to call her mother for instructions, but the crepes were a big success.  She used smoked salmon and crème fraiche.  I asked her where she found crème fraiche on Sanibel.  The answer, of course, was that Myra bought it at Andreas, that great new shop on Periwinkle that has all sorts of European goodies.

 

She is a very bright and friendly 25-year-old.  And she seems to actually want to have friends who are old enough to be her parents.  How refreshing!

 

She gave us a charming account of how she became friends with Myra, a Sanibel artist.  Myra must be a chocoholic, but she seems to have it under control because she would go into the Jeff de Bruges shop (where Karima sometimes works) every day for a week, but she would just buy three or so pieces at a time.  On the last day, Myra’s daughter Betty came with her.  Later, the two of them invited Karima to come visit them in Sanibel.

 

I had put out various cheeses, baguette slices, tapenade, Danish salami, ham, and mustard for “hors d’œurves” yesterday evening, and when Karima arrived, she brought treats from a local bakery – a couple pieces of a coconut cream tart, a piece of chocolate tart, an éclair, etc.  So I did not cook last night.

 

But today for lunch I made a colorful hash brown dish using a red onion, hot paprika, pepper, garlic from Mexico, Lady Cristl potatoes, merguez sausage, and Italian olive oil.  This was the last of the Mexican garlic.  Next we start in on the Egyptian garlic.  I wonder if there will be a noticeable difference?

 

When I cook the garlic and onions, especially, I close the kitchen door and open the window.  There is no exhaust fan in the kitchen.  I am doing my best to keep cooking smells out of the apartment.

 

We still cannot get the phone and internet service to work at the much newer home-exchange family’s apartment.  So Tom and I are staying at the old apartment where we can get our work done.  Dan and Mary sleep at the newer apartment, but they are out sightseeing all day every day, so that place isn’t being used much.

 

The new Vélib’ project is being favorably received, but the far left politicians are complaining that it is too expensive for students and poor people.  Also, the much-feared vandalism has started – it happened in the 18th or 19th arrondissement, I think, as one might suspect it would.  I hope the sturdy little Vélib’ bicycles can survive the antics of Paris’s disenchanted youth.

 

Late in the evening yesterday, Tom and I went for a lovely walk on the Allée des Cygnes.  To get there we strolled along the rue Linois, of course, right past the sidewalk where Denise the Homeless Princess used to live.  The sidewalk there is now inaccessible, cordoned off by construction fencing.  It looks like that entire block is being demolished.  This includes a news-stand/bookstore that I frequently shopped in on Sundays and holidays, a McDonalds (always handy to have around because you can go in to use the restroom and nobody says anything if you aren’t a customer), the neighborhood police station where Tom and I went after a pickpocket broke Tom’s arm in 2000, and of course, Denise’s domain.  All these memories will soon be a pile of broken concrete.  That’s okay.

 

Here’s a web site that explains what the Beaugrenelle renovation project is all about.  It is in French, but even if you can’t read French, you can look at the pictures of the architect’s renderings of the future.

 

 

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