January 20, 2011

Paris

Time is all off — we didn’t wake until after ten a.m. George said he was up most of the night, while I slept soundly. We finally made it out by 1:00 p.m. and headed for George’s favorite department store – BHV (Bazaar Hotel de Ville – translation: department store at the City Hall).

There is so much to write about if one is to think about experiences and observations in detail. It would be nice to be able to say it all in a prose poem, or in haiku both forms use few words for profound thoughts. I remember the contests that used to be on radio when I was a kid. The announcer would say something like, “Send us a letter in 25 words or less as to why you love Ivory soap …..” Twenty-five words or less…. My mother never sent a letter in. She just laughed and said it was all phony anyway.

Getting back to our day’s experiences. We took the metro and then changed to a bus. In Paris, bus driver’s will stop and wait for a passenger. The driver of our bus had pulled away from the stop, but was still quite close to it. A woman was running for the bus, coming from the rear, she knocked on the back of the bus and the driver stopped seeing her in the rear view mirror. Nice – on such a cold day.

We love the busses of Paris. People who ride the busses are older and have more time, than those who ride the metro – who tend to be more in a rush and younger. We often start to chat with an elderly person while we wait at a bus stop or even on the bus which is nice. And, obviously from a bus, one can see the city and observe life all around. We have our favorite busses — #28, #70, #39, and # 96 – which we took to get to BHV, bordering on arroundissmont #4, the Marais which is the old Jewish quarter of Paris and a great place to spend hours walking around.

But, no time for the Marais today – we’re headed for BHV along with thousands of other shoppers, not unexpectedly given the sales underway. The store was jammed with shoppers — shoppers everywhere — shopping! Special cashiers were set-up everywhere, and in the clothing areas, cabana-like booths were set up in some places for trying on clothes.

George and I separated – I went to look at bed linens and George went to the basement for various art supplies. We met ½ hour later in housewares. He had been successful, but I was overwhelmed and dizzy: too many people in frenzy mode and too much stuff to look at and sort through. Clearly we needed to eat something. What a relief! Food!

Called ‘Le Self’ , overlooking beautiful roof tops, the cafeteria was a welcome oasis. We had leek and potato soup and a little dish of salad from the salad bar. The foods were fantastic and beautifully displayed, but in keeping with French portions, the dish one was to use was the size of a saucer. Explains a lot!

After another ½ hour of meandering, we left having bought nothing else. Every time we thought to buy something we would rationalize away our need for the item and that was that!

What a relief to be outside again though cold and brisk. In the grand square in from of the Paris City Hall (adjacent to BHV) and not far from the carousel, George spied a young woman eating cotton candy and before I knew it, I was taking his picture with her and her companion. They turned out to be students from Australia. One had just finished a 6 month exchange program in Glasgow and was visiting her friend who was almost finished her exchange program in Paris, studying economic and political science. We talked for a while about conditions in Australia. She said that they knew many people who had lost their homes in the great floods Australia was experiencing and that it would take years for the country to recover.

From there we walked across a bridge to Notre Dame. A concert on Feb. 1 — Faure’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms –was advertised on a small billboard in front so we went in and bought two tickets for it.

Continuing our walk across to the Left Bank, we decided to try to find ‘barley’ to make tanabour (Armenian hot barley-yogurt soup). We’d already looked for it in several grocery stores unsuccessfully. There is a Greek store in this area which we’d been to before — surely he’d have it, but no luck! But, he did have ‘simit’ a dry, flaky not too sweet cookie which we love. (Now that I think of it, where did George put them? I could go for one right about now –12:30 am!)

We continued walking down Blvd St. Germain, past the Cluny Museum to Odeon and decided to take the bus – bus #70 — which would take us to an organic grocery store close to home. Once there, we got more organic Fromage Blanc (translated: white cheese). But it isn’t really cheese, but something close to Greek or strained yogurt made with acidophilus bacteria. Again, we looked for barley unsuccessfully We remembered the Russian store next door run by an Armenian. When we entered he greeted us in Armenian with a big smile surprised, I think, to see us again. We asked if he had barley (as I couldn’t remember the Armenian name). He didn’t understand what we wanted, but then I said to him in Armenian, “You know — the grain Armenians use to make sebas!”’’ “Oh — sebas “ and he brought out two types of barley from Russia. (Sebas is the name given to hot yogurt soup in Armenia.)

The French word for barley is ‘orge’. The Armenian word is ‘kari’. I think it explains the Armenian word for beer: ‘kari chour’ ( barley water)’

Home, I visited our elderly neighbor on the 2nd floor and then, after dinner we set up my electric piano. That’s another story for another time.

I hope I’m able to post photos as this is definitely a learning process.