Paris

April 25, 2017

We arrived from Boston (transit London) almost 4 days ago. Exhausted, rode up to the 5^th floor in our little two-person elevator, and opened the door to our apartment with a sigh of relief. The apartment was sparkling clean, thanks to Gladys, the ‘guardienne’ of our building who also doubles for us as a house cleaner (and other, as well).   ‘Guardiennes’ were once called ‘concierges’. Women took these jobs in return for a place to live and a small income. They cleaned the building, handled the mail and received packages for occupants. They had the keys to the apartments and could watch over things in one’s absence. Thus, every building had to have a small apartment on their ground floor for as their abode – a place from which they monitored all the goings and coming in the building.

A concierge was the main character in Muriel Barbery’s NY Times Bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a wonderful read. For some reason, which is probably based in very old connotations with the word which was thought to be demeaning for women, concierge was changed to guardienne. Other things have changed, too. Once, having a guardienne was mandatory, but today many condo associations are opting not to have them given that the cost of one has gone up and that firing one who is not satisfactory is difficult. Our condo association opted for a compromise. Gladys works through an agency and is not directly employed by us, and works here 3 ½ hours in the morning 6 days a week. Since most business here in the building is conducted during that time it works out very well. She is extraordinary in her abilities to get the job done in that time and is so convivial and even-tempered that everyone in this building loves her. Including us! She has our keys and two weeks or so before we come, either a neighbor informs her or we call her, and she cleans the apartment for us and puts the mail on our dining room table. She will have also let the electric meter readers into the apartment once a month in our absence and thus keeps an eye on things for us. It works very well.

(Well – I’ve certainly gotten off the main story line talking about Gladys.)

Back to our jouney –We arrived on Friday and had a lovely evening with our upstairs neighbors – appetizers galore, which served as dinner as well, and Aperol Spritz for drinks. Aperol is an orange based Italian aperitif made quite delicious when mixed with proseco and seltzer… So we enjoyed two of these and retired around midnight…

The next morning, up early and were headed for our ‘marche’ –our street market, when George discovered that his credit card carrying case was missing… and along with that his driver’s license, insurance cards, social security card, etc. etc. An hysterical search came up empty and slowly we began to understand that the case was gone. Gary, our nephew, conducted a search of our house in Lincoln – with similar results. We called Uber and our driver in Boston – again: nothing… We filed with British Airways – and again: nothing. The next two days were spent in a kind of mourning – for things lost and for what might have happened. We did everything one needs to do with credit card companies, a task made somewhat easier because I had made copies of our cards and licenses before we left and was carrying them separately.  We’ve still a lot to do regarding this minor disaster, but the good news is that no one has tried to use the cards. Visa is sending a temporary card to us by DHL tomorrow, and fortunately, our debit card with our bank here worked and so we were not in the cash-poor house…

So – after all this – and trying to recover from jetlag and the fatigue we had before leaving Boston, we have tried to settle into Paris and start to enjoy our time here.

Oh yes – did I mention the presidential election here and the threat of more terrorism?   Well – now that I’ve mentioned them both I can move on. You must know that the first round election yielded a win for a centrist, unknown, without any party affiliation and an extreme extreme right wing candidate. So, it looks as though the centrist will win on May 7 though no one knows what his plans will be or what his program is. There were no more terrorist events which were expected on election day – which was good.

Regarding terrorism … we are being careful, alert, staying away from places that might be appealing targets, but at the same time feel that a terrorist act simply reminds you of the crazy world we live in and the dangers we are all surrounded by. It is no different a day before an event than it is a day after an event (as long as you weren’t a target). So life must go one – though vigilance is in order.

Yesterday was the first day we actually got out in the streets of Paris and walked. We’ve picked several exhibits we want to see and started with the one we thought was open yesterday (most museums are closed either Mondays or Tuesdays)… So we walked and then took a bus over to the river, the Quai de Conti, to visit the Musee de Monnaie to see a special exhibit of abstract art. But, alas, it was closed. Somehow I missed that on their web page and so we simply came back home and then headed out at 6 pm back again to the Seine, across the river this time to the demonstrations and commemoration for the Armenian Genocide, as yesterday was April 24.

We stayed for an hour as we couldn’t understand the speakers (in French), but were impressed by the number of young people gathered – in the hundreds! There were about 1500 by our estimate and most of them were young. It was amazing and good to see.

We headed back, walking across back to the left bank,  enjoying the beauty fo the day, and the trees in full bloom.  We checked out a number of restaurants which we couldn’t get into as we didn’t have a reservation, and ended up at the square, Ecole Militarie.  We ate at a large café called La Terresse.   (my accent keys are not working..) We didn’t sit outside because smoking is allowed out-of doors.

Though a very common place the food was quite good. We started with an avocado with a vinaigrette dressing and then cod with stir-fry vegetables. We walked home and collapsed, but not before calling Serine and having a lively conversation with her back in VA.   Just about the time we were going to bed we had several messages from our nephew Stephen that let us know all is well with regard to our kitchen renovation which he is overseeing for us… Thank you, Stephen! (He ran his 22^nd Boston marathon last week – congratulations!)

The Eiffel Tower will be without light all day today, April 24th, in memory of the victims fo the Armenian Genocide.

Napoleon’s tomb is in the background.

At the commemoration — many people had their faces painted with the tri-colors of the Armenian flag.  This woman has also written 1915 in the tri-colors.  The crowd was huge with many carrying these placards. From somber to delicious:  At the end of the day there aren’t many pastries left… but those left in this window are still beautiful.  We resisted!