A little London, a little Paris

One of the weird, wonderful paintings at the Tate Britain.

The past week or two have come and gone, and I just haven't gotten around to posting. In London, we were crazy busy the entire week. It was great to see so many new things, but it was also exhausting and we got pretty burned out. By the time we arrived in Paris, we had lost most of the energy for sightseeing and mainly just hung out with friends (there was one major exception, which I'll post about next time!).


One of the beautiful horses at the Royal Mews (the stables for Buckingham Palace).


Waiting patiently for 4:00 tea at a London Tea shop.


Approved!




A small painting by John Singer Sargent at the Tate Britain. He's my latest obsession (what can I say? I am very behind the times!)


In Paris, we took our friends to a few of our favorite haunts. This is by the Nikki de Saint-Phalle fountain outside the Centre Pompidou.


Heading to the Tuilleries by way of the the courtyard at the Louvre.




Flying high at the Tuilleries.

Lessons Learned, the finalé

So, we’ve just returned from a 6+ week house swap in another country with a 3-year-old. What have we learned? Here is yet another rambling, in no particular order, stream of consciousness post that I hope will prove helpful to someone, somewhere.

Note: where possible, I’ve included links to businesses I mention (this will only be useful if you’re going to Paris or Rouen).

Try to swap with a family with other children. Our time was made much, much easier because the house we stayed in was stocked with games, books, puzzles, etc., and it didn’t matter that these things were in another language.

If it matters to you, make sure there’s a tub that works. It never occurred to me that that might be an issue, and it sure would have been easier for lots of reasons if a warm bath had been an option.

Double-check contact information given to you by you fellow swappers before you actually need to use it.

If you are someone used to having good, efficient equipment in the kitchen, be prepared to invest a little money when you get there to make your time easier. Purchasing some sharp knives and a decent peeler reduced the amount of swearing in our kitchen by at least 50%.

When doing laundry without a drier, skip the step of hanging everything outside in the cold for 2 days before you drape it over the radiators (see previous post here). Go directly to the radiators

Don’t assume that just because you’re a social butterfly yourself, there will be plenty of people to socialize with. Our time would have been even more fun if we’d been involved in something that got us more connected with others in our community. Or, bring friends, especially for your child if (s)he is an only.

If you have a good stroller and a stroller-aged child, bring them both! The sidewalks and roads can be much like off-roading, and the little, loaner umbrella stroller we had was useless. Or, if bringing one isn’t an option, find out where you can rent one once you arrive. Our rental, from Chez Florence, ran us about $100 for our entire trip and was almost as good as having our Bugaboo (actually better in some ways because it had a tray and a boot, plus a much larger basket which helped with grocery shopping).

Bring a nice, roomy tote with you for carrying your purchases. Most of the stores we shopped in charged for bags (as it should be, I might add). Since you’ll likely find yourself shopping for groceries, etc. almost daily, make it a bag you like (shameless plug: soon you can hop on over to my Etsy store and purchase a perfect one made by yours truly. So chic, so convenient!).

Books in english can be very expensive in other countries. Try to find a small shop and exchange those you brought for your next read. Even if they’re not a resale shop, they just might do it (ours did — and they gave our used books to the local hospital).

I’m sure there will be much more that I think of over time, but for now that’s all my jet-lagged brain can recall. Feel free to ask specific questions if you’ve got any.

Textures

As mentioned before, I found myself taking lots of photos of textures and patterns in France. Here are my favorites. Which is yours?

The Last Days

Yes, yes, we’re home now, but I didn’t want our last days in Paris to go unremarked upon, because they were great.

On Saturday, we arranged to meet our good friend Elie’s sister, Mona, who lives in Paris with her daughter, Yasmine, and her husband, Sam. They live near the Arche de la Défense, which is basically Paris’ financial district. La Défense is just outside of Paris proper, and is an area we had never been to before. Architecturally it is worlds apart — all shiny, modern, sky-scrapers, and modern art.

We met at the Arch and walked for about 15 minutes to Mona’s apartment. From the minute we got there, we (especially Anna, of course) we’re doted on, wined and dined, and treated like family. I shouldn’t be surprised — Mona is just like her brother, Elie, who is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known. We started with cider and apple cake, moved on to a special chocolate cake from Poland and coffee, and then Mona and Yasmine insisted we stay for dinner. They made a salad with crevettes (shrimp), fish, and of course the requisite wine, cheeses, and bread. And then, what else, more chocolate!

Anna and Yasmine promptly fell in love with one another, aided by the fact that Anna was convinced Yasime was a princess (I confess to having started that rumor!).

It makes me realize what a wonderful gift it is to welcome someone into your home (especially someone who is far from their own home) and to treat them with kindness and generosity. And it also makes me realize that these experiences (with our neighbors in Rouen, our friends over the holidays, and with Mona and her family in Paris) are my fondest memories of our whole vacation.

On Sunday, David took Anna back to the Cité des Enfants and I finally got to go to the Picasso museum (this has definitely been a Picasso-rich trip). There were a few pieces there that are among my favorites, including his goat sculpture, which I fell in love with when David and I visited the museum back in 1996. One thing I didn’t remember from that trip was the stained glass in the windows of the museum, and the beautiful reflections it casts throughout the hallways.

After the museum, I wandered around the Marais (the Jewish district) for hours in the bitter cold, just admiring the displays of goodies in the windows and fantasizing about how to move my family there for a year. Paris has always been my favorite city, but now I’ve got David and Anna firmly on board as well and a temporary move there sometime in the coming years is definitely something I’d like to make happen.

I met up with Dvid and Anna for a last dinner in France — the city’s best falafel and Maccabe beer — before heading to the airport hotel for a few hours sleep before out 3:45 am wake-up call.

Dana

So my friend Dana arrived from Oakland on Monday. I went in to Paris and met him for a day/night of grown-up time in Paris before bringing him back to Rouen for a week. Dana and I have been friends since high school. He lived in Santa Cruz, California, where I spent summers and holidays with my dad. Dana and I have always seemed unlikely friends, and yet he is one of only a handful of people I can say I’ve been friends with for over 20 years.

Dana and I have almost nothing in common except for a shared history and a fondness for 80s music. He is a large Filipino man with mod tendencies and a fondness for zombie movies. Thing is, he makes me laugh harder than any other friend I have. (In fact, the only other person who makes me laugh as much is my mother.) I have no idea what it is about him, but during the 24 hours or so we were in Paris I laughed nonstop. And I was strikingly aware of how different that felt that my usual days. It’s so nice to be able to have a sense of humor and so hard sometimes to do so with a 3-year-old. It’s really something I need to work on—lightening up.

Despite Dana’s jet-lag, we wandered around Paris for about 11 hours. He had never been there and had a must see list of the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower. We met at the hotel (Hôtel Eber, a perfectly fine, cheaper place in the 7th arrondissement) and decided to head to the Louvre. Dana wanted to see the Renaissance paintings, and I’m always game for a world-class museum. I think Dana had no idea what he was getting himself into. We wandered around for 5 hours and still didn’t see an entire section. We worked in a few of the greats that he had studied in art history class, and I was able to sneak in the last part of the 3-part Picasso show going on around Paris (this one was his influence from Delacroix—just showing a handful of paintings and sketches. I still must make it to the Picasso museum this trip).

After the Louvre I decided to take Dana to a brasserie I like that serves good vin chaud right next door to Notre Dame. We didn’t expect the cathedral to be open, but we actually found ourselves able to walk right in during a mass. There was a soprano singing a hymn, and the overwhelming smell of incense burning. We sat for a few minutes and then wandered around a bit before heading back into the cold night air for our next destination, dinner.

We stuffed ourselves full of classic French brasserie food (escargots, duck, and a crèpe for Dana; onion soup, salmon, and crème brulée for me) and then decided to head back to our neighborhood. On a whim, we decided to see how far it was to walk to the Tour Eiffel. Not far at all it tuned out, and so we were able to hit all 3 of Dana’s Paris sights on Day 1. When we got to the tower, it was all lit up in blue lights. This is apparently a special thing they’re doing while France is the head of the EU, and will change any day now. Since there were no lines, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ride all the way to the top of the tower. If either of us had been paying attention, we would have realized that since we couldn’t see the top of the tower, due to fog, we wouldn’t be able to see anything from the top either!

Instead we had a terrifying, hilarious ride up to the top (alone, with an elevator operator who kept his face pressed into the corner the entire ride!). At one point, when we were higher than anyone should be without an airplane and we’d both realized how bizarre this guy was, Dana turned to me and said “Well, I’m scared shitless”. For some reason the way he said it just cracked me up and we laughed the rest of the way to the top (where there was literally zero visibility).

After that we headed back to the hotel where Dana crashed as soon as his head hit the pillow. The following day we slept in till 10am (ah, what a luxury!) and then roamed around Paris aimlessly for a few hours before taking the train home to Rouen.

Paris, again.

Our most recent trip to Paris didn’t go as smoothly as the last, but was good nonetheless. For me, this trip involved a lot of museum time, which is a big part of the reason I’m here. As a former art student, and on-again off-again fine artist (definitely more off-again for the past several years), the lure of Paris museums is irresistible to me.

On Wednesday I went back to the Pompidou, this time to see a special show of Futurist art from the early 20th century. I went ahead and bought the accompanying audio tour, which definitely helped point out details long forgotten from my art school days. It was a really great show.

On Thursday I was able to get a ticket to see the much-hyped Picasso show («Picasso et les maîtres» — “Picasso and the masters”) at the Grand Palais. I’m a big Picasso fan, and have gone out of my way to see his work many times over the years. I have to say, this was not my favorite show. The point of this show was to demonstrate how Picasso was not just influenced by, but how he directly interpreted many of the works by the masters of the art world. This show is actually being held at 3 different museums, although the one at the Grand Palais is by far the largest.

David and I saw a portion of the show at the Musée d’Orsay last week, which I enjoyed more. That part focused solely on Picasso’s interpretations of Manet’s «Dejeunner Sur L’herbe». The show at the Grand Palais had several hundred paintings (by Picasso and the others), most of which I had never seen, but they just weren’t among my favorites. Also, despite the attempts at crowd control by selling tickets for specific time slots, it was mobbed. I like to be close enough to lick the art (something I actually haven’t tried). I like to be able to virtually crawl inside the paintings — to really experience the color, the play of light, the scale, and especially the texture. This is what seeing the art in person is all about — these are the details you can’t reproduce in a book.

(Side note: this is actually something I’ve recently realized about the way I look at things: I’m very interested in texture. When David and I are out taking photographs, I’m often shooting the cobblestones or the layers of paint on a section of wall, as opposed to the landmarks of Paris. When I have some time in the coming days, I’ll start a Flickr gallery of the texture shots I’ve been taking.)

While I was taking in the art, David and Anna were having adventures of their own. Of note was the Cité des Sciences et l’Industrie, which sounds amazing. They loved it, which is great. I’m sure David will blog about it and post some of his amazing pictures soon. I have to admit that things like that just don’t hold my interest at all. I’m a big believer in playing to your parenting strengths. David and Anna can geek out together and both love it. I, OTOH, am right there for reading stories, doing art projects, cooking and baking, teaching French, etc. It sounds much more Martha than I actually am!

Paris

Paris was a whirlwind. On the train back I said to David, “Did we really just take the train into Paris yesterday?” We packed in a lot.

On Tuesday we arrived in Paris at 11 am and took a taxi directly to the hotel to drop off our stuff. We’ve found a great B&B that we’ve made our home when we’re there. It’s expensive, but any decent place seems to be and this is a lovely, small (12 rooms), place owned by a British couple who make their own jam (need I say more?). They go out of their way to make you feel comfortable, have a fridge and dining room you can use for meals, and have Wi-Fi.

After getting settled we walked to the Eiffel Tower and then hopped the Batobus for a quick ride along the Seine to the Musée d’Orsay. Having learned that food always makes my daughter happier, we stopped in at a lovely little Italian place for some pasta and a glass of wine first. I then decided to resort to the use of bribes to convince her to “rest” in her stroller for an hour while David and I cruised the museum. Of course, the resting never happened, and there were several meltdowns in the museum, but it was well worth it. Afterwards I had to make good on my promise, so I took us on an interminably long and circuitous route (I misread the map) to what turned out to be fabulous gelato (for A) and much needed coffee (for us).

The following morning, after the requisite croissant and jam at the B&B, we set off for Notre Dame (billed as a “castle” to Anna). Surprisingly this was among the easiest sightseeing destinations we’ve had with Anna, probably because I kept pointing out all the “kings” and “princesses” on the walls. The best part, however, was the creche which had been modernized with computerized lights that I’m at a bit of a loss to describe. I’m embedding photos that won’t begin to do it justice. Suffice it to say that we were all mesmerized for a full 10 minutes just watching the baby Jesus and his princess posse get all sparkly and colorful.

Of course by then little miss was once again starving, so we stopped for fabulous crêpes and vin chaud at a stand by the cathedral. (Side note: vin chaud is a hot spiced wine and is super yummy. I Googled for recipes and plan on drinking it daily for the rest of the winter in place of the Emergen-C I was drinking stateside.) After we refueled we headed to the Centre Pompidou, stopping first at the amazing fountain outside. Despite the rain, we all had such a great time looking at all the outrageous Niki Saint Phalle sculptures (I got some great photos — definitely head over to the Flickr page to see them all).

Inside the Pompidou I got a painfully short, but totally rapturous 45 minutes to myself in the Art Moderne 1905-1950 section, which is where my passions lie. Room after room of Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Miró — just ecstasy for me. I will definitely be going back for several hours before our trip ends. This was followed by (what else) more food, this time awesome Israeli falafels in the Marais district (I could seriously lead eating tours through Paris). Then we raced to the previously mentioned stroller rental shop, cabbed it to the hotel and then to the train station, and were back in Rouen by dinner time.

Today we just hung out and took it easy. Anna found a copy of “Monsters, Inc.” which she’d never seen (up till now, the only feature film she’d seen was “Finding Nemo”) so we put it on the big screen here with the projector and all sat together watching it. Quite a treat to just watch a matinee on a Thursday afternoon all together.

And now, it’s bedtime. Bonne nuit.

Progress

A few issues resolved:

I believe I had mentioned bathing issues: as in, we hadn't been able to bathe Anna. There are two bathrooms in this house, one of which has a tub (Anna is shower averse). Unfortunately, the tub doesn't appear to have hot water, which can be a problem at times; the month of December for example. When I contacted Jane (the daughter of the folks who live here) she said we should use the bathroom of the unit connected to this one, that of a tenant who is away for a month. This became complicated though, because the tenant forgot to leave the connecting door unlocked, nor did she leave the key. There is, however, another person who lives in the unit, none other than the man who delivered us the bag of bread, Theirry. You following all this? We are basically supposed to use the tub in Theirry's apartment, which is connected to this one via a locked door. Unfortunately, by the time we figured all this out (not exactly intuitive) Theirry appeared to be away for the weekend. No problem, Jane said, the back door is never locked. Go outside, across the courtyard, through the gate, and let yourself into this person's apartment and use their bath. Um, okay. I avoided doing this until it had been a full week since my child had been bathed, and with no hope in sight of her being bathed anytime in the future if I didn't, in fact, break and enter into this person's apartment. Needless to say, it was a bit awkward. The happy ending to this story is that tonight I finally reached Theirry, explained as best as I could the situation and low and behold, he produced a key. So now I can let myself into his apartment to bathe my child whenever I want (still a bit awkward, I must admit).

The other good news is that all my hours of obsessive Googling while awake at 3 a.m. led me to a better stroller for the duration of our trip. I found a place in Paris which rents all sorts of gear and we now have quite the ride for Anna. The poor kid's face is completely chapped from being exposed to freezing wind and rain while thrashed about in a crappy umbrella stroller for hours at a time. Now we've got rain gear, a boot, a roomy basket, and much improved steering. Never thought some cheap Graco stroller would seem so dreamy. Ah how quickly things change!

More to come soon about our adventure in Paris and some new pics. Until then, wine and cheese of course.

Lessons, part deux

First, the obvious: wherever you go, there you are. As in, when I said to David: “Yes, it will be cold, but it will be French cold”, I wasn't taking into account how much I hate to be cold. Anywhere. So, this morning, when I awoke to a forecast high of 36 degrees (with a wind chill of -1C), I was ready to drop all plans of going anywhere. And in fact, I insisted we drive the 1.7 miles to the museum instead of walking, as we have done thus far. Which leads me to lesson 2:

2) A three-and-a-half-year-old is going to be a pain-in-the-ass whether you try to drag them to an art museum in Portland or in France. She just doesn't care. She wants to run and she wants to eat, but that's about it. Oh, and she wants to play school and she's the teacher and this is your lesson and did you hear me??? No, she's the teacher and this is your lesson!

3) Wine is good. But I knew that one already. ;-)

So I'm hoping that a little impulsive excursion to Paris will be just what we all need. After all, that's really why we're here in Rouen — so we can get on the TGV and be in Paris in an hour. I've spent the day agonizing over what activities we can get away with given Anna's age and the weather. This would be so much easier if it were 60 degrees outside. I think I've got it worked out, but I'm sure my miserable failure will be an entertaining post on Thursday!

As for the one thing I wish I'd brought but didn't: my Bugaboo stroller. The umbrella stroller we've borrowed while here is literally impossible for me to navigate on these streets, which means I'm dependent on David to get anywhere. We spent a good chunk of time tonight researching ways to rent or buy a stroller here, and/or to ship our stroller from home (um, how does $500-$900 via FedEx sound?). This is a situation that still needs a better resolution. Any ideas?

Here

After what feels like a tremendously long buildup, we are here! Exhausted and twitchy with jet-lag, but here nonetheless. The trip itself went remarkably well. European airlines know how to do it — complementary, frequent drinks (cognac, anyone?), plenty of good chocolate, relatively comfortable seats, really nothing to complain about. And the best part was they were at about 30% capacity, which meant Anna could stretch out across two seats and actually sleep, albeit for only 5-6 hours instead of the usual 11 or so. But despite the lack of sleep and the fact that both computer batteries died early in the trip (meaning she only got to watch 30 minutes of movies for the entire 20-hour-schlep), she did great. 

My voyage was made particularly entertaining by the man I sat with part of the time who either a) is crazy or b) is actually about to be made king of Hungary, owns many castles to which we have an open invitation, is some world-pioneer in the field of Autism, is an archduke of somewhere, and who offered me Ambien, heroin, and pixie dust at various times during our conversation. Oh, and he said he had diplomatic immunity (you know, being about to be named king and all) and was therefore packing heat on the plane. Ah, fun times!

Getting to the hotel was an easy taxi ride, we have a lovely, simple room with comfy beds and wi-fi. We’re across the street from a lovely area with many markets, restaurants and shops. In the next day or two I’ll begin posting some of the photos David and I have already taken.

Tomorrow we’re off to Rouen to meet the Fabulets, the folks with whom we’re doing our swap. They’ll show us around and introduce us to some of the neighbors, etc., before heading off to our house in Portland the following day. Now I’m planning on a good night’s sleep for all of us followed by a yummy French breakfast with jam made by our hosts here at the Hotel Valedon.

A bientôt.