« Au revoir »

We’ve been back in upstate New York for nearly a week now and, while it feels a bit strange after a five-month absence, it’s good to be home. We missed several things while being away: face-to-face contact with our family and friends most of all; the roominess of stores, cars, washing machines, and especially shower stalls; well-stocked libraries; our printer. But we had a great stay in Bédoin and we’ll certainly miss things about being there. On Mondays we’ll remember le jour du marché--the fun of walking up the main street in town which is turned into an outdoor shopping mall, hearing and speaking French, and especially talking to the nice fruit and vegetable man. Wearing un bonnet (“winter cap”) or later on a USA baseball cap, he always had a smile on his face and insisted upon giving things away to us from the beginning; in fact, when he found out it was our last week in Bédoin, he gave us strawberries and vegetables totaling more than we actually paid him that day!

Not surprisingly, the happiest moments of our trip had to do with meeting people. We were so excited to be reunited with our kind and generous friends in Malaucène and Montpellier who had us over for meals at their house. Then there were new folks like Jeannette, the owner of the boucherie, who was quite chatty and probably the first of many to congratulate us on the election of Obama. We’ll recall the couple in a restaurant in Lyon who discussed Asian food and also had a lot of positive things to say about our new American president. There was the Parisian couple in Saint Tropez who loved talking about food and wine and told us about some lovely sights to visit in the coastal city. Who could forget the heavy-set restaurant owner/biker in Ajaccio whose collection of tiny motorcycles lined the walls of one of his dining rooms? Or the director of the tram system in Montpellier who discussed French politics with us in Paris? Too many memories to mention, really, with warm, friendly French people.


The highlight of our trip, though, was thanks to people we encountered at the end of our visit to Paris, just days before flying home. On that Saturday we first ran into some Maghrébins (Algerians, to be specific), a young married couple named Ben and Zahia, who happened to be standing in front of us in line to get ice cream. We sat next to them while eating our cones and started talking. Afterwards, they invited us to continue our conversation while having thé à la menthe (“mint tea”) at their friend’s café. We discussed many things with them: why North Africans pour while moving the pot up and down; the history of the Berbers and their language; the upcoming birth of their first child. They were truly a delight.


Later on that same day, we were enjoying probably the best dinner of our trip at a very small restaurant in the 14e called l’Entêtée when a man and his daughter took the table right next to ours. The limited space (in this case a good thing!) practically forced us to talk to them. Again, the topics varied widely and eventually they invited us to come to their house after the meal for coffee. Which we did. When my husband asked them where he could get good boudin (“blood sausage”) in the city, they asked us to come back to their place for lunch on Sunday! It was such a surprising and generous offer. We took them up on it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Now that I am back home, I won't be blogging on a regular basis anymore, but I'd like to take the opportunity to thank my readers. Please feel free to use the comment button on the blog to communicate with me. So, for now I'll say, « au revoir »--“till we meet again.”

A Visit to Quai Branly

On our last full day in Paris we decided to hop a bus down to la rive gauche (“the left bank”) to visit the relatively new Musée du quai Branly. Located in a modernistic building on the Seine hard by la Tour Eiffel, the museum was inaugurated in 2006 by former President Jacques Chirac. Its main purpose is to exhibit and validate art from areas outside the West. One enters via a long, curving ramp reminiscent of the entrance to the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition hall, arranged in a continuum on one floor, contains displays which take the visitor from l’Océanie, to l’Asie, l’Afrique, and les Amériques; its walls are decorated to simulate the outdoors and rocks in a cave.

 The permanent collection is astounding because of the number of objects on display (over 3500!) and their beauty and diversity. The visitor sees such a range of items: immense wooden totem poles which make you wonder how they were ever transported to the site; masks, statues and earthenware; carved combs, canes, and oars; beautiful silken shawls and wedding dresses; gold earrings and necklaces. I was particularly impressed by a series of art works made from the bark of trees, seemingly pounded into a kind of paper and then meticulously decorated with ink. The overall impression one gets is that of everyday objects fashioned with care. Groups of small schoolchildren and their teachers seemed to be fascinated examining various items like African masks in the display cases and walking around the large wooden totems on the museum floor.

The museum’s property also includes a small gift shop and a lovely garden with many different types of plants and trees. There is also a café where we enjoyed a delicious lunch last Tuesday; I particularly liked my Asian salad. If we had had time, we would’ve gone back in to see the special exhibit on the jazz age. Quai Branly is a treasure trove and definitely worth a visit.

An Afternoon at Père Lachaise

We’re not morbid individuals; really, we aren’t. Visiting a Parisian cemetery is like walking around in a beautiful park, only one where there are tombstones! The main inner-city graveyards in the French capital are lined with trees and flowers and have substantial collections of art works by famous sculptors. When we took a tour of le cimetière de l’Est, better known as Père Lachaise, last Saturday, our guide said that it’s like un musée en plein air, an outdoor museum. And that’s exactly it. Named after the priest who was the confessor of le roi Louis XIV, this cemetery in Paris’s 20e arrondissement is reputed to be the most visited in the world, attracting over one hundred thousand people per year.

The guide explained to our group that the 119 acres of land originally belonged to the Catholic Church but that it was purchased by the state in the early nineteenth century under the reign of Napoléon Bonaparte. In order to make the immense but somewhat remote memorial park more appealing to Parisians, the government had the supposed remains of famous people transferred to the location. Visitors can, for example, see the graves of celebrated medieval lovers Héloïse and Abélard, and seventeenth century writers Molière and La Fontaine. The graveyard has become so popular that now families can only “rent” spaces for thirty to fifty years, but the time can be extended...for a fee, of course.

Before the tour started, we were fortunate enough to be sitting on a bench when a photographer came up to take a picture of a tombstone near us. He told us that he had a collection of over a thousand different photos of bustes, médaillons, statues, and stèles ("gravestones") from the various cemeteries around Paris. There is, for example, a Rodin sculpture of Belgian composer César Franck in le cimetière Montparnasse. Yet, he explained, there are no Rodins in Père Lachaise; the famous bust of the author Balzac was done by someone else. He suggested that we visit a nearby marble medallion by Auguste Préault which he was particularly fond of called Le Silence.

Naturally, many tourists come to pay their respects to some of the international celebrities of the past two centuries, from German painter Max Ernst to Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Americans are well represented: authors Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, soprano Maria Callas, dancer Isadora Duncan, and The Doors rocker Jim Morrison to mention but a few. For those interested in classical music, there are monuments to both Chopin and Rossini, though the latter’s grave is a cenotaphe moderne, simply a monument since his remains now lie in his native Italy. The tombs of French singers Édith Piaf, Gilbert Bécaud, and actors Sarah Bernhardt, Yves Montand and Simone Signoret can be found at the cemetery. The guide pointed out that Mother Nature, aided by modern day pollution, plays havoc with the monuments; moss grows on the stones and tree roots upset them. But it is still a beautiful place to visit.