A Visit to Notre Dame (Exterior)

So I walked along the Seine and decided to go see Notre Dame Cathedral.
 The bridge to the Island had this interesting lock artwork on it. It glistened brightly in the sun from long distances.

 

I passed by many people enjoying the day.

 

There was a line to get in (as with any important place in Paris these days).

 But eventually patience paid off and I got to the cathedral.

Like most Americans, I have a fascination with the gargoyles, so I took lots of pictures of them.

 

There is something so soulful about this one!

 

Since this martyr is headless, I suspect it is St. Denis.

 

Of course you recognize Eve.

The King on this tympanum lost his head to the French revolution.

Here are the resurrected from the tympanum.

And then I had made it to the door!

Paris Afternoon of the First day

So, after getting set up in the hotel I took a walk around Paris. I decided to take a walk along the Seine, because it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. 

  

There is an open air sculpture park that lines the river and many people were out enjoying the day.

 

 

And before I knew it, I had reached the iconic sight of Paris.

I think I'll do a separate blog on Notre Dame, but I want to conclude this post with a few commentary photos.

There are monuments to the fallen in lots of places, but it always surprises me that people remember the fallen so lovingly in France. You see all kinds of flowers left as a sign of this remembrance.

Paris isin a growing phase right now and this sentiment about building made me laugh and cry at the same time.

 

Of course this was a disturbing sight - a load of coal heading up the Seine. I took this picture for my friend Maureen.

 

I passed this object as I headed to Notre Dame. In a way this is the essence of Paris to me.

 

 

..

Arrival in Paris and First Day

I took my time at the airport knowing that check in time wasn't until 2:00. Of course entry into the country took a really long time, so I didn't need to worry too much. There was a huge line to get passports checked (and then customs was nothing.) There was a couple ahead of me that had boxes that said "Live Lobsters from Canada" and in my fantasy play about the plane ride, I thought it would be great for escaped lobsters to go racing down the aisles of the plane, (it turned out they were frozen and not alive, but it would have been a great scene!). I also spoke with the Canadians directly in front of me in my oh so rudimentary French. They were attending some kind of economic function to make better relations between Canada and France. They were a happy group of 4-6 people and the only people who were smiling in this egregiously long line of hot, miserable travelers.

Charles Degaulle is a gigantic (hyper)modern architectural conglomerate. I remember arriving there in the 70s and being bewildered by its tubes and aluminum facade. It seemed so au courant at the time, but now it just reminds me of a warehouse! There are actually some lovely architectural elements none of which I caught on film, but here is one photo snapped on the way out. That passage in the background is a round tube and not rectangular.

The information guy at the airport encouraged me to take the bus and then tried to sell me a train ticket with a surcharge when I insisted I wanted to take the RER . He was upfront thought when I asked if I bought the ticket through him whether it was the same price, so I went down and used the machine and saved almost a Euro. ;-)

What follows are a few pathetic photos of the train ride. It was definitely the backside of Paris, some nice old villag-y houses, lots of satellite dishes and lots of trash and grafitti.

 

I passed by banks of trash and detritus and then noticed that there were satellite dishes posted  in throughout. Helas, I didn't get a photo because I realized this strange juxtaposition too late.

 

As predicted I got to the hotel before my room was ready, but the concierge was kind enough to  arrange for an early admittance, but I would have to take a walk for an hour, so I stowed my heavier luggage and walked around the neighborhood a bit. This is the exterior of the hotel Jules Cesar.

From Charles DeGaulle after the train you take the subway one stop to the Gare de Lyons.

 

So, my hotel is on a street called Rue Ledru Rollin. There is a large church on the same street, one that turns out to be a mock-up of a Romanesque style church built around the turn of the century. St Antoine des Quinze Vingts has this interesting sculpture of Louis, but there is a description of Thomas Beckett next to it. I'm not sure why. It does have nice romanesque style arch work.

 

 

I headed down the road and ended up at La Place de la Bastille.

 

The Bastille is long gone, but they've built the modern opera house there and the Place is a proper visiting point in memory of the French Revolution with all its ups and downs.

 

There are of course a lot of homeless people in Paris, but from this little manor, I gather there can be quite an art to homelessness. Between the two tents there was a nice comfortable chair set to reign the domain almost like a throne.

 

Advertising this year likes to strap things women's heads. My subway map has a model with the Eifel tower tied to her head with a red white and blue ribbon.  This woman seems to have branches on hers.

 

On the way back I stopped at a grocery store and a boulanger and spent about 15 Euros on groceries. This has served as lunch and dinner (and now even late night snack.) My room was ready, so I mounted the three flights of stars and found a very pleasant (and fairly large for Paris standards) place to spend the week.

 See, pleasant and roomy.

This is the view from the window.

 

So here is my food haul.  I have half the baguette and a bit of the cheese left. ;-)

 

Several of the rooms were being cleaned, so I peeked in and discovered the room featured on the web site was next door to me.

I unpacked and cleaned up and got ready for my afternoon  foray into the world of Paris.

On the Way to Paris

So here are a few photos out the plane window. Jet lag has me. I had to go to bed at 7:30 Pm tonight and now it is just around midnight and I am awake, so I'll put up a few photos and then try to sleep again.

I chose a window seat because I like to take pictures out the plane window, but of course this time I managed to put myself (despite all efforts to the contrary) right in the middle of the wing.

Here are a couple of shots out the window as we left Toronto.

We were mostly above banks of clouds for the flight. I had to great seat mates. Ivan was from the Ukraine with a Canadian passport, but worked in Poland, London, Canada and evidently many other places. He was returning to Poland which he said he liked better than Poland. He was a chess player and very kind man who helped a nearby woman get her unwieldy luggage into the overhead bin. He was a quiet Bob Hoskins type if that seems possible. Between Ivan and me sat Paul a congenial guy from Napoli who carried on animated conversations about his various business enterprises (leather  jacket importing). There was also a very nice Indian man in the seat across the aisle and slightly forward. He had a brilliant smile and looked like an older Bollywood star. The guys directly in front of us were Russian. It was quite a cosmopolitan mix and made me think there was a play in it somewhere.

Here's my first view of France as we descended through the clouds and banked. Perhaps that  is the Seine?

This is the area around Charles DeGaulle airport.



And sonow the adventures can begin!

The Warblers are Back!

I'd been noticing the chirping of the warblers lately and yesterday when I looked out the front window at the bird suet, I realized that I could get a close up view of some of the sneaky little guys that usually hide in the leafy parts of trees.  I managed to snap a couple of decent photos of this one guy. I love the myrtle warblers, they are so colorful with their odd patches of yellow.

Attempt at a Middle Tea

Since I'm taking a group of students to London next Fall, I thought I should get them ready for the experience by introducing them to what they might expect at an English tea. (As if they will even experience a tea when they are there, but tradition dies hard!)

This was no meaty "high tea", but rather a sit down afternoon affair with the three basic British food groups: sandwiches, scones and biscuits (and a few crisps thrown in for fun just to see if I could catch the students calling them "chips".)

The weather cooperated by being gray, cold and dismal, perfect for warm scones and crumpets with butter. We talked about proper stirring, using milk and not cream so you could still appreciate the delicate flavor of the tea and I tried hard to get them to eat their scones and crumpets with sweet butter and marmalade. (Alas clotted cream was nowhere to be found in our local stores and the marmalade was over sweet, but all in all I think it was a suitable substitute.) I noticed both my cheeses and butter were untouched at the end of the meal, so the students still have some learning to do about (generalized) British taste. I was astonished that crumpets were such a hit, but as my sister says nothing is nicer than a buttery warm crumpet on a cool day. (Or even an unbuttered one?)

I was in such a tizzy over cooking that I forgot to take pictures of the students, but I do have a couple of images of the food. Here is the table.

Biscuits (Carr's Lemon tea biscuits and my spouse's wonderful shortbread are on the left, the scones (store bought I'm afraid) are bottom right and the sandwiches (in which I put most of my "cooking" industry are top right.



I made four types of sandwiches, two cucumber sandwiches (\one with watercress and butter and one with watercress and butter (right side of the platter) and one with shrimp and lemon mayonnaise (bottom middle). To the left are roasted red pepper and goat cheese sandwiches dusted in walnut crumbs and top middle are a delightful radish sandwich with poppy seed and cress.  I found the recipes on a BBC site and one other website that gave all kinds of suggestions for tea.  Even the birds ate well yesterday, because the garden is now full of those pesky bread crusts.  There were also condiments, the crumpets (which were in the oven while I was taking the picture) and a plate of cheeses that don't appear in the photo. There was of course also TEA: English breakfast, a lovely little Nepalese tea, Earl Grey and then a jasmine and genmai tea in case the drinkers preferred Asian tea. All in all I think it went well and my students could return to studying for their exams fortified and ready to work.

New Shawl

My current shawl beginning looks like this!