Joyeux Noël!

Just a short note to send you all the very best wishes for the holidays.
We hope you will all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years.

November Turns to December

Hearing of the first serious storms of the Ontario winter this weekend causes us to reflect on the changing seasons here in Paris. For me (Brian), November had a melancholy feeling to it. There were a few of those brilliant fall days when the cooler air and bright sunlight puts everything into a sharp focus, but there was also wet and cold, and to a great extent I had the feeling that Parisians were retreating a little bit from the streets, rushing to complete their courses (weekly shopping) and lingering less. The cafés still have outdoor tables set up, but they are increasingly unfilled – I wonder if the clients that do still sit outside aren't there to make a statement in defiance of the changing seasons, rather than because it pleasant. The upside is that, unlike earlier months, it is not too difficult to get a table for that essential afternoon double expresso. The traffic on weekends also seemed to drop off a little in late November, producing the strange phenomenon of empty streets, like this wide avenue near us. L’Etoile (about three minutes walk from our apartment) is the busiest traffic circle in Paris, where 12 roads converge at the Arc de Triomphe, but I managed to get this picture of it without a single car in view. A huge change from the bustle and shimmering colours of summer nights you see in this other picture taken by Hayley in August.

November also seemed to be between seasons. The hoopla leading up to Nouveau Beaujolais day had passed and the great parties to celebrate the rather ordinary wine were over. Most shops hadn’t yet put up their Christmas decorations or other hints of the coming festive season, except for the windows of the wine merchants filled with displays of champagne, a sure sign that spirits will pick up again soon – literally.

As always, there is a food aspect to the changing seasons, and in November, the champagne is meant to go with oysters. On a quiet corner a couple of blocks from our apartment I found the Paris equivalent of the hot dog stand. Not bad to be able to stop for a few oysters and a glass of white wine at 10:00 on a Sunday morning, as this woman did while walking her dog. I was tempted myself, but Moby is not yet a sufficiently Parisian dog to be able to sit quietly while Master takes a few minutes of enjoyment. Somehow I don’t think we’ll ever reach that stage with him.

The key Fall/Winter fashion accessory for both men and women in Paris is the foulard, a neck scarf, usually in woven wool knotted around the neck. For men, it is even worn with business suits when no overcoat is worn. The first day the temperature dropped below 10 degrees, three people commented that I wasn’t wearing one and warned me of the health consequences of not doing so. Luckily, our time in India means we all have cupboards full of pashminas and other scarves so we’re well set up. But for those who may be visiting us through the winter, you are warned what you must wear. And for not heeding the warnings of my colleagues, I caught my first Parisian grippe this week - losing my voice completely on the day I welcomed my most important business visitor of the year.

November 29^th seemed to be a key date when the pre-Christmas season started to gear up. One of the first shops to have decorations up was Maison Pou (translation: House of Pou – sausages our specialty) and others quickly followed. The Christmas lights on the Champs Elysées also came on this week, every tree from the Arc de Triomphe to Place Concorde wrapped in white lights. The huge FNAC store (think Future Shop, HMV Records, Chapters Bookstore and Ticketmaster rolled into one) in our neighbourhood announced it will open the next four Sundays, and Christmas tree lots sprang up on the corners in front of the florist shops. We visited the Christmas market that opened underneath the Grande Arche de la Défense, a modern Paris landmark, also pretty much in our neighbourhood. The foods stalls seem to be the best part of the market, selling regional specialities and fast food and hot spiced wine. The melted raclette cheese baguette sandwiches looked particularly good, but unfortunately we had just eaten a salad in the food court of the mall next door. Other than the food, we found the market not that much different from a Canadian Christmas craft sale and weren’t tempted to buy. Except maybe for the collapsible wooden salad bowl.

As we’re hosting our first larger party this week, we decided to get our Christmas tree early. That will give us more opportunity for Christmas-themed entries in the coming days. Our thoughts are with all our family and friends and we’re happy to be able to share some of our life here with you with this blog. We hope your preparations for a wonderful holiday season are already well underway. A bientôt!

Normandy: Le Mont-Saint-Michel and God’s Town of the Frying Pans

Somewhat late, we’ll give you a quick summary of the rest of our Normandy trip.

One day, we took the fairly long drive (90 minutes) to Mont Saint Michel, the famous Abbey that is probably one of the most photographed places in France. The tides that flow in to surround the island are the highest in Europe and signs are posted in various spots to warn you that if you park there your car will be under water by high tide. On a Monday out of season, we still had to fight our way through dozens of busloads of tourists (mostly Japanese) to get into the walled town and to climb several hundred steps to the top from where we could tour the Abbey. All I will say about the climb is that it wasn’t the older members of the party who complained about the effort involved. The Abbey was beautiful, however and the self guided walk through the various parts was all downhill. We were also lucky to share the tour with a group of German Gregorian Chanters, who tested the acoustics of each stone chapel and hall with amazing chants sung in multi-part harmony. On the way out we again struggled through the crowds in the narrow shopping street of the walled town and we resisted the urge to buy souvenirs, although Brian was strongly tempted by a full-size suit of armour – perfect for that empty corner of the dining room. Hungry by now, we looked for an appropriate restaurant. There is always a local speciality that one is supposed to try and in Mont Saint Michel it is omelettes. We decided to pass up the famous restaurant Mere Poulard (home of the $30 omelette) which had a crowd waiting anyway and we settled instead on toasted panini sandwiches and McCain french fries in a casse-croute. Hardly gourmet, but the Belgian draft beer (brewed by monks, you know) added a touch of historical authenticity.

We decided to take back roads on the return trip to our chambre d’hôte, travelling through Suisse Normande, so named because the hills and valleys of rich farmland are similar to Switzerland. Navigating the route Brian took us towards a town called Villedieu-les-poêles. Remembering the unfortunate overly-literal translation of our hosts (see below), Brian joked that this must be “God’s town of the frying pans”. We arrived to find that is exactly what it is – a town that has been known for fabricating pots and pans since the 11^th century – the main street filled with shops that overflow with copperware of all shapes and sizes. The town is also now known for one of the few remaining foundries in France manufacturing large bells for church towers. Further on we drove through Falaise. We were losing the light but the immense ruin of the fortress that was the home base of William the Conqueror was impressive and something we’ll go back to see more closely. Falaise is also known from World War 2 for the last major fight in the battle of Normandy. Canadian troops suffered heavy losses but were instrumental in closing “the Falaise Gap” to encircle and effectively destroy the remaining German army. We drove on back to Pont l’Eveque for another large dinner, but the culinary entry in the blog is still to come, so I won’t elaborate here.

On the next day we headed back to Paris. Our first morning stop was just a few minutes from our chambre-d'hôte, the medieval town of Beuvron-en-Auge. It has a beautiful main street filled with timbered buildings that are now shops and restaurants catering to tourists. Despite this, and perhaps because it is out of the way, it has a very quiet and charming character. Or should I say it did ... before the tour bus rolled in, disgorging its contents of young Japanese women who set to work taking photos of each other flashing V signs in front of the old buildings and buying up the contents of all the shops. Luckily we already had our box of the local specialty - shortbread biscuits (sablé).

We headed onwards to the coast and stopped in Honfleur. This beautiful port town sits at the mouth of the River Seine where it flows into the Channel. It was a centre of impressionist painting and the harbour is subject of many well-known artworks. More important for Canadians perhaps is the fact that Samuel de Champlain sailed from Honfleur in 1608 to found Quebec City and begin the permanent settlement of Canada by Europeans. The Normandy-Quebec historical links are obvious, from the habitant-style toques that one sees (in the pictures) here, to the back streets of Honfleur that look remarkably like the old streets of Vieux-Quebec. A celebration of the 400^th anniversary is in the planning stages that will be huge in Quebec and will have events here.

We ate a traditional lunch in a harbourside café - steamed mussels followed by Ben and Jerry’s - before piling into the car for the two-hour drive back to Paris. Satisfied with our first busy but enjoyable trip in France, we nevertheless dreaded the looming encounter with the bathroom scale.

Normandy: The D-Day Landing Beaches

This was quite a moving experience as we drove the coast of Normandy visiting the beaches where the allied troops landed on June 6, 1944, beginning the liberation of Europe.

We started at Juno Beach near the town of Courseulles-sur-Mer where an impressive museum has been built through private donations from Canadians.

The Juno Beach Centre was opened in 2003 and is staffed by Canadian student interns on four-month assignments. The exhibits trace Canadian involvement in World War 2 and in the D-Day invasion. We walked out of the museum onto the beach through a steel passageway
built in the size and shape of the D-Day landing craft. We passed old German gun emplacements half sunk into the sand and the tracks of
the tunnels that joined them. Click on the photos below for larger views.

Further along the coast we saw the Mulberry harbour that was towed from England: hundreds of huge concrete and steel structures five stories tall were sunk and linked with floating docks to form a port where heavy ships could land equipment. The allies were worried they would not be able to take over an existing harbour in usable condition. Wanting a place to build the new harbour, they did not invade the beach at Arromanches as part of the initial invasion. Instead, they captured the area by land later on the day of June 6 and by the next day they had begun the construction of the port and had begun landing ships. It is an incredible achievement of engineering.

Further along the coast at Longues-sur-mer we came across German heavy cannons still sitting in their concrete bunkers on the cliffs, pointing out across the channel.
Although they were mostly intact, you could still see where one had been blown apart by incoming fire. The open fields and the small villages with their church spires gave us very vivid images of how it must have felt for the soldiers on those days to face the risks and fears as they moved across the countryside.

Here is a short film clip on the landings that day from the History Channel web site.

We made the turn back towards our B and B at Omaha Beach where the main American force landed and returned via Bayeux, a beautiful medieval town which, unlike most of Normandy, was largely undamaged during the war.
Very picturesque narrow streets lead to the impressive cathedral that dates from the 11^th century. Bayeux is also the home of the famous tapestry that depicts the successful invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror in 1066.

A long day followed by a Sunday dinner in an old auberge, but more about that later.

A Long Weekend in Normandy

We have just returned from our first real trip into the country over a four-day weekend. We chose Normandy because it is a relatively short and easy drive from Paris and because it has so much to offer in history, food and sights. We covered almost 1,000 kilometres, but stayed in the same chambre d’hote (B&B) for all three nights. It turned out to be the last weekend of "l 'été indien", with temperatures close to 20 degrees.

Normandy Day 1: Down on the ferme

On Saturday, we were out of Paris and well on our way so quickly that we headed off the autoroute onto lesser highways and found several interesting towns along the way. We ate a pique-nique lunch (more about that later) next to a fifteenth century clock tower that still showed many bullet marks from World War II.

Travel times are always shorter than expected here, so we used our early arrival to visit Deauville, a very attractive beach resort town know for its large casino that is one of the closest to Britain and is favored by English day trippers. Sort of like Monte Carlo for the welly-boot crowd.

We walked the beach boardwalk with its line of changing huts with the names of actors on each door, impressed by the famous people the resort seems to draw, until we realised that many of those named have long-since passed on. I guess the idea is to offer the common folks the chance to slip out of their clothes in the Tom Cruise changing room. We didn’t ask the price – the cost of a coffee in the café had already been enough to tell us we won't be spending our summers there.

Our B&B, which was located in the country (no sirens and revving engines!) was quite interesting, a rather remote farm with horses, ducks, and a couple of Jack Russell terriers. In fact I think the farming is more of a hobby, than a money-making venture. It was run by a charming older hippie couple who, unlike what we’ve observed at other B&Bs we’ve stayed at, appeared to share the duties of running the operation. He also runs a hair dressing shop just behind the kitchen and does metalwork. The house was a strange mix of traditional and modern, with a long buffet made out of post office safes, china cabinets from hospital storage cabinets and overhead lamps from operating rooms. A bit weird but nonetheless quite well-done. As we arrived late in the day on Saturday, we decided to take advantage of the table d'hôte (full course meal) available to their guests for a pretty reasonable fee and prepared by the ‘man of the house’ who then led the conversation over din ner. It was an excellent seafood dinner all grilled over a wood fire. The challenge of course was to dine with eight virtual strangers – all of whom spoke only French. I’m sure Brian must have had a migraine by the end of the evening from carrying the conversation, particularly after having to translate the host’s risqué jokes for the girls. We stayed three nights and I must say I looked forward each morning to breakfast (must have been the country air): croissants, bread, cheese, three types of jam, butter, café au lait, hot chocolate, yogurt…).

One lesson we learned – if you’re going to do translations using those Internet automatic translation engines (e.g. Babelfish), you should probably get them verified by someone who knows the language to ensure the translations are not too literal. Our hosts, not wanting food in the rooms, posted this notice that turned the hyphenated verb for “to picnic” into something quite different – “pique” meaning a type of shovel and “niquer” … you’d better read for yourself.

For those having trouble reading the image: here is the transcript: "Opinion with our pleasant customers: By measurement of hygiene, it is interdict spade-to screw and smoke in the rooms. We thank you for your comprehension."

Will post more soon on the rest of our trip.

October 2006 City of Light...

So we have finally figured out how to set up our space to share with you our experience of Europe, France and Paris. Although it's now October, we will go back in time a little bit to tell you about a few of the aspects of our arrival and settling in from August onwards and to share with you a few of the pictures we've taken so far. Hopefully, from this point on, we can begin to post shorter entries about our day-to-day life as well as a few photos.

Since this is the first time we (Denise and Brian) have done a blog it's likely to sound a bit more like a family letter or postcard, but as we go along we'll aim for some slightly more profound observations and interesting reading...

Moving in... We were lucky to be able to move directly into our permanent apartment on arrival for only the second time in six postings. Like anything, our apartment comes with certain "avantages et inconvenients". We are in a 100 year old Haussmann building on the fifth floor complete with cage elevator (charming, but very impractical), marble (non-functioning) fireplaces (seven!), 12-foot ceilings, and the gargoyle you see on the left...

We thought that the cage elevator, which holds barely two adults and a dog, and the fact that we're five flights up might present a few challenges to the movers when our shipment arrived. We should have realized that moving into buildings with cage elevators and lots of stairs is an everyday occurrence in Paris. No problem...they just drive-up with a small truck that has a conveyor-belt-elevator thingy on the top and with a couple of guys at the bottom and a couple at the top - presto....our boxes were magically transported directly into our apartment. We've included a couple of photos of the inside of the apartment too...

Shopping... As you can imagine, the food here is amazing. The smell of baking baguettes greets us each time we leave our apartment as we have a boulangerie right next door. Moby really loves Paris - with all of the outdoor cafés, bits of dropped food litter the sidewalks. He keeps his head down when he's being walked so as not to miss anything. We keep our heads down when we're walking him so as not to step in anything! (Actually, the city of Paris seems to be cracking down on Parisiens who do not 'scoop' after their dogs and the city is much cleaner than we had anticipated.)

Back to the food... Everything is of such a tremendously high quality (and calories!). However, it has taken 'us' some time to get used to not jumping in the car, driving to Loblaws and loading up a grocery cart once or twice a week. Shopping is a serious business here and can take a good part of each day (or so it sometimes seems!) Although we don't shop everyday as some French do, we certainly buy baguettes at least once per day (after all, you can't eat a baguette that is even a few hours old!) We also try to buy our produce at one of the local outdoor street markets (the one pictured here is about a ten minute walk from our apartment), our cheese at the fromagerie and our meat at the boucherie. You can see why it takes so long!

Before our arrival, I had visions of carrying a basket to do my shopping (okay, and wearing a beret too). However, Brian had a different idea! He arrived about ten days before us and proudly presented me with a ... bundle buggy. Of course, in Paris they're called 'marché pousette' and are used when you need to buy too many heavy things to carry. Unlike at home, where they're often only used by 'older' people, here they are used by young and old alike. (Even Hayley agrees to pull it occasionally.)

Driving... We've driven in Tokyo and New Delhi, but we'll admit that driving in Paris is a two-person job - one to navigate and the other to drive. Since the traffic moves at a fairly fast pace (although the posted speed on the autoroute is 130 kms, it seems that is the minimum speed) it's impossible to concentrate on driving and simultaneously deciding which direction you should be going... So far, Denise has been behind the wheel and Brian has been doing the navigating (more a question of Denise's (lack of) navigational abilities than Brian's driving).

Of course, driving here is exactly as you probably imagined - chaotic and hair raising and that's just driving out of our parking spot! Actually, the metro is so convenient that our car will probably only leave our parking spot on weekends (and away from Paris!) So far, we have had one brief foray into the countryside when we drove to the Loire Valley two Sundays ago. We had a lovely day, which was almost ruined by the horrific traffic we encountered when we returned to Paris. We didn't know that about half of Paris leaves the city each weekend for their country homes. Everyone returns late afternoon or early evening, which causes some pretty amazing traffic congestion for a Sunday night.

However, parking in Paris is actually more of a challenge than driving...If you are lucky enough to find a parking spot, you're likely to find the cars in front and behind your car have parked right up against your bumper. When we first arrived, I stared in amazement at these 'arrangements' wondering how on earth the person in the middle would ever remove their car from such a tight spot. When I witnessed for the first time how they do get their cars out, I decided we wouldn't be parking our car anywhere in Paris! Basically, the car in the middle simply pushes against the car in the front and then does the same to the car in the back until they can manoeuvre out. I guess they don't call 'em bumpers for nothin'...

Despite its quirks, Paris is a city that seems to function pretty efficiently. Garbage is picked up daily and a crew of street cleaners move about the city each morning sweeping and washing the pavement (much to Moby's disgust!) So, apart from the everpresent sound of angry horns and the constant annoyance of having cigarette smoke blown in your face, it's not a bad place to live...

Well, this is only our first entry. Check back next week! Love to hear from you all!