Four Answers and an Admission

Four Answers:

1) The school week question has been resolved, to nobody's satisfaction except mine and Pippa's. The public schools in Paris will indeed stop teaching an hour and a half earlier on Tuesdays and Fridays, at which point the children will be obliged to stay for an hour and a half recess (which will be the 4th of their day). The recess will be supervised by the current courtyard monitors, who are spectacularly uninterested in the safety of the children, in general, and are not certified teachers. Then the children will have three hours added on Wed morning. Thereby angering teachers, children, parents, unions, the right wing, and the left wing alike. Way to antagonize with equality!

However, Pippa's private school has some leeway. We have been told that our children will continue next year with the same schedule they have this year: full days on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. Pippa is thrilled. Gigi is unaffected since middle schoolers have to go to school on Wed morning anyway.

2) Easter Part 1: Yes, it turns out we can hear the bells from our apartment, but generally only with the windows open. Definitely much quieter than before. However, they do sound pretty -- more notes and very melodious. The people who live right next to the cathedral must be happy (and a little deaf, too), and we are wondering if perhaps after 850 years of complaining about the noise level, the French bureaucracy finally took action. 849 years would have been too rushed.

Photos by Lew Regelman

 

 

3) Easter Part 2: I did my Easter presentation in Pippa's English class at school. I managed nearly an hour without ever mentioning God or Jesus, but somehow ended up talking about basketball and football (Easter basket led to basket, which is the French word for basketball, and also sneakers that one uses to play basketball. This led to a discussion of how football in America is not soccer, which is played with the foot, but rather American football which is played with the hands).

And speaking of soccer: A French girls' team is currently forming in Saint Mandé, on the outskirts of Paris. Wait -- it's the return of my "twenty years behind" theory. So perhaps it's time that the girls' soccer revolution has finally arrived?

4) Well, it's already time to renew my cartes de séjour, mostly because the last time I renewed my year-long residence card, in August 2013, they somehow put an expiration date of May 15. So now my cards will no longer be in synch with Anthony's contractual schedule, even though my residence is based on Anthony's work contracts. I see endless hours of bureaucratic fun with this one!

And an Admission:

Actually, I have more scarves than pictured, especially if you add in the girls', which I can also wear. Some of them were hidden away at photo time. Also, I have since purchased two more (some of the new and previously unpictured ones in the photo below), and I dreaded telling Anthony so much you would've thought I was having an affair. But knowing that it's not the money that bothers my husband but rather the fact that we will all soon be buried under a mountain of scarves, I did give away five as a result. So, as I see it, if I keep up my policy of getting rid of more than I buy, I will soon whittle my way down to zero scarves. At which point I can start accumulating again.

 

Love and Smoke for All!

Gay marriage has passed its last hurdle in France! Yesterday, the Assembly voted in favor of legalizing by a margin of 331-225, after a disruption by a protestor in pink (which is, to the great confusion of all Americans, the color worn by the anti-gay marriage side). It may have taken them a while to give women the vote, but they're in the vanguard on this issue: France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage and well ahead of the US, with the first same-sex marriages expected in June. There goes my "twenty years behind" theory.

We bring Gigi and Pippa to the party, which takes place, not coincidentally, in the square in front of the 4th arrondissment's administrative building. I say it's not a coincidence because the 4th arrondissment, or Marais, is widely known as the "gay district," like the Castro in San Francisco.

 

It appears the Parisian young, gay community represented in the square also wants the right to die of lung cancer. Besides being littered with champagne and wine bottles (all drunk openly in front of the police, who clearly don't care about container laws), the square is also chock full of smoke. I'm amazed I can take photos through the haze.

 

Here are some signs of the times, with translations:



Ligue des droits de l'Homme = League of the Rights of Man (in the Mankind sense)

Osez le Féminisme = Dare to be Feminist

Procréation Médicalement Assistée: L'Egalite N'Attend Pas = Medically Assisted Procreation: Equality Won't Wait

And my personal favorite:

Je veux le droit d'epouser Jodie Foster ou David Bowie. = I want the right to marry Jodie Foster or David Bowie.

 

Even through the cloud of smoke, the clanking underfoot of bottles, and the crunching underfoot of plastic cups, the party is a really wonderful thing to see -- joyous and boisterous. However, I have to say that when it happens in the US, I am sure the Castro will be a whole lot crazier than this, and there will be a whole lot more costuming (wedding dresses and tuxes), kissing (very little PDA here), and controversy. Perhaps it's because it was a foregone conclusion, or perhaps it's because they're cool and French, as evidenced by the number of striped boat shirts.

There are, as you would expect, plenty of news organizations out with the revelers.



And, this morning, I read in the news that there were some protests last night as well, which involved anti-gay marriage advocates throwing things at police officers, who then retaliated by throwing gas canisters in the crowd. It looks like there were a few isolated protests in Paris and Lyon, or at least only those were significant enough to report. I do see one article about how the passage of the law is making some gay people suddenly have to come to terms with the fact that they will soon have a Mother-in-Law. Hard-hitting journalism at its finest.

Today, I don't see one sign, one rainbow flag, or any indication of the historic vote. I do see people out in throngs, happy, and celebrating...the gorgeous weather we are suddenly having. I can't wait to see the effect (if any) on the streets of Paris when the first marriages actually take place.
 

How Gauche!

Paris is famously divided in two by the Seine, the so-called Left (gauche) and Right (droit) Banks. But is the gauche really gauche? Well, in some places, of course. But mostly the left bank is the charming home of the Latin Quarter, Sorbonne, Jardin de Louxembourg, Eiffel Tower, Invalides/Napoleon's tomb, Musée d'Orsay, and many of the toniest arrondissements in the city (specifically the 6th and 7th). The right bank has the Louvre, Opéra, Grand Palais, Bastille, Marais, Pompidou, and Jardin de Tuileries and some of the trendiest neighborhoods. Many people support one side or the other quite strongly, but I feel I can be pretty neutral on the Right Bank/Left Bank divide, since we don't live on either: Ile Saint Louis and Ile de la Cité are in the middle of the Seine and, therefore, neither here nor there.

 

Much as I have gone through my life with a mental block confusing oven/stove and dishwasher/washing machine, I have to imagine myself facing west from the tip of Ile de la Cité when I need to remember which is Left Bank, which is Right.

That's Left Bank.........................................................................................................and Right Bank.

 

 

If you're wondering, our meaning of gauche as "awkward" or "tacky" is indeed a reference to left-handedness. Yet the word "right" (in both French and English) means correctness or legal rights. The word "sinister" also comes from the Latin word for left. Poor lefties.

But here's the real problem, at least in my anglophone mind, with all this left-and-right: The way to say "go straight" is "tout droit", which literally means "all right". So if you are told to go à droite, you go right, but if you are told to go tout droit, you go straight. I would think if you went all right -- right after right after right, you'd end up right back where you started, but, as Steve Martin once said, "Boy, those French, they have a different word for everything!"

I've been thinking about this a lot, because Pippa is working on left and right in her class and, as you can see, has a way to go to get these concepts down. She has such difficulties -- in both French and English -- that a part of me wonders if it's some genetic legacy from her paternal grandmother, who was naturally left-handed but forced to become a righty and who, consequently, had right-left dyslexia all her life.

One day Pippa comes home from school and tells me her teacher made a boy change hands while working. Though I try not to be the crazy helicopter American parent, I do feel I have to say something, given the results this practice had on my mother-in-law. I am aware that Pippa is not the most accurate source of information, however, so I gently ask before accusing. And a good thing: her teacher is confused, thinks a moment, then says, "Yes! I did make a little boy change hands to use his scissors. Because he's a lefty, and he was using his left-handed scissors in his right hand. Which is actually a little dangerous." When she sees the look of relief on my face, she laughs and said, "Don't worry. Even in France, we don't do that anymore."

Of course the French wouldn't be that sinister. How gauche of me.


 

School with a View

And I thought my workspace was impressive....

We go to an Open House at the girls' school, because Pippa is performing with her class in a circus-themed medley of songs.



While there, we tour the classrooms, just to see the girls's desks and art-work on the walls. We've done this before, of course, last year and this past fall. But they are in new classrooms, because there was a recent renovation to add in an elevator (for accessibility purposes) to the school. Gigi is now on the top floor, the 5ème etage (6th floor by US counting). We can never forget this as she often complains about how she walks a minimum 40 flights of stairs per school day (up 5 floors, down 5 for 1st recess, up 5, down 5 for lunch & second recess, up 5, down 5 for 3rd recess, up 5, down 5 at the end of the day).

The school must be well-placed, because the next-door neighbor is French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel. He bought the old hospital museum complex for around 50 million. Euros. In dollars, it would have been a steal. He's selling off some portions of the 4,000 square meter complex (that's near 40,000 sq. ft) into smaller million, two million euro apartments along the quai, facing the Seine. His own portion, seen in part on the right in the photo below, will have a nice private garden and end up about 1,000 sq m. It's not our apartment on Ile Saint Louis, of course, but still -- not too shabby.

 

And neither is Gigi's new classroom. A converted old attic space, it has the most stunning views of any place I've seen in Paris, slightly edging out an apartment we decided not to take in favor of our current lovely abode.

 

This is the actual view sitting at her desk. From the various windows -- not to mention the balcony just outside -- you can get a clear view over the Paris rooftops of the Pantheon, the Montparnasse Tower, and a tower of the Sorbonne. That's just on one side. On the other side, we have a crystal clear view of Notre Dame, with Sacré Couer in the distance (hard to see in the photo, but easy in real life), alongside the dome of Sainte Chapelle. I feel like the school should charge admission to tourists for this view. I am, frankly, very jealous.

  

And if you look carefully from the balcony, there's a view of the Eiffel Tower. A distant view.

Along with the awe-inspiring view over monuments and rooftops, the school also brings in a flashy science demonstration for the Open House.

But before you go thinking their school has it all, please take note of these two computers we find in the classrooms -- the only ones we see. Anthony points out that they still have floppy disc drives. The Bay Area this ain't.

 

Your Planning Guide

As a Follow-up to Your Packing List, I give you Your Planning Guide. My couster also writes:

"I am interested in doing some great art pilgrimage, but I am not sure how to gauge the suggestion to take a full day to go to Versailles. Worth it? Better to spend the day stuffing my face in a café somewhere? Just trying to get my bearings so I can start to consider if I actually have specific things I'd like to do in mind or not. It's hard to tell sometimes: Somewhat reputable NYC tourist travel sites suggest things like 'go to Chinatown'...which makes some sense if you're from, oh, Oshkosh or BoFo (which, in my world, would be in Nebraska), but less so if you're from SF. I also dug up a few other things. If you get a moment, feel free to read them, laugh, scream in righteous indignation, or praise them. It'll give me a better sense of what's in store."   

1) Among the various recommended five-day itineraries she sends me (examples one, two, and three here), one has her visiting the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, and l'Orangerie in one day. I would barely recommend this in one week, unless you really, really love art museums. And do not have children traveling with you. The Louvre alone could take a whole day, and you still would only see a fraction. If you've never done any of them, I recommend the d'Orsay, simply because the Impressionist collection is such a jaw-dropper and so enjoyable (not the kind where you pretend to enjoy staring at your 127th Virgin and Baby painting because you feel like you're getting educated, but the kind where it is actually pleasurable). If you happen to be here on the first Sunday of any month, most museums are free.

 

 

2) Do you want to go to the Eiffel Tower? Be prepared for crowds, and lines, unless you can go at a low-traffic time, which is mid-week, not on a school holiday, first thing in the morning, and ideally in the dead of winter. The crowds will be lighter then for sure. Get a reservation ahead of time, and know that "walking up" only means walking up to the 2nd floor; everybody gets an elevator to the top from there. It is fine to walk up, even with children. My seventy-something year old parents just did it, too.
 

3) Do you want to go to Versailles? You don't need reservations, but expect crowds. It's certainly worth doing, especially on a day nice enough to enjoy the gardens, Marie Antoinette's hamlet (her pretend peasant village), and maybe even boat rides on the lake. But is it a must-see? No, and it does take a whole day. The problem is that almost everything in Paris falls in this category -- fabulous but not a must. Because of that, I say, don't try to pack everything in your five days. Just do the things that appeal to you most and leave time for just wandering around. And eating.

4) An alternative to Versailles, in my opinion, if you can't spare a whole day: the more convenient and less crowded Palais Garnier, also called Opéra, which has English-language tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays (reservations needed). Or just go for an unguided visit nearly any day.

4) My advice on planning, in short. Some medieval Paris, at least one great art museum, a cemetery, some cafe time, churches, a tower (Eiffel and/or Notre Dame and/or top of Arc de Triomphe), boat ride or walk along the Seine, shopping, ride a metro, Sacré Coeur from the outside, Sainte Chapelle and/or Conciergerie, les Invalides, maybe underground sewer tour or catacombs, and something truly opulent like Versailles or Opéra. But not all of it at once.

Your Packing List

Tourist season is upon us, and I'm getting panicky e-mails, much like this one from my beloved couster (a cousin-sister, that is). It may come as no surprise upon reading this that she is a Manhattan-based psychoanalyst and, therefore, completely nuts:

"Now that my passport has arrived (along with my credit card bill for my flight), I am beginning to allow myself to get excited about my upcoming trip. Not that my mind had any choice: I have already started having the requisite anxiety dreams. Last night's involved my dad bringing me the wrong luggage, not being able to find my passport, not being sure what time my flight left, not being sure which shoes to bring (which is, truth be told, a grave concern of mine), and having you and some others leave me stranded in a gas station wondering if I will have enough time to go home and pack again myself. What say you, Dr. Freud?

 

And a last but very important question: what bag should I bring to tote around during the day? If I carry a hip-and-cool backpack, will I be stoned in a Parisian street? Will they arrest me for toting water around? Do I go for fashion and bing a sleek cross-body bag and risk having to stop every 5 minutes for refreshments? Yes, this is more than one question. But it is what I worry about instead of the important stuff....Sigh...."

So for my cousin, and all the rest of you visiting Paris:

1) You will not be stoned for wearing sneakers, or carrying backpacks. The sneakers won't even mark you as a tourist anymore, but the backpack will. It doesn't matter, because you ARE a tourist. And if you have to stop every five minutes to buy refreshments, because you can't carry around your water bottle and emergency snacks, you will go broke. As far as the sneakers go, I don't care if they're sneakers, boots, or custom-orthotic walking shoes, just make sure they're comfortable. There's lots to see and thousand-year old cobblestoned streets to wander.

2) If you are staying with us, you do not need plug converters. Or a hair dryer. If you are not staying with us, you are welcome to borrow our French hair dryer if your hotel doesn't have one. We may even have a plug converter for you to us, or bring one with you to be safe. One friend asked if she could just go buy a cheap hair dryer at the corner drug store, to which I replied, "No, because a) you can't buy it at the corner drug store but rather will have to walk to a far-away electronics store and b) it won't be cheap."

3) Will it rain? Quite likely, but usually not torrentially or incessantly. If you're at our place, we have many umbrellas, both big and travel-sized. Many of them are magenta colored, and one of them has fairy wings, just so you know. You can also buy touristy Paris-metro umbrellas pretty cheaply at the souvenir shops. But bring something waterproof or at least water-resistant. You may need it.

4) This is the winter that will never end, and it's supposed to be a cool, wet summer. Be warned. There will also be gorgeous days, if you forget to bring sunglasses. So bring sunglasses, though that ensures there will not be any gorgeous days.

5) And what can you bring us? That's very sweet of you to ask. At the moment, we are very well set on chocolate chips, vanilla, fish oil pills, and children's pain-killer, which are things we have wanted from the U.S. in the past. The one safe bet is always a box of plain (NOT honey-nut, NOT multigrain) Cheerios, or Joe's Os, or generic equivalent. Please, feel free to take them out of the box and use them as, essentially, packing peanuts. We still have many boxes/bags worth, but the girls do go through them quickly. Trader Joe's Candied Pecans are also a big house favorite, and nothing like it exists here.



5) My advice on packing, in short: Pack, take away half of it, then imagine me yelling in your ear, "You're bringing too much!" I'm just saying that you people are showing up with as much clothing as the average French person has in their wardrobe. And no, we don't have any empty drawers for you. That is an American luxury. You will live out of your suitcase. We have laundry facilities, though it will take 24-48 hours for your clothes to dry, and they will end up crunchy. But really, nobody minds seeing the same jeans or shirt on you a few times in a week; it's really very French of you.

 

Fool for Foulards

Today on the metro, 22 of the 25 people I see in my car -- men and women -- are wearing scarves. Due to this exhaustive survey, I could deduce that precisely 88% of all French adults are wearing scarves at any given time. Except that the other 3 of the 25 look like foreign tourists. Because they're not wearing scarves. So, I think I can safely conclude that 88% of the people you see in Paris and 100% of the French-people are going to be wearing scarves at any given moment. And no, that's not just when the weather is cold. When it's cold, the scarves help keep your neck warm. When it's warm, they just help you look fabulous. And French.

 

After a year and half here, I myself seem to have developed a scarf problem, much to Anthony's chagrin. Yes, my name is Kazz, and I am a scarfaholic. I'm an addict. I'm a fool for foulards.

I'm not just a fool for foulards (pronounced "foo-LAR"), but also écharpes, étoffes, carrés, châles, bandages, bandoulières, cache-col, cache-cou, cache-nez, and cagoules. Those pretty much mean "scarf" to you and me. Much like the Inuits supposedly have umpteen words meaning "snow", the French have a vocabulary that matches the flair they wear, though I have to tell you the terms you really hear most often are foulard, écharpe, and châle.

So is there a difference? Technically, yes:
 foulard = usually light fabric, long scarf
écharpe = heavier, often knit or wool or fleece, more wintery long scarf
foulard or écharpe capuchon = scarf with hood attached
châle = shawl, usually very wide rectangle that wraps around shoulders
pèlerine or cape = cape
étoffe = large square fabric, used shawl-style, often finer fabric or adorned
carré = square style, smaller like a hankerchief, might tie around the neck
bandage = white scarf, wrapped around bandage-style, and, yes, often in the case of injury
bandoulières = sash, may hold ammunition but could also be a sash on a king or on Miss France
cache-col or cache-cou = literally "neck-hider", a connected scarf to go around the neck
cache-nez = literally "nose-hider", a mask/scarf for the bottom half of the face in extreme cold
cagoule = a full face-mask/scarf worn in winter sports and bank robberies

For example, foulards:


Echarpes:


Châles:


Etoffes and carrés (the two shimmery étoffe on the left are about a meter or yard square, and the other three are about a foot or 35cm square):

Cache-col:

 

It's impossible to access 50 or so scarves from a drawer (and this is Paris: who even has a drawer this big?). So I hang them on some wooden valets that came in our furnished apartment:

 

Probably the most common ways to wear a scarf (on both women and men) are the European Loop, the Turtleneck, the Toss, and the Basic Loop. What are these, and how does one wear a scarf without looking like a total goob? This is the best tutorial I've found. These aren't the only ways to wear a scarf, but it's most of them, frankly, and certainly if you master even a few, you'll be able to pass for a native in Paris.

 

My personal favorite way to wear a scarf is a modified version of the Modern One Loop (because I use Two Loops) and the Double Rainbow.