Montmartre has always been the Parisian neighborhood that most evokes the bohemian spirit. Some of the more famous people who called Montmartre home for a while include Salvador Dalí, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Toulouse-Lautrec, just to name a few. I love walking around Montmartre. Even though it is always packed with tourists, the artistic spirit of the neighborhood is strong. And of course the beautiful Sacre Coeur basilica is an ever-present jewel of a building that peeks above the rooftops and around the corners. As the title of this post implies, our walk around Momtmartre today was blisteringly cold and windy. Within 5 minutes of leaving the Metro station we had already popped into the Café des deux Moulins for hot chocolate and crêpes. This small café would not be anything special were it not made famous by the movie Amélie. We skipped a trip to the Sacre Coeur to instead check out the St-Pierre-de-Montmartre church, which is one of the oldest churches in the city, having been founded originally as a nunnery in 1134. The actual building has been significantly updated since that time, and is quite beautiful for its light and simplicity.
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It's super easy to miss the Palais Royal if you're not looking for it. Right across the street from the Louvre, the Palais was originally the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu, built in 1639. It's changed hands a number of times over the years, but today the Palais houses the French State Council, Constitutional Council, and Ministry of Culture, and its courtyards are open to the public. The weather is still a bit too cold to really enjoy sitting by a fountain in a beautiful courtyard, but we put in a solid 20 minutes or so watching the world slow down on a Parisian Sunday afternoon. I have visions of coming back here all throughout the spring and summer with a good book and a picnic basket with a warm baguette and a nice chilled bottle of white wine. Those are the best moments in Paris. We passed this little guy who was hanging out all by his smiley self, the perfect picture of Parisian leisure without a care in the world. Another cool part of the Palais is an art instillation in the inner courtyard called Les Deux Plateaux. The black and white columns stand on a grid at differing heights, and were created by French artist Daniel Buren in 1985–1986. The exhibit was extremely controversial when they were installed, but are still going strong 30 years later.
About the last thing that you want to deal with after an 11 hour work day at the end of an extremely stressful week is to come home to unexplained water on the kitchen floor. And yet we found ourselves in such a situation on Thursday night, exhausted, hungry and (for me at least) in denial that we actually had to do anything about it. After ruling out the radiator, Michael found the origin of the puddle to be the hot water pipe in the wall behind our kitchen counter. It was a small leak, but one that was issuing a steady stream of steaming water onto the floor below. At this point, it's close to 10pm. We have not yet had to deal with a plumbing situation in France, but if there is one thing I have learned from the struggles of others it is that one will pay dearly for the visit of a French plumber outside of normal business hours. Or a locksmith for that matter. Serious horror stories.
So instead of looking up an emergency plumber, we got in touch with our landlord who called the building caretaker (guardienne), whose husband came up to take a look. While all of this is happening, I am frantically google translating words like "leak" (fuite) and "pipe" (conduit). It was an educational moment. Here's the play-by-play action, told in pictures... Super proud of my main squeeze for landing a contract at the OECD!!! It's a huge deal for us to both be able to work here in France, and is a step in the right direction for more good things to come in 2016. Perhaps the best part is that he's working in the Cabinet office, which means that he can now tell me what to do and get away with it (haha, yeah right)!
So a funny thing happened this morning while I was waiting for my bus to arrive. About 6 minutes in to what was supposed to be a 5-minute-wait, the sign indicated that the bus would arrive in another 4 minutes. Now, I am no math genius, but something clearly was not adding up. Had I been asked, I would have bet good money on the delay being caused by the ongoing taxi strike, which has crippled parts of the city over the past week. On higher odds, maybe it could have been a Presidential motorcade. I would have lost either bet. The slow but steady arrival of the French cavalry was about the last thing I expected to see on my Monday morning commute to work. Yet, there they were, in all of their plumed and sabred glory! It turns out that they were headed to a military processional at the Arc de Triomphe welcoming Cuban President Raul Castro to Paris for a historic visit, which was of course covered by the international media.
What you will not likely find in the news clips is a picture of the hoard of street sweepers that follow immediately behind the French cavalry throughout their Parisian ride. And of course, my bus, patiently making its way in the distance. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
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