NYE

Some New Year's vocab:

La Saint-Sylvestre - New Year's Eve (it's Saint Sylvestre's saint day)
Le jour de l'an - New Year's Day
Une réveillon du nouvel an - New Year's party
Bonne année - Happy New Year

Interesting factoid: the French kiss under mistletoe on New Year's Eve, rather than on Christmas.

VERY IMPORTANT: You can watch the Eiffel Tower's NYE light/music show online! Starting in 10 minutes! http://31decembreaparis.com/

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :o)

The Christmas Tree Circle of Life

In the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, right at the entrance closest to our apartment, the City of Paris has set up a Christmas tree recycling point. It's one of the first indications that Christmas has actually come and gone, since elsewhere in the city all the decorations are still up, Christmas music is still being played, and the Christmas markets are still operational.

Recycling spot for pines.

Deposit your Christmas tree here in preparation for its recycling.

Trees accepted only: without decoration, natural (without paint or flock printing), 

not enclosed in a bag, with or without roots

A second life for your tree!

In the small print, it describes how the trees deposited at this site will be mulched and spread around the grounds of the park by its gardeners, providing much-needed nutrients to the soil. Hooray for composting! Until next year, Christmas!

A Very Jewish Christmas

As far as tourists are concerned, Paris is mostly closed on Christmas day. Of the major sights, only the Eiffel Tower and the Centre Georges Pompidou remain open. Some corner cafés are open, but outside of Belleville, most shops and restaurants are closed. (As you might expect, all the Chinese restaurants on Rue de Belleville were open.) Luckily, one museum was not only open but also new to Maggie and me, so on Friday, we joined Jake and Joy for a stroll through the Museum of Jewish Art and History.

Located in a 17th-century mansion in the Marais, the building itself is very beautiful, and everything inside is polished and new. (Pictures are not allowed - this picture of the museum's courtyard was taken outside a security window. Notice that the left-side wall is a façade, as the building behind it is not part of this hôtel particulier (private mansion).) 

Audioguides were free, and there were lots of objets d'art and paintings to ogle, as well as texts to read. I enjoyed some of the maps showing how various waves of Jewish diasporic movement affected France, and the Dreyfus Affair was given a thorough treatment. On the other hand, I felt like the museum tried too hard to juggle explanations of Jewish rituals and theology, history and culture, past and present, and ended up unfocused and a little detached.

Part of the problem is that the museum's chronology only goes up to the Second World War - for the rest, Paris has a separate museum called Memorial to the Shoah (Holocaust). After having been to Jewish Museums in Prague and Berlin, it's unsatisfying to see Jewish history chopped up into pre- and during/post-Holocaust. The best thing to do probably would have been to go directly from the Museum of Jewish Art and History to the Memorial to the Shoah, but that wasn't in the cards.

What was in the cards after our museum visit was lunch. For that, we walked to the nearby Rue des Rosiers and sat down at Chez Marianne, one of many Israeli- and Yiddish-style restaurants on the street. (I vetoed straight-up falafel, as I've eaten too much recently.) We shared a sampler plate that included tarama, feta, Turkish salad, falafel, kefta, tuna salad, hummus, tabbouleh, tzaziki, and pastrami. With some white wine and pita, it was delish! And that concluded our Very Jewish Christmas, since that night, Maggie and I made carbonade, then we all went out to check out Christmas lights.

Our Very Jewish Christmas inspired me to think about Parisian Jewish geography (real geography, as opposed to the American social networking kind). All of the major monuments to Judaism and Jewish history are neatly located in or near the Marais, which traditionally includes the distinctive Jewish quarter of Paris. In the map below, this geographic logic is clear: the Museum of Jewish Art and History (top) and the Memorial to the Shoah (center) bookend the Rue des Rosiers, the epicenter of Jewish life in Paris (cluster), and the Memorial des Martyrs de la Déportation (bottom) isn't far away in a park behind Notre Dame.

It's Like This

Maggie promised a story from me about lunch on Sunday, and I'm going to deliver. Here goes:

A few months ago, Maggie and I met my cousin Joan for dinner at Fish La Boissonnerie, on Rue de Seine in the 6th arr. We loved it - creative menu, great wine selection, slightly funky ambience, and amazing, fresh bread. We couldn't help but notice that the bread kept getting carted in through the front door - it was coming from a bread/sandwich place (not a boulangerie) right across the street, and eventually we learned that it and Fish La Boissonnerie were owned by the same Kiwi/American pair.

Fast forward to Sunday, when I decided that the bread/sandwich place - called Così - would be a good spot for everyone to meet up for lunch. We instantly loved it - menu written on a chalk board, a choice of about 15 sandwiches, a view of the wood-fired oven and the smell of fresh focaccia coming out of it. And it's a true sandwich shop - you order at the register, then either take out your food or take it upstairs to a seating area.

We ate in. Maggie and I shared a delicious pumpkin soup, I got a "Cheesy English" (roast beef, cheddar, basil, mayo, and vinaigrette), and Maggie got a "Medwedd" (goat cheese, red onion, cucumbers, black olive tapenade). Sitting upstairs, we started talking about how closely the fresh-baked bread (on which all the sandwiches were made) resembled the bread you get at Così in the US - you know, the corporate chain. In fact, we even panicked momentarily thinking that we had, in fact, just sat down for lunch at a French branch of the same chain. But when we thought about how delicious our sandwiches were, how non-corporate the decor was in the sitting area, and that this restaurant was owned by people we could identify ("the guys across the street") we were reassured.

Finally, I went back downstairs to get bags to take our leftovers home, and decided to confirm that the two places were, in fact, owned by the same guys. I also asked the woman at the counter, who happened to be talking to the chef, whether there was any relationship between this Così and the ones in the US.

It turns out, there is. Once upon a time, the chef told me, two American students on semester-abroad in Paris started hanging out at Così quite a bit. They were totally unremarkable - torn jeans, friendly guys, studying and having a good time. They established a friendship with the then-owner and chef, and even got him to teach them his focaccia recipe. After their semester abroad, they went back to the US and got their banker executive dads (torn jeans = perfect camouflage) to give them the capital to create a small sandwich shop chain, the name and the bread recipe of which they took directly from this Parisian sandwich shop. And thus was born Così.

The chef told me the two guys were friendly with the current owners of Fish La Boissonnerie and Così, and that there were no hard feelings about the whole affair. But I have some feelings about the whole affair. For one thing, the Così website barely gives credit to their namesake inspiration in France. Quoth the website,

"Our look and feel was first inspired by a small Parisian café." [Oh yeah? Which café? I dare you to name it. Furthermore,] "From humble beginnings in 1996, one restaurant based on a small Parisian café has evolved into a dynamic growth company with more than 100 restaurants in 16 states and the District of Columbia." [Humble beginnings mon oeil (my eye), as the French would say.]"

In any case, it's interesting context for both Cosìs. And by the way, there's something appropriate about the American version taking its name from the French original, since in Italian "così" means "like this." Often imitated, never equaled, you can find the original Così at 54 Rue de Seine, 75006 Paris.

Paris in a day

Alyssa and Michelle were mostly recovered from jet lag by Sunday morning, so we decided to take them on a long walk through a few different neighborhoods and past several of the most important sights in Paris.

We began at our apartment and walked down rue Faubourg du Temple to the Canal St. Martin in the 10th arrondissement. We were lucky enough to catch a boat passing through the locks on its way down the canal.

After meandering across Place de la République, we entered the Marais district, historical center of Paris' Jewish community and current place-to-be, in the 3rd and 4th arrondissements. We detoured into the Centre Pompidou (home of Paris' modern art collection) to use the toilet, marvel at the finds in the bookshop, and admire the postmodern architecture. Unlike last time, we didn't go up to the 6th floor to see impressive views of the city, but you can see them for yourself via the museum's own webcams.

We continued our journey through to the Hôtel de Ville, not a hotel at all, but the City Hall of Paris. We've seen the place in front filled with exciting exhibitions before. Right now, it's covered by an ice skating rink and two free carousels as a gift from the mayor to celebrate the season.

We crossed the Pont d'Arcole on our way to the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris...

...made our way to the Louvre...

...and stopped to enjoy the view.

What a day! There's actually a great story from lunch, but I'll let Louis tell you all about it.

One night in Paris

Alyssa and Michelle could only stay for one night in Paris, so even though they were very jet-lagged, Louis and I somehow managed to drag them out of bed after a brief mid-afternoon nap (well, Panda helped, too). We had made plans to meet up with Joy and Jake at Galeries Lafayette, one of the big department stores that we have visited twice before.

It was nice to get out of the cold, go inside, and see the grand Christmas decorations.

As we were walking around, Joy saw a dress she liked. It cost only 1400 euros, and even though we all thought she looked great in it, she decided not to buy it.

We passed through the "épicerie," which is really a giant gourmet supermarket, and marveled at the huge table whose multicolored spices filled the whole floor with delightful scents.

Back outside, we walked a block over to Printemps, another grand magasin (epic department store). They didn't have a central area with amazing decorations, but they did have a "Russian" theme going on. I especially loved the larger-than-life nesting dolls.

To give you a sense for just how big the store is . . .

Through careful study of this complex map, we figured out that the real highlight of Printemps is its rooftop deck, from which you can see the whole city in all its amazing shapes and colors . . .

La Madeleine, with la Grande Roue de Paris (Ferris wheel) just to the left

A Printemps turret bathed in red light, with the back of the Opéra visible to its left

Eventually we took 8 flights of escalators down from the roof to leave Printemps . . .

. . . and headed to dinner at Le Mesturet, another restaurant on Jesse's list that's very close to Louis' primary place of research. If Alyssa, Michelle, Jake, and Joy wanted to experience tasty traditional French cuisine at a reasonable price, they couldn't have done any better than Le Mesturet. Louis' three-course meal (just as an example) included:

Smoked-salmon-topped puff pastry, greens with fennel vinaigrette

Parmentier de canard - mashed potatoes over roasted duck, baked just a few minutes

Mi-cuit gâteau de chocolat (chocolate cake with a moist center), topped with cardamom ice cream

What a night!

Visitors Out The Wazoo!

Michelle and Alyssa - friends from Somerville - decided to fly through Paris on their way to visit another former Somervillian (Talya) in Israel so they could visit me and Louis. They only had 36 hours, so we tried to make the most of it.

Michelle, Alyssa, and I brave the cold for a great view of the Eiffel Tower from the Palais Chaillot

They lucked out - we had great weather all weekend. This made the view from the Eiffel Tower especially worthwhile for me and Alyssa after having waited in line to climb up, while Michelle and Louis walked around the Champ de Mars.

Can you pick out Michelle and Louis?

Despite their jet-lag, Alyssa and Michelle were real troopers, begging to be dragged around the city so they could pack in as many sights as possible during their short time in Paris. They took advantage of Métro and bus rides to catch a little shut-eye.

For lunch, Louis, Alyssa, Michelle and I met up with Jake and Joy around St.-Germain-des-Près and enjoyed a sumptuous feast of traditional French foods (notably croque monsieur [grilled ham and cheese sandwich, with the cheese on the top], croque madame [grilled ham, cheese, and fried egg sandwich, with cheese and fried egg on top], and croque chicken [no idea]).

Jake and Joy shared moules frites (mussels and French fries)

The brasserie, called Horsehead Tavern, was trying really hard to give the restaurant an anglophone flavor, but didn't succeed completely...

After lunch, Jake and Joy went for a long walk while everyone else retired to the apartment for some rest in preparation for the adventures yet to come that evening!

Christmas Traditions

We're trying to assimilate, and most of the time we're trying through food. So we were more than happy to adopt the French Christmas tradition of the bûche de noël, a super delicious log-shaped cake.

The pâtisserie where we got our bûche used a gold-colored chocolate piece for the ends of the log, but we've also seen cakes where the "grain" is done in frosting. We also chose a chocolate bûche instead of other offerings, like coffee and butterscotch.

Inside, the sponge cake that's rolled up into the log shape was soaked in rum and reminded us of tiramisu.

The top of the log was decorated with a Christmas tree, a shooting star, and - what else? - an axe. Well done, pâtissière, well done.

Served as a prelude to the bûche - our secord effort at carbonade.

Joy and Jake approved.

Merry Christmas, From Paris With Love

Paris takes Christmas decorations very seriously, and everyone benefits. From everyone here at Panda-à-Paris (all three of us!), we hope that your Christmas was every bit as bright and cheery as the Champs Elysées, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette (the big department stores), and the Eiffel Tower.

Christmas Eve Traditions

It's Christmas Eve here in Paris. Being away from family is difficult, but we're enjoying spending time with our friends Joy and Jake and creating our own holiday traditions. For example, we began the evening with a rousing game of French Monopoly.

We suspended the game to walk 10 minutes to the Église Notre-Dame de la Croix de Ménilmontant to attend the 11:00 p.m. Veillée de Noël service. The church is large, beautiful, and felt very much like a local parish (we had considered going to the other Notre Dame, but thought it might feel a bit too touristy).

The Veillée service consisted mainly of organ music, singing, and readings. We all liked it when the organist pumped up the bass, and didn't really like it when the song leader sang out of our range.

We left just in time to see the start of the midnight mass. It was cold, we're not Catholic, and hey, we had a Monopoly game to finish! Merry Christmas Eve!

Météo France

As the weather has turned colder, we've taken more interest in weather reports. Will it rain today? (Usually, the answer is yes.) Should we wear ugly American winter coats perfect for Boston-like temperatures, or stay stylish (and a little colder) with the black midweight coats that seem to be the uniform in Paris? (Forget assimilation: when I take Panda out in the morning and it's 25 degrees, I want my ugly Columbia ski jacket.)

We tend to get our weather reports from two different places: the French equivalent of weather.com, http://france.meteofrance.com/; and tv weather reports we watch streaming online.

Météo France has the advantage of showing us exactly what's going on in Paris, arrondissement by arrondissement, while the tv weather reports give the whole nation equal treatment (which in itself is a pretty foreign concept - I'm too used to how national news programs usually cut to local weather forecasts). On the other hand, the tv weather report teaches us French geography and weather vocab, not to mention the added bonus of watching the extremely stylish and always chipper "meteorologist" (scare quotes because she never studied meteorology, which leads me to believe she was hired for being peppy and photogenic).

If you made it to the end of the report, you saw a brief informational graphic letting the public know which Saint's day it is. The Saint's day also appears at the bottom of the Météo France report, as you can just barely make out below. This boggles my mind: publicly-owned news services advertise Catholic Saint's days, but kids still can't wear headscarves, yarmulkes or cross-necklaces in public schools. Seriously!?

Other than the Saint's day thing, we only have one complaint about French meteorology. Both the website and the tv report lack one important component of American weather forecasts: "real-time" radar. As far as I can tell, French radar only shows up to six hours before the present time, which is not very useful when I want to know whether it's going to rain in the next twenty minutes. Instead of up-to-the-minute radar, Météo France offers "Prévision de pluie à 1 heure," a decidedly lo-tech presentation of the likelihood of rain over the next hour.

Yellow is no rain, light gray is light rain, medium gray is moderate rain, and dark gray is heavy rain. White would mean no information available. I guess this is just as scientific as the "40% chance of rain" descriptions we get in the US, but for some reason it strikes us as quaint and imprecise.

Latke Party

Last Friday night, to celebrate the last night of Chanukah, we headed over to Rachel and Adam's apartment for a latkes-and-dreidel party. We met some new people, enjoyed delicious potato and potato-and-zucchini latkes, and played "aggressive" dreidel with fine Polish vodka and French candies.

Sides for the latkes included smoked salmon, herring, cucumber salad, and apple sauce. Quite a spread!

Lighting the Chanukah candles. As usual, there was some disagreement about whether to light left-to-right or vice versa. And as usual, left-to-right won out. I look on as Adam lights and Debbie sings.

Post-dinner dreidel fun with Fabien, Adam, and Adam's brother Josh.

Lizzie looks on with apprehension as Rachel manifests drunky-drunkness.

In our game, Lindt truffles were worth "3" and were highly coveted. The game broke down when people hoarded and then not-so-surreptitiously consumed all the truffles.

Thanks for having us over, Rachel and Adam!

Good Day, Rough Night

Joy and Jake are here! Hooray! And thank goodness, because their presence turned out to be crucial during some excitement last night. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a fairly straightforward trip (no snow delays or cancellations, no luggage mishaps), Joy and Jake arrived chez nous around 10 AM yesterday morning. We chatted over tea, toast, and jam, then headed to Breizh Café for lunch. (We had attempted to lunch at Breizh Café once before, realizing too late you need reservations, so this time we made sure to take care of that. Also, "Breizh" means "Bretagne" in Breton.) Like Crêperie de Josselin in the 14th, Breizh Café specializes in savory Breton galettes (a hearty buckwheat "crêpe") and of course also serves dessert crêpes (lighter, made of white flour).  I got a complète (oeuf miroir - sunny side up egg; jambon et frômage), Maggie got magret de canard (duck breast), Joy got a complète with arthichoke, and Jake got lox, chives, and crème fraîche. We shared some rather bitter Breton apple cider, Maggie got a crêpe caramel-beurre for dessert, and we left very satisfied with the whole experience. Alas, we left our camera at home so there are no pictures, but my complète looked very similar to this:

I was surprised to see the squared-off edges, but I guess it's somewhat normal.

In what has become a typical walk with visitors, we perused the Jewish-quarter food offerings along the Rue des Rosiers (pausing to buy really intense rye bread at Sacha Finkelsztajn), walked through ginormous department store BHV on our way to the Hôtel de Ville (which boasted a jam-packed ice-skating rink and two carousels, one of which we hopped on for free!), crossed the Seine and walked through Notre Dame.

In contrast with previous walks, after exiting Notre Dame we crossed the square, descended a slightly sketchy-looking stairwell, and entered the Crypte Archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame. It doesn't get any more "underground" than this: well-preserved ruins of Gallo-Roman settlements found under the square in front of Notre Dame, as well as a decent historical overview of Parisian urban development starting around the time of Julius Caesar (approx. 50 BC) through the early twentieth century. Apparently there are ruins like these just waiting to be found all over the 5th and 6th arrondissements - very cool.

Joy and Jake were meeting friends for dinner at 5, so we headed home, had a quick coffee, and they were off. Maggie and I finished watching season 4 of Entourage while enjoying leftover tuna-noodle casserole with (surprise!) sparkling red wine friends had brought over Saturday night. Joy and Jake got home around 9 (impressive), played some cards with Maggie while I talked with my mom on the phone, then we all went to bed. And that's the end of our good day.

Here's the beginning of our rough night: Maggie and I decided to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic, streaming from my mom's Netflix account (thanks, mom! and thanks, Harvard VPN!). Despite a ridiculous cast, this proved to be a terrible decision. The movie was just really bad. When we turned the lights off, I figured it was Isla Fischer's performance that had given me indigestion. Boy, was I wrong. (Warning: What follows may constitute TMI. Sorry.)

A few hours later I barely made it to the bathroom in time to be violently ill. Feeling gross, I showered, brushed my teeth, drank water to rehydrate, and went back to bed. Another hour of tossing and turning, and I knew I wasn't done, so I went back to hang out in the bathroom, and soon regretted having rehydrated. This time I only had a sip of water, and went back to bed. More tossing and turning, more feeling ill, but this time as I walked to the bathroom, I only had time to remark to Maggie, "I'm feeling a little light-headed," before passing out completely.

Here's where Joy and Jake came in handy. Jake is a third-year med student at KU and swiftly diagnosed dehydration. We didn't have any gatorade, so he concocted a tisane-sugar-salt solution and had me sip it, slowly, on the floor. Meanwhile, I have a feeling the moral support that they gave Maggie (just by being there) kept her as calm as could be expected.

Eventually Jake and Maggie walked me back to the bedroom (one in front, one behind, in case I fell again) and I only had one more episode before I finally managed to stop shivering and get to sleep. Today, while Joy and Jake hit up the Eiffel Tower and the Rodin Museum, Maggie stayed home and nursed me back to health. I'll be as good as new by tonight, promise.

Theories as to what caused this unpleasant turn of events: 1) The oeuf miroir I had on my galette at lunch. It turns out oeuf miroir isn't quite the same thing as a sunny-side up egg. The whole "miroir" (mirror) qualifier refers to the fact that you separate the white and yolk when cooking. First, the white fries very quickly, producing a sheen on top in which you're supposed to be able to see your reflection. Then, the yolk is added and cooks just a tiny little bit before being served. With the (minor) exception of the tons of raw cookie dough that I've eaten throughout my life, this was probably the rarest egg I've ever had. 2) The sparkling red wine we had with dinner. I don't think I've ever had sparkling red wine before, and I have to admit it was a little strange. 3) Confessions of a Shopaholic. Terrible, terrible movie.

First day of winter and the next 6 months

Today marks the first day of winter, also known as the winter solstice. Today is also the shortest day of the year. Here in Paris, the sun rose at 8:43 a.m. and set at 4:57 p.m., meaning we only had 8 hours and 14 minutes of daylight. Eek!

I have spent the last several solstices (summer and winter) watching the sun rise with friends in Somerville. We wake up very early, head out to a relatively elevated location, and attempt to catch those first rays. It's usually too cloudy or snowy to see anything, but it's invigorating and means that we're taking advantage of every moment of sunshine on the longest or shortest day of the year.

After the sun rises, we head back into town and find a warm spot for breakfast. Each person in attendance reviews what has happened in her life since the previous solstice (6 months ago) and states a few goals or wishes for the next 6 months. We thought we would continue this grand tradition:

What has happened since the last solstice:

• We had a yard sale
• We observed the first yahrzeit of Louis's dad
• Maggie had her last day of work at Primary Source, her friends Lauren and Cameron came to have a celebratory lunch, and Maggie and Louis left for a weekend trip to Maine, all on the same day!
• Louis played (and did not win) Fantasy Football
• We prepared for our move to Paris
• We moved to Paris!
• Maggie started babysitting and tutoring and taking classes
• Louis started doing archival research
• Robert visited
• Louis's cousins Sandi, Ethan, and Jacob visited
• We made new friends
• We made bagels!
• We visited Belgium
• Sarah visited
• We celebrated Thanksgiving in Munich
• We celebrated Hannukkah in Paris

Goals/wishes for the next 6 months:

• Speak more French (Louis and Maggie)
• Find important and relevant documents that have never been published (Louis)
• Celebrate our three-year anniversary and Louis's 26th birthday (Feb 1)
• Show our families and friends what we love about Paris
• Travel (Morocco? Poland? Italy?)
• Celebrate Panda's 2nd birthday (April 1)
• Stay sane and enjoy ourselves on a family cruise in the Caribbean 
• Figure out a plan for what to do when we return to the U.S. (Maggie)
• Safely return to Somerville

This tradition is one of my favorites - I encourage you to try it!

Happy Solstice!

Better than Canvas

Always in the avant-garde, Parisian artists have started working with a new medium, and I'm going to take a stab at naming it. But before I do, let me show you what I'm talking about:

Graffiti on a van: it's better than canvas, it's vanvas! ((C)Louis 2009) But seriously, I love the idea of mobile art that actually moves around (as opposed to the "mobiles" that hang in one place). I know the original "vanvas" was the subway car in NYC c. 1980, but that didn't last, mostly because the MTA kept cleaning its property. The owners of these vans, on the other hand, seem to show no interest in removing the art from their  vehicles, and I appreciate that. It certainly makes the streets more colorful. Some store owners have even preemptively commissioned their own vanvas:

Epicerie Le Caire, you win.