First Foreign Correspondent

We may have left Paris, but we still get updates from time to time thanks to our eyes and ears on the ground, Héloise. She recently emailed this shot of the fallout from Nuit Blanche, which Boston clearly needs to get going.

Yes, that's an old school Citroën delivery van sitting in a fountain at the Parc de Belleville. It's surrounded by streetlights, and it's about to be overrun by Tilal, who's breaching the fountain defenses. Thanks, Héloise, for reminding us of all that there is to miss about Paris - public art, parks, and thoughtful friends.

Farewell to Damien

Our plan for our last few days in Paris went like this: say goodbye to friends, check out a few new places, and tire out Panda so she sleeps on the plane and doesn't relapse into separation anxiety. (Final grades for each component of this plan: A, A, and F, respectively.) In an attempt to kill three birds with one RER ride, on Monday, May 31, we headed about 15 minutes south of Paris and met Damien at the Parc de Sceaux.

Damien lives in Antony, so the Parc de Sceaux is "his" park just like the Parc des Buttes Chaumont is "our" park. It's always fun hanging out with Damien, but it was especially nice also having a guide to what turned out to be a much larger space than we expected. Originally the grounds of the Château de Sceaux constructed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Stephen), the park includes a rose garden, a number of grand canals with fountains, a reconstructed château that houses the Île-de-France museum, fancy outbuildings, playgrounds, a sports complex, and lots of shaded paths.

Despite all this baroque beauty, we will always remember the Parc de Sceaux for the exciting discovery we made there: the park has not one, but TWO - count them - TWO off-leash dog areas.

This is clearly only possible because it's outside of Paris, and because the community of Sceaux is the 44th wealthiest in France. Paris can't even conceive of dedicating greenspace to dogs, even though it'd go a long way towards getting people to use leashes and ramasser. The off-leash areas were especially amazing because they were in wooded areas, rather than within gravel or dirt enclosures, so they seemed remarkably and sustainably clean. Needless to say, Panda was jumping for joy. Literally.

At the end of the day, we were sad to have to say goodbye to Damien, but happy to have discovered the Parc de Sceaux. We'll have to include a special appendix in our "Year in the Herbe" coffee-table book for superior and dog-friendly greenspaces outside the city.

Parc Montsouris

If we wrote a coffee table book called "A Year in the Herbe: 365 Parisian Parks," would you buy it? Because the more we walk around the city, the more impressed we are by the gads of green spaces the city manages to tuck away in every neighborhood, and we feel that Paris deserves recognition for something other than food, art, architecture, history, and other boring stuff.

Take the Parc Montsouris in the 14th arrondissement, for example. It boasts a lake, a guignol, a bandstand, pony rides, gorgeous landscaping, and lots of grass on which to lounge.


In all this, of course, the Parc Montsouris is not so different from the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, "our" park. The two were commissioned around the same time by Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Haussman, and were intended as the north and south anchors of the city's park system (the Bois de Vincennes in the east and the Bois de Boulogne in the west are the other two). One thing the Parc des Buttes Chaumont doesn't have, though: the RER B splitting it in two, or any station within the park.

But hey, who's keeping track?

Musée Cernuschi

We're getting pretty predictable. Blah blah blah free museum blah blah blah - even Andrea quipped, "If there's anything I've learned from your blog, it's that you and Maggie are free museum day whores." Well, Andrea, do we have a surprise for you! Here's a post about a museum that's free all the time: the Musée Cernuschi.

Situated in a former hôtel particulier (private mansion) just off the Parc Monceau, the museum houses the incredible collection of Chinese and other Asian art amassed by Henri Cernuschi, a 19th-century banker.

Screens, statues large and small, lots of Buddhas, terra cotta warriors, awesome temporary exhibitions, this museum pretty much has it all. Did I mention the Buddhas? And of course the building itself is gorgeous/epic. Bonus: The Musée Cernuschi is right down the street from the Musée Nissim Camondo, so you can make an afternoon of it.

Action!

A few weeks ago, before the park was truly bursting with the colors of spring, we happened upon a film set. It was a good 8 minutes before we figured out exactly what the film crew was filming. Was she a famous actress? Was it a movie scene? A TV show? Alas, we were witness to nothing more than a yogurt commercial. My excellent sleuthing skills tell me that it was a commercial for none other than Taillefine (literally, slender waist) brand yogurt, which would explain why they chose an extremely skinny model and did everything they could to accentuate her thinness (including pulling her shirt extra tight with a clip and smoothing it between every take).

From our observations, the commercial consisted of the young woman in purple walking through a park - past the teenagers making out and some dudes playing Frisbee (not pictured) - all the while enjoying her first spoonful of yogurt.

When she reaches the end of the bench, she has a realization (or a heart attack) and gets a very surprised look on her face.

At last, she falls to the ground, out of sight. Except she wasn't out of our sight, and we had the pleasure of seeing her (over and over again) get rid of the spoonful of yogurt she had eaten just moments before. Hey, she's got to keep a slender waist, right? 

The Clock's Ticking

A few weeks ago we decided it was time to stop pretending that our Parisian adventure would never end, and we bought our return tickets home. (To Boston-area friends with SUVs: our flight back is June 2nd, and we'll get in around 4 PM. Would anyone be able to give us and our 200 lbs. of luggage a ride?)

Knowing exactly when we're heading home has motivated us to do all those things we've been meaning to get to for a while, and by things we mean visiting museums, parks, stores, restaurants, neighborhoods, etc. So far, the best way to plan has involved making lots of lists, and today we share those lists with you. If you have an opinion on any of the places or activities below, we hope you'll share it with us, since clearly we're going to need to prioritize!

Museums	Parks	Restaurants	Other
Musée de l'Orangerie	Bois de Boulogne	Hidden Kitchen	Marché de Rungis
Musée Eugène Delacroix	Parc Monceau	Le Baratin	Château de Versailles
Musée des Arts et Métiers	Parc Montsouris	Pizza Positano	Grande Mosquée
Musée de l'Histoire de France	Parc Sceaux		Hôtel Sully
Musée de Chasse et de Nature
Atelier Brancusi
Musée Cernuschi
Cité de l'Immigration
Maison de Balzac
Maison de Hugo
Musée Jean Moulin
Mémorial de la Shoah

We have 59 days left in Paris (excluding the two weeks total we'll be out of town over the next month), most of which I should spend finishing up research. How many items do you think we will (or should) end up crossing off this list?

Patterns

Inspired in part by this post, I've been paying special attention to patterns, lines, shapes. They're everywhere!

Cour du Palais Royal

Louvre Staircase

Belleville Door

Société Générale Glass Ceiling

Crushed Baking Chocolate

You know what else is everywhere? Life.

We Have a Winner!!

Congratulations to Laurenmcw, who won our second photo challenge! She correctly identified that the photos from two previous posts (here and here) were taken at the Parc de Bercy, just across the river from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Two weeks ago, on a walk with our new friends Rachel and Adam, we discovered these random statues - and the artists who were slapping new coats of paint on them. We couldn't decide if they were "for real" or not. Who sculpts stereotypes of people from different cultures, and in bronze no less? Of course, for some of them the stereotypes are less obvious (maybe the next photo challenge is figuring out what culture each statue is supposed to represent):

Adam tries to guess the statue's native culture

Turns out they're just façades. Just like the message they seek to impart to society?

View of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France from the Parc de Bercy, over the Passarelle Simone de Beauvoir

As her prize for winning the photo challenge, Laurenmcw should look for something small, tasty, and typically Parisian to arrive in the mail within the next few weeks. Congrats!

Bringing Your Dog to Paris

Some tips for people thinking about bringing an American dog to Paris:

1. Train your dog to run off-leash in open, un-fenced spaces. There are NO fenced dog parks in Paris. None. Nada. Rien. In other words, your dog should come when called. From what we can tell, Parisian dogs are trained this way from the very beginning, so unless you are bringing a puppy to Paris (who can learn from the locals?), you might want to invest in some off-leash training classes.

2. Train your dog to pee on hard surfaces. There are very, very few grassy spots for Spot to take care of business. Your life will be easier if your dog can pee on the nearest garbage can. I'm not exactly sure how one trains for this... we haven't yet been able to figure it out.

3. Train your dog to ignore pigeons. Pigeons are everywhere here. If your dog likes to stalk pigeons, it will be very difficult to walk down the sidewalk to the nearest non-grassy, non-dog park. Again, this is not something we've had success with.

4. Train your dog to wear a disguise. Well, not really. But if you want to take your dog anywhere that is not within walking distance (and you don't have a car), you will have to sneak him or her onto the Métro. Alas, Parisians seem to ignore this breach of the law much as they do subway panhandlers.

5. Train your dog to be ignored. That is, your dog may be super cute and win the hearts of all passersby back in the States, but this is Paris. Public displays of affection for someone else's dog just don't happen. Unless, of course, you encounter another dog owner. This may afford you a cordial Bonjour, or perhaps just a knowing smile.

When it comes down to it, we're happy that Panda accompanied us on this adventure (if a little stressed every time we let her off-leash and watch her sprint off into the distance). She has forced us outside every single day (and will continue to do so even through what we've been told will be a dreary winter) and sparked conversations with strangers we never would have had otherwise. However, there are aspects of having a dog in Paris that we did not ever consider - hopefully these tips will help others be more fully informed.

Nuit Blanche

If you're reading this before 7 AM Paris time on Sunday, October 4th, quick! Get on the 11 or 14 metro (open all night) and enjoy what's left of Nuit Blanche, an all-night party in the Parc de Buttes Chaumont, the Marais, and the Latin Quarter!

Maggie, Sandi, Jacob, Panda, and I saw the preparations for this nighttime celebration of contemporary art during our walk (or leap) in the Parc de Buttes Chaumont yesterday. This evening, Jacob, Panda, and our new friends Adam and Rachel (thanks for the hook-up, Talya!) enjoyed the fruit of all that labor on another long walk through the park. (Maggie, alas, had a babysitting gig across the courtyard, and couldn't make it.) The park was packed, and the art was awesome.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After (sorry for the terrible photography)

Golden Slumbers Fill Your Eyes . . .