We're Back!

Our cruise ended on Sunday and we were supposed to fly back Sunday night/Monday morning, but like so many other travelers over the last week, the ash cloud prevented our transatlantic return trip.

We were a lot luckier than most of the thousands upon thousands of stranded folks, since our flights to and from Florida took us through Philadelphia, which is roughly where my mom lives. So from Sunday through Tuesday, we were "stranded" at her house, which was much nicer than any airport or hotel. Our second stroke of luck came around 11 PM on Monday night, when the last-call-to-USAirways-before-bedtime yielded two seats on a flight out of Charlotte for the next day. It was a gamble - we could have arrived at Charlotte only to find our flight to Paris canceled - but we had to take it.

And our gamble paid off! Insert huge sigh of relief here. With only six weeks left until we return Stateside for good, every day counts!

PS - Several people asked us to try to take a picture of the volcanic ash as we flew by. I'm pretty sure that even if the plane were to fly anywhere near the ash (which it wouldn't), the stuff wouldn't be visible. But my understanding is that it does contribute to incredibly beautiful, extremely red sunrises and sunsets, and we did catch a sunrise just before landing in Paris, so I'll let you decide for yourself how much ash was in the air.

Crisis Update

Here's what happened:

I spent Wednesday and Thursday right outside of Caen, Normandy, at a private archive in a converted 15th-century monastery. The setting was gorgeous, the archive, fruitful, the food, plentiful. I spent the night on the grounds of the archive, in a comfortable, sleekly-appointed room in the former farinier (grainery?). The experience was so pleasant that I think I'll go back for the entire duration of the time it takes to write my dissertation.

Actually, that'd get expensive - lunch and dinner are 12 euros a piece and a night's stay is 20 euros, which is all very competitive by Paris prices, but unsustainable over the long term. But the archive was really wonderful, and in two days I think I found enough relevant documents to write an entire chapter, or at least a journal article or conference paper. And that's two days of good work. Plus, even if I didn't find anything at all, just spending two days in the Abbatiale, or former-chapel-become-reading-room-and-open-stacks, would have made the experience worthwhile.

So everything went swimmingly for two days, the only catch being that I had to leave slightly earlier than planned on Thursday due to a rail strike. I checked out, got in the taxi to the train station (I tried to tell the administrator who arranges such things that I could just as easily take the bus, but she wouldn't hear of it), and that was the end of the experience, at least until next time. On our way past the main entrance, I tried to snap one more picture of the incredibly photogenic compound.

This moment was when things went terribly wrong. What I didn't realize was that in taking out the camera to snap a terrible, worthless photograph, I knocked my passport out of my backpack, onto the floor of the taxicab. I didn't even notice that my passport was missing until well after I got home, and at that point I had no way of knowing whether it had fallen out of my bag in the taxi, or on the train back.

I went to Gare St. Lazare to check their lost-and-found, but no one had picked up anything. First thing this morning, I called the archive to try to figure out what taxi I had been in; they promised to work on it. I didn't wait to see whether it would turn up, because we're leaving Saturday for Florida, and if I had to replace my passport, I figured I should give myself a two-day head-start rather than waiting until Friday morning.

So I biked/ran to the US Embassy, American Citizen Services section, where I nervously presented my case and hoped I would be granted my new passport in time to leave. It turned out that this kind of thing happens all the time, and they're well prepared for my scenario. That's why this morning ended up being the most pleasant bureaucratic experience of my life. I was in and out in under 2 hours with a new (temporary) passport in hand and a bounce in my step. Of course, I'd had my cell phone taken away while I was in the Embassy, so as soon as I got out I found out that right at the moment my new passport was placed in my hand, my old passport had been found - in the taxi, in Caen.

All's well that ends well, I guess. As much as I would have liked to have continued collecting stamps and visas and French green cards in my old passport, I think I probably did the right thing by being proactive. And at least I still get to keep the old passport as a souvenir, just like I'd always planned.

Florida, here we come!

Crisis Mode

I seem to have misplaced my passport. And we're supposed to leave for Florida in two days.

Tomorrow, I'll explain how this happened. (Hopefully tomorrow I'll know more about how this happened. Right now, I can only speculate.)

More importantly, early tomorrow morning I will get in line at the US Embassy, where I should be able to procure a same-day "emergency" passport. Wish me luck.

Rehearsal Excitement

So as Maggie recently reported, I'm getting ready to perform in a few concerts in May, and yesterday I had a rehearsal/coaching session at the apartment of the piano teacher of our group's pianist. This teacher, Noël Lee, happens to be an American composer and concert pianist who's been living in Paris for more than 50 years, so it's always a pleasure and an honor to play for him.

As you'll hear in the clip below, we were in the middle of working on a section when I saw something strange through the window. (I've taken the liberty of amplifying the sound around 30 seconds in so you can hear the conversation better.)

Here's a little transcript of the beginning, showing just how much work my French still needs.

Me: Il y a un mec qui a, qui vient de . . . comment tu dis . . . he just climbed in the window over there
Noël: What?
Me: There's a guy who just climbed in the window. Il a . . . [Noël: Where?] grimpé, il a grimpé dans la fenêtre, juste en face . . .

There were two problems with my observation. First, no one quite believed me, since how crazy is it that someone would just climb in the window of a 2nd-floor apartment across the street? And second, I kept saying "greeempay" when I should have been saying "grampay" (as Noël quietly acknowledges around 1:07), so it's possible Dominique (my accompanist) didn't understand.

We all kind of laughed about it at the time - you can hear Noël say, "well, bravo!" at the end, and just after that, he wonders if maybe the guy just lost his keys. But today I got an email from Noël proving that what I saw was no laughing matter:

You might be interested to learn that the man you saw yesterday climb the building opposite was a thief; he got away with money, restaurant tickets, and such and left by the same route, but I guess you didn't see him go down.   My neighbor who lives underneath told me this morning.  If you have any details about what he looked like, let me know.

Oops. All I remember is that he was wearing a white jacket, he was skinny, and he had dark hair. That describes about a quarter of the guys in this city, so it probably won't be very helpful.

The rehearsal, on the other hand, was very helpful. Dominique and I are making good progress on a piece we're playing for fun, rather than for either of the concerts in May. Just in case you're curious, it's the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in F minor, Opus 120 No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, and so far we've gotten through the first and second movements. Below is a somewhat choppy cut-and-paste from our rehearsal/coaching yesterday so you can get an idea of what the two movements sound like.

A little excitement

On my way back from the library yesterday afternoon, I happened upon a dramatic scene. Remember those fire trucks I profiled way back? Well, I finally got to see them put to good use.

Sorry the pictures aren't that great - I'm no photojournalist. Mostly what I saw (along with at least 120 other bystanders) were the firemen breaking the windows to the first floor apartment, seemingly to give the smoke a smoother exit strategy. Passing by the same spot today, the windows were already boarded up. A little excitement had already given way to cold reality.

Hard Water

I'm always one to defend municipal water. Coming from NJ, there has always been much to defend. It's cheap, it's good for you, it doesn't waste plastic and you're already paying for it with tax dollars, so why throw away a few bucks (or worse, euros) on a bottle of "mineral" water? But this isn't about my distaste for bottled water, which is shared by many. This is about an indefensible aspect of water here in Paris: too much calcium.

Consider our average cup of tea. Notice the cracked "surface," the gunk accumulating on the sides of the mug. Both are indications of hard water, which usually means too much calcium or magnesium. It's not unhealthy, just kind of gross looking. It also means that soap doesn't easily lather, and that soap scum easily forms. Our water may not be hard enough to cause frequent soap scum, but what you see above is pretty normal for hot tea, and calcium is clearly building up on the shower doors.

Thank goodness they sell "anti-calcifying" solution in the stores here (a clear sign other people have the same problem). Also, it turns out you can run a solution of 1-part distilled vinegar, 1-part water through whatever appliances/dishes need cleaning, et voilà! Problem solved.

Still, it'd be better not to have to deal with hard water at all. And that's one reason we'll be glad to get back to Boston, which has (along with the rest of the Northeast) some of the softest water in the country.

Chapter 149: In Which Our Protagonists Dip Their Toes In The Murky Waters Of Socialized Medicine

Maggie got sick last Friday. I had the decency to wait until Matt left to get sick, but I got sick too. We're both still suffering from congestion, runny noses, fatigue, and coughing. This makes me sad, and makes Maggie a little crazy-eyed.


So today we went to the doctor. Sure, it's obvious we just have bad colds, but we figured just going would make us feel better. WE FIGURED WRONG!!!!!!1111

See, France has what you might call "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!!!!!" and we knew what to expect. First off, we couldn't keep our regular doctors. Because they were still in the States. Second, we couldn't choose our new doctor here. Because we kept getting recommendations from all our neighbors, and we just could not figure out who to pick. Third, we knew there wouldn't just be a single doctor seeing us, but rather a whole PANEL of doctors!!! And everything would be more expensive, and we would be brainwashed into becoming Communists, and we would probably leave more diseased than we arrived. Sad times . . .

But seriously, everything went swimmingly. We picked a doctor recommended by Héloise, in part because the office was two blocks away, in part because any doctor that wins the trust of a mother of three boys under 8 must be doing something right. I called at 1 PM, concluded we didn't need a house visit (doctors still make them here), and got a 5 PM appointment. At the office, we waited about 15 minutes, he saw us for about 30 minutes, we left the pharmacy with our prescriptions 15 minutes after that.

We filled out no paperwork. He asked us if we had insurance, but only so he could sign and hand over the reimbursement form. We paid cash for the visit - 44 euros for the two of us, which (at $63) seems more like a co-pay than the full cost of a doctor's appointment. (Also, it was weird to hand cash over to the doctor himself, but hey, whatever it takes to save on administrative costs . . .)

The really shocking, devastatingly "socialized" part came when we arrived at the pharmacy. We handed over the prescriptions. The guy couldn't do the insurance stuff online because Maggie doesn't have a permanent card yet (she's on French student health insurance) and I'm still on Blue Cross/Blue Shield (ironically, I wasn't eligible for French student health insurance). So he did the insurance stuff by hand, and gave us our medication, and guess how much it cost?

10.96 euros. For five different pieces of medication. Including two whose slogans must be something like, "Strong enough for a rhino, gentle enough for your nose." So 10.96 euros, and that's before insurance reimbursement. Normally, you'd get it all back, but since we don't have a "regular" doctor in France, the insurance company takes 4 euros off the reimbursement. Harsh.

In conclusion, we're kind of hoping we can get our hands on some of this socialized medicine stuff when we get back to the US. (Thank goodness for Massachusetts! Or not . . .)

PS - If you look closely at the boxes, you'll see Braille. Very cool. Socialized Medicine FTW.

High Humidity

Paris is an incredibly humid place, as we've mentioned before. With the colder temperatures we experienced last week, not to mention the presence of visitors, it's been harder to open windows and air the place out. The result? Condensation! Moisture! MOLD!!!

What our bedroom window looks like most mornings. Yes, that is all on the inside.

On rare days, there's so much water on the window that it actually runs down to the floor in tiny rivulets . . .

We discovered some mold growing on the window last week, and swiftly cleaned it off. No respiratory ailments here, please!

The basic problem is one of circulation; there is none in this apartment. That's why we need to alternate opening windows in each room for a little bit every day. That's also why it's good to keep a fan running sometimes, even though it makes it feel colder. Finally, that's why we invested in a déshumidificateur (dehumidifier), which manages to keep water off the windows, but only if it runs all night.

This little guy can only dehumidify 17 square meters at a time, so unless we empty it once over the course of the night, it fills up after running 5 or 6 hours.

Thanks, trusty déshumidificateur! Here's looking forward to spring!

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.

Miscommunications

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Flanders-centric programming to bring you an update from the end of last week. Maggie's college friend Sarah visited from Wednesday afternoon to Sunday morning, and great fun was had by all. Except Thursday night.

See, Richard Strauss's Salomé is playing at the Opéra, and as Salomé is just about my favorite opera ever, we decided to try for rush tickets. We were all going to meet at 5:30 to get in line, but Maggie called at 5 to let me know that she and Sarah were second in line, and that I didn't need to come. They'd get the tickets and return home for dinner, then we'd all go back together. So I made a spinach, tomato, and red onion quiche.

Then I checked my phone and saw that Maggie had texted me right after our phone conversation to say that she had already picked up some surprises for dinner, and all I needed to do was get bread and make salad. Oops. Miscommunication #2.

#2?? What happened to #1? Here's what happened: Maggie called back around 6:15 to say that the ticket windows were just opening, so they probably couldn't make it home. Thinking I'd bring dinner to them, I packed up some quiche, salad, and water, and headed out. Two minutes later, Maggie called again to say they had mistakenly gotten tickets for a ballet rather than Salomé. That's weird, I thought. I didn't know they were giving a ballet tonight. Maybe I got the date wrong. When I arrived at Bastille, I called Maggie to find out where they were (they had gone to get bread) and she told me to meet them across from the Uniqlo. That's weird, I thought. I didn't know they'd opened a Uniqlo at Bastille.

It was only when I happened to pass by a poster advertising the evening's cultural offerings that I realized, with disbelief, the nature of Miscommunication #1.

We were at different opera houses.

Maggie and Sarah had gone to the Palais Garnier - you know, the one that looks like an opulent opera house.

I, on the other hand, had gone to the place where I knew Salomé was playing, which looks very little like an opera house, and which is always called "l'Opéra Bastille," while the older building is commonly called "l'Opéra".

Miscommunication #3 actually occurred between Maggie/Sarah and the establishment of the Opéra (Garnier). These ladies never looked at the tickets to see what time the ballet started - since Salomé was supposed to start at 8, they assumed the ballet started at 8, too - and when I called Maggie to tell her that we were in different places, I also ended up informing her that the ballet started at 7:30. So we weren't going to have time to eat, and I had to rush over from Bastille.

Ultimately, I arrived a few minutes late, but luckily we had "loge" (ground-floor box) seats, so they could let us in even though the performance had already started. The evening was split into three ballets by three different choreographers. The first ballet was minimalist through and through, with musical extracts from Phillip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, the dancers wearing only primary colors (and green), and the "set" consisting of a screen on which was projected many slowly moving, primary colored-lines, which created accidental optical illusions. The second ballet, choreographed to Georg Ligeti, was most notable for having made two-way mirrors out of the scrims. It was also the première run of that ballet. We didn't stay for the third ballet, due to the combination of miscommunications, dance semiotics incomprehension, ultra-repetitive/unpalatable music, and hunger. Luckily the NYT published a review of the evening, and you can see pictures and read all about it there. (That's 6 articles about Paris or Parisian events just this week.)

We learned the following lessons: always specify which Opéra you're meeting at. Never bake a surprise quiche. And if you find yourself disliking whatever's being performed at Opéra Garnier, you can always draw strength from the heavens above:

Ceiling art by Marc Chagall.

Cautionary Tale

Most people who come to Europe with chargeable American electronics (laptop, cell phone, iPod) know they need an adapter. We knew, too.

Plugs look like this in Europe.

Outlets here provide a 220V current, whereas in the US they provide a 120V current. Maggie and I came with 8 adapters - some we'd accumulated over the years, some we bought just to have for this trip. Out of all the gadgets we brought with us, only one used a charger that couldn't accept a 220V current - my Phillips SoniCare toothbrush. (Maggie's newer model was fine.)

So I bought a converter. Not to be confused with an adapter, which merely changes the shape of a plug - but does nothing to the current - a converter actually changes the size of the current. My toothbrush charger could only handle a 120V current, so the converter took the outlet's 220V and magically turned it into the needed 120V. Until tonight.

Converters are much bigger than adapters, and often have LEDs.

I set up my toothbrush in its charger, plugged in the charger using an adapter, and came back later to find that it wasn't charging. Well, yeah, of course - because I didn't plug it into the converter. And because I didn't plug it into the converter, the 220V current fried my 120V-loving charger. And now I can't ever use it to charge my toothbrush again.

Moral of the story: never confuse an adapter with a converter. Try not to bring electronics whose chargers won't accept a 220V. And don't look too closely at my teeth while I wait for my new charger to arrive.

Maggie Did Not Approve This Post

I couldn't relegate this to a comment on her last post. This is pretty much what Maggie did all week:

Panda could not have been happier.

La grippe!

There's a flu bug getting passed around

And it's spreading like fire through the town

There's a virus holing up inside us

Everyone that I know is coming down

There's an asian influenza

Infecting us all by the score

And it's turning into pneumonia

We must go out once more

There's a fool moon howling at the night

And its bark is much worse than its bite

So we must go out and dance around

Yes we must go tonight

La grippe!, salsa!

(Squirrel Nut Zippers, via LyricsFreak)

This week, I didn't leave the house. Not once. Not even to track down a tasty croissant or practice conjugasions at my cours de français. What could ever have kept me inside in such a delightfully vibrant city on such delightfully beautiful fall days? As SNZ said, la grippe! That's right. I caught a bug. Perhaps it was on the metro when a woman sneezed right on my hand. Perhaps it was the boys I babysit, who ever so sweetly gave me bises before leaving for vacation. Or perhaps it was due to the incredible humidity levels in this city and in our apartment (I mean, really, 80-90% humidity? You've got to be kidding me!).

In any case, I got it. I endured. It's done. Mostly.

Now, you may be wondering... was I the latest victim of the SWINE FLU??????? Insert scary music here. Perhaps. But here in France, you would simply call me the latest victim of la grippe A. Sounds more pleasant, right? And in fact, I would say that based on our religious viewings of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings Charles Gibson, folks back home are waaaay more concerned about this flu than they are here in France. In fact, we haven't heard anything about how or where to get vaccinated. (FYI: We will get vaccinated if given the opportunity. Take that Glenn Beck.)

In conclusion, I may or may not have contracted the H1N1 virus. According to my doctor I did display some, but not all, of the symptoms associated with this virus. And, because I'm young and healthy, there was no need to get tested or undergo further treatment. Alas.


Oh, and we got ourselves a déshumidificateur. I feel better already.