Saturday, September 16, 2006

And why should they?

It seems that Parisians are far less eager than Londoners to communicate with the rest of the world: And why should they? Even though my Gourmet Magazine from 2003 or 2004 says that Parisians are calling for takeout just like the rest of the world, not making a daily course of shopping-- fromager, charcuterie, boulangerie--it seems to me that that way of life is quite possible, and still common. And when there are no less than four cheese shops within four blocks of a little apartment in the Latin Quarter, who would ever want to venture out or even call home?

But I have tried--Mitch is in the process of buying a small aparment himself (stateside, of course) and so he has been trying to call me, but my apartment phone has been out of service because its batteries leaked. And I spent a good hour trying to figure out the rented cell phone, but still only know how to make a local call. Finally getting through last night (they replaced the phone), Mitch sent me on a chase to send a fax to free up some money. Well, the Poste here will send a fax, but the first attempt failed. Not knowing whether it failed because of a wrong number, I sent myself off to track down an internet cafe to check numbers. Finding one after following a dated guide to an empty address, and asking directions from a seller of antique books--I like that he knew without hesitation where to send me--then tracking down new numbers, and a new Poste, I achieved success just three minutes before the post office closed for the weekend! And I enjoyed the challenge of making my way in the city--

So, what have we been up to? We had a great time in London, though I was surprisingly much more jet-lagged than Dan. It might have been the English coffee. It smelled like toasted grains, and was very dark, but had absolutely no flavor. So I didn't wake up until I'd found espresso, and that meant getting dressed frist. So you understand.

The British, at least in Central London, are soooo friendly. All we had to do was pull out a map, and someone on the street tried to help. And when we were in Leicester Square--tourist central--looking at a bus tour and trying to decide, a couple from Suffolk walked up to us, asked if we were tourists, and pressed 24-hour hop-on, hop-off double-decker bus tour tickets into my hands. I was starting to tell them the little bit we'd figured out so far, thinking they were deciding like we were, but, no, they wanted to give away just-purchased (and very expensive) tickets they had decided not to use. So we took a full tour, and a small boat ride up the Thames to boot, and it was a great orientation to a city I don't know much about.

We saw one play--Donkey's Years by Michael Frayn. The lead was played by David Haig, who would look very familiar to you if you've seen Four Weddings and a Funeral (Bernard). It was a silly farce, and we loved it, in the old Comedy Theatre, founded 1881.

I have to say the food was pretty unremarkable, so when we return, I plan to be more diligent about looking for the exact places listed in my recent magazines. I was just too muzzy-headed to decide, and so I left our dining to chance, which is still a bad idea in London. And I am ashamed to say that I ran out of time before I made it to Neal's Yard Cheese. I was torn--the famous books in the British Library vs. cheese--what would you have done? Magna Carta--Montgomery Cheddar--what to do?

The Chunnel was pleasant but pretty unremarkable. There's not much to see out the windows, and you go underground before you have any sight of the sea. But our seatmates! Two cousins, one 82 and the other not saying, were just delightful. The 82-year-old, the 13th of 13, had been in London after The War and spoke a little very polite English, and my French was passable enough to communicate with this lovely Parisian. The other cousine d'une certaine age was from near Lyon, and lived in one of the pretty hill towns pressed up next to the Alps. Dan, of course, made them both laugh--he may not speak a lot of French, but somehow he can still pull off a joke!

We also shared our coach with an Australian family who had taken several weeks to make a trip back to British home cities that they had not seen in 33 years, to take their three children to see relatives and every sight along the way. Jeanette was a travel agent, and she had everything planned down to the minute.

Tragedy has, however, struck. I left my sock on the train! At least I still have one ball of the Cherry Tree Hill red-brown-apricot variegated yarn that Melinda gave me, but one set of needles, a half-made sock and a ball of gorgeous yarn probably was blown up by border agents finding it unattended. What a picture. French border guards carry machine guns. For real.

Some cultural notes: When you see q's where a's should be on e-documents, somebody must have been using a French keyboard. You also have to shift to get numbers and the period.

And for those of us who have seen Black Cat, White Cat (movie): if my memory is correct, the coke-snorting comic "rapper" star in the film is Ali-G, right? Well, every little grocery here, run by non-parisians (the movie is Serbian or something near that) is called Alimentation Generale, or abbreviated Ali G. I think they are trying to make a funny in the movie that we never would understand if we're not from here.

I must run off. I'll tell you all more qbout Pqris soon, but it is bequtiful, comfortqble, qnd still full of surprises. See, what did I tell you about the q's?

2 Comments:

Blogger Dorothy Neville said...

oh, your poor sock! may we hope that some soldier or conductor or passenger took the package home to their knitterly partner?

I saw Meghan and she gave me some cheese mites for Franz to look at under the microscope. the question remains: dare we look that close?

Hi to Dan and love to you both.

4:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This sounds like such a great trip already. More updates! Your loyal readers demand regular updates! More! More! More! (Sorry for the Andrea True allusion, but trust me: it could get much, much worse....)

11:24 PM  

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