It's a new city.

Paris has become a new city-- at least for me. Some of it is for the good, and some of it leaves me nostalgic for the old.

I read in the travel guides that Paris had succumbed to blue jeans, but I did not believe it. It's true--the Parisians in the neighborhood between Museé Rodin and St Germain des Pres ar still so stylish that I want to crawl under a rock, but everywhere else I am finding that I cannot tell who is French and who is not. Several times I have decided, oh, definitely American! and I've then heard perfect French. On the other hand I have not spotted someone and thought gorgeous! and then heard English. But there has evolved a huge grey area--most people are not obviously one or the other.

There has been one exception. Dan and I took the train to Chartres, and while waiting on the bench for the return train I spotted Seattleites, and told Dan immediately!: She: the glasses, severe, thin red wire on the top, clear below. The militantly practical clothing. The husband, in a bad shirt, skinny tie tied much too short, absolutely horrific French on the telephone. The backpacks (one was namebranded "BombPack"--what were they thinking?). And the Seattle coolness! When I spoke to her, she just brushed me off like mud on a shoe. Then, the overheard conversation about the travails of the high-tech life: "you have to be pretty bold to take two weeks vacation at a time." And then, vindication: they started talking about Seattle. Yegads.

The disturbingly new Museé Rodin kind of tarnished things for me. I am glad that I can remember the old. There is a new entrance building with gift shop, security check, and offices, which I assume are quite necessary and inoffensive. The Hotel Biron that houses the smaller pieces is still the same, charming, many pieces displayed on the old sculptor's Lazy Susan pedestals, and I love that you can turn a corner in the house and see three Van Goghs. Surprise! However, The Gates of Hell is now embedded in a huge wall that dwarfs the sculpture, and damages its effect. The formal garden leading to it is, too, off-scale. Its conical evergreens will soon outstrip the Gates in height, and the tall hybrid roses are pretty for a garden, but have absolutely no scent. Le Penseur (the Thinker) is on a very tall pedestal--what I liked most about him was that he looked so oversized, but set at a distance, now, he looks proportional to, say, me. The Burghers of Calais are on a little square of marble with a foot-wide moat--they look trapped on an island, and very unhappy--more bourgeois than they ever expected to be. I really love Rodin's huge, expressive feet and hands, but the current displays obscure those things. And I tried not to blow a gasket when I found that Camille Claudel had been whisked away. Evn though I suspected the worst--that she'd been tucked away in an asylum in death as in life (because I think she was better than Rodin anyway)--I found that her sculptures are on a world tour. Whew!

The good here is that les gourmands have invaded the museum. We had a wonderful lunch of mixed cold salads: julienned carrots, tuna niçoise, a pasta salad with genuine flavor, and couscous.

The old in some cases is still the same. Our plumbing, for instance. Today I cheered the draining of the kitchen sink. It is capricious at best. But I think we can begin to count on the daily draining, and will probably create a ceremony to honor it, much as the citizens once gathered for the Reveille, i.e. to watch Louis XIV use the Kingly toilet in the morning.

The new can be spectacular. We arrived on Sunday at the Pantheon (I am making a point to visit all the old buildings I've missed) to find a brand new installation of--don't know what to call it, so I will try to describe it--an art piece by Ernesto Neto called 'Leviathan Thon'. Suspended from this ancient domed space are white nylon shapes filled with sand, and lighter materials to create a maze of playful tubes and pendules. People cannot resist touching them, and they are white, artificial and organic all at the same time. There are a range of fabrics with holes, like big nets, stretched around the space in the center where an old Foucault Pendulum still slowly tocks. It is great fun, and a great surprise.

And I am sure that the patisserie Gerard Mulot is not traditional. It is the Crown Jewels of the patisserie world. And I am doubly sorry that I still haven't the skill to show you a picture, because you would not believe your eyes. And the Coeur Volant (flaming heart, I believe) is the best assemblage of choclate mousses and ganache that looks like banded onyx that I have ever tasted.

Once again, I am running out of time. Eqch dqy is so rich in experience thqt I cannot begin to tell you all. The busker on the Métro playing folk fiddle who makes a joke by sliding into Jingle Bells. The Brillat Savarin that tastes like nothing I have ever had before, that ruins my entire plan of trying only things I cannot get at home. Even when I CAN get it at home it is not the same thing at all...

Again, apologies about the technical things. The Ipod is trying to crash, the battery charger already did, but ze are figuring out the camera, and Dan has some great pictures. Next step, I promise, is that we will leqrn how to share them.