DES MARCHES ET DES MARCHÉS

It seems this blog needs an update, so I am going to offer a quick one, though there’s little time left this evening for it!

Swann et Vincent, 15th arrondissement

We had a very full weekend, for a number of reasons.  We started off the right way on Friday night with dinner out at a tiny local restaurant called Swann et Vincent.  We had seen it a few nights earlier, and I said, “I like the look of that place!”  So after wandering aimlessly for a while in a different area, we ended up in our own backyard.  And, speaking of backyards, the couple sitting directly behind us at the restaurant were English and Scottish, own a flat near ours here in Paris, and currently live in . . . Boston! 

Des olives

Later that night—around midnight, to be exact, niece Molly Carmona—a third year architecture student at Notre Dame—came with two friends, Jenny and Elaine, for a whirlwind Parisian visit.  They arrived around midnight, and after a short night’s sleep, they filled Saturday and Sunday touring the great museums and sights of Paris.  Given their interest in architecture, they had a real field day here!  Our responsibility was primarily to fuel them with croissants, pains au chocolat, and chaussons aux pommes each morning, and they also joined us for dinner and some relaxation on Sunday evening.  Our flat is very comfortable, and I think they enjoyed themselves.

Catherine, Justin, Katie

On Saturday morning we went to the local Saxe-Breteuil market, and then we caught up with Irish friends Catherine and Justin MacCarthy in the early afternoon.  We walked over to meet them at the Centre Culturel Irlandais where Catherine (a poet) is doing a two-month residency (Justin was just here visiting for the weekend).  They wanted to show us their corner of Paris, and what a treat that was.  We first walked to a wonderful little lunch spot called the Jardin des Pâtes (Garden of Pasta), and we had lunch there.  We then went for a stroll in the nearby Jardin des Plantes, a kind of arbortetum with a boulevard of trees and special little nooks and crannies throughout.  It was almost 60 degrees that day, and all of Paris was promenading about!

Justin & Tom

We walked from the Jardin to the River Seine and a short way further to the Institut du Monde Arabe.  This is an extraordinary building that is home and host to the cultural artifacts of the Arab world.  Catherine and Justin wanted to take us to the terrace on top of the building where we enjoyed  tea and coffee in a dramatic setting overlooking the Seine, the Ile de la Cité and the Ile St. Louis.  What a fabulous place to be on a beautiful day!  And then we made our way back toward their quartier, stopping to see a primary site of the round-up of French Jews by Nazis from 1942-44.  We also walked by the Arènes de Lucèce, a park with a first-century Roman wall uncovered during Haussman’s reconstruction of Paris in the nineteenth century.

Notre Dame

When we left Catherine and Justin after a great day, Tom realized he hadn’t brought along his Metro pass, so we decided we would just walk home.  That was fine, but we got pretty tired at the very end.  And when we sat down in our own little place, we realized why: I looked at the pedometer and we had walked more than 28,000 steps that day—over 12 miles!

So, although we could have slept forever after that, we were up in the morning on Sunday to greet our young guests from Rome and to send them on their way into Paris again.  While they were out, we had my old friend Maggie Doherty, now a long-time resident of the Montmartre area of Paris, over for lunch!  Maggie and I had met up near her place on Thursday, but Tom and I enjoyed a leisurely lunch with her chez nous, and then went for a walk out to the Marché du Livres, an antiquarian book market.  A chill descended all afternoon, and by evening it was quite cold.  Molly, Jenny, and Elaine joined us for dinner here, and then we went to bed relatively early as we knew there would be an early wake-up call.

Marché du Livres

Katie & Maggie

Today we had to get out les parapluies and fend off the rain. I began my second week of French, and Tom spent most of the day writing here in the apartment.  Catherine and Justin joined us for a casual supper of soup and salad, and we indulged in some macarons from a local patisserie for dessert.  More rain and possibly some snowflakes in the forecast for tomorrow.  But given what we hear weather-wise from back home in Milton, we can hardly complain . . . .