Tag Archives: Paris

11.17.15
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A Love Letter to Paris

Our first trip after I retired two years ago, was to Paris, a city I’d wanted to visit my entire life, and where, I informed my husband at about the 15 year mark, we would celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. And so, we celebrated my retirement and our silver wedding anniversary with a 2-1/2 week, magical, unforgettable, Parisian holiday.  Following the abject evil that has visited Paris this week,  I am reposting this blog I wrote soon after our trip as a tribute to this beautiful city and my tender memories of our French hosts.  “Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité”

After spending over 2 weeks in Paris recently, I’ve been repeatedly asked what I enjoyed most about the trip.  Rather than show the 30-minute slide show (with music!) that I’ve been subjecting my friends to, I’ll do a quick run-down. Note that my opinions are completely based on this, my one and only, trip to Paris, but here goes:

A typical view on our night-time walk back to our apartment

A typical view on our night-time walks back to our apartment

The nights – The city is at its absolute magical and romantic best at night.  With the lights illuminating the buildings, monuments and the Seine, Paris by night is spectacularly beautiful.  My husband and I would find a restaurant each night, where we would enjoy a magnificent. 3-hour dinner with a bottle of wine (we never had a bad meal) and then walk back to our apartment hand-in-hand, completely mesmerized with the city and each other.  It was as if we were under Paris’s spell.

Me and my "vela" across from Notre DameBike riding – We went on two bike tours in Paris.  One was a day tour with Bike About Tours and the other a night tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours.  Both cater to English-speaking tourists and provide young spunky guides to steer their charges through the perils of Paris boulevards and provide some commentary along the way.  We were at first skeptical of the wisdom of taking on Paris by bike, but the tours came highly recommended so we decided to chance it…and loved it!    We found biking an easier and faster way to cover more ground than walking. For our day tour, we rode all over the city with a lovely young Swedish guide named Angelica.  She gave us historical commentary as well as her personal perspective as a young student immigrant to Paris.   For our night tour, we had a young burly German-American guide named Nick who was in Paris working on a master’s degree in information technology.  His main goal was to keep us all alive.  I have never been more terrified (and more euphoric) than on our ride down Boulevard St Germaine at night in heavy traffic.  Nick’s often-repeated survival strategy was for us to all stay together in a block and when faced with oncoming traffic use “The Power of the Palm” (i.e., holding the hand in a bold gesture toward the oncoming vehicle.)  My gratitude at outliving that stretch turned to wonderment when we crossed the Seine and biked into the courtyard of the Louvre.  I was overcome with emotion at the beauty of the scene.  I remember thinking to myself “I can’t friggin’ believe that I am actually here at the Louvre… at night…on a bike!”  It was beyond cool.

Seine River cruise – I signed us up for the evening of the first full day we were in Paris, thinking it would be a nice introduction to the city.  But we couldn’t find the boat launch and it was one frustrating experience walking around the docks dressed up trying to find the right spot and not able to ask for directions (see my previous post about my issues with French).  Later in the week, after I read the instructions more carefully and realized we actually walked right by the launch twice, we did the cruise on what proved to be a much better, clearer night.   We saw a dramatic sunset onboard during dinner, and then the lights of the city. The waiter was kind enough to move us to a window seat.  And by this time, having spent a little time walking around the city, it was enjoyable to see familiar sights from the water.

Musee D’Orsay – This was by far my favorite museum.  It is housed in a former train station, which itself is stunning.  The D’Orsay holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.  It was also where the seemingly meek museum security guard suddenly shouted “Madame!” at me from across the lobby when I took an unauthorized photo (I couldn’t help myself).  My second favorite museum was the Musee de l’Orangerie, which contains the famous water lilies paintings by Monet.  This was a quick 20-minute stop but one of the most unforgettable.

Luxembourg Gardens – I’ve been to several famous parks and gardens in the U.S., including New York’s Central Park, but I have never seen anything like Luxembourg Gardens.  The flowers!  The lake!  The fountains!  We strolled through during the middle of a weekday afternoon and it was bustling with Parisians soaking up sun, children on the playground, tennis matches and bocce ball games in progress.  It was an explosion of color and beauty and activity.  I later read that the French equivalent CIA has it headquarters under the park, which only added to its appeal.

Waiting at the "Midnight in Paris" stairs for the Magic Cab to pick me up!

Waiting at the “Midnight in Paris” stairs for the Magic Cab to pick me up!

Walking  – We loved exploring the neighborhoods of Paris.  One day on a whim we did a “Midnight in Paris” treasure hunt.  We re-watched the Woody Allen movie before we left home and decided to find the scene locations.  We found a self-tour someone had posted on-line and set off on our quest. We found two of Hemingway’s apartments, Gertrude Stein’s salon, homes of Cole Porter and Ezra Pound, and the famous “stairs,” where the character played by Owen Wilson stops and rests after getting lost in Paris one evening.  Around the corner comes a vintage 1920s cab, which picks him up and transports him back in time, where he meets Hemingway, Porter, Stein and others.  The actual stairs used in the movie are at the Church of St Etienne du Mont near the Pantheon. We also did a self-tour of the Montmartre area, and found an eclectic mix of sites including Picasso’s studio, Renoir’s apartment, Van Gogh’s house, the café from the French film Amelie and the last remaining vineyard in Paris.

The Jupiter Fountain Water Show

The Jupiter Fountain Water Show

The Gardens of Versailles – I didn’t care much for the Chateau (palace) of the Louis’ (XIV – XVI).  It was definitely worth seeing — beautiful in an ostentatious, over-the-top sort of way.  But the crowds were horrific and I was happy to be spilled out the back door to what I found most spectacular and memorable about the visit – the gardens.  It was a stunningly gorgeous day and we were fortunate to visit on a day when the water fountains were flowing.  The last thing we saw before leaving was a 15-minute water display at the “Jupiter Fountain” made up of at least 40 individual fountains.  It was not high-tech, with lights or lasers or gadgetry,  but rather a lovely and graceful water display on a beautiful day with period music playing in the background.  At the conclusion, I noticed a young worker who carried what proved to be an enormous ancient metal sprinkler key (not unlike a gigantic version of ours before we installed automatic timers) open a cap in the pavement, turn a valve with the key, and off went the water!  Just as they’ve been doing since the 1790s no doubt.

Normandy and Giverny – We took two side-trips, one to Normandy to tour the D-day Beaches and Mont St Michel, and the other to Giverny to see Monet’s house and garden.  Both were highlights of the trip and warrant posts of their own to describe.

My first night-time viewof the Eiffel Tower, doing its sparkle show!

My first night-time view of the Eiffel Tower, doing its sparkle show!

Eiffel Tower – Even though I’d seen a zillion pictures my entire life, the Eiffel Tower in person is still hands down the most spectacular sight in Paris.  I’d already been to Epcot Center and Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casinso (with its scale model of the Tower) so I thought I’d already pretty much seen it.  But the sight of the real thing in person at night takes your breath away. The night of our ill-fated dinner cruise (when we couldn’t find the launch spot) we instead went to dinner at a restaurant nearby.  As we rounded a corner, I caught my first sight of the Eiffel Tower all lit up.  Not only that…every hour on the hour for five minutes there is a sparkly light display on the Tower……and that was my first view.   I immediately burst into tears at the sight.   I realized that, even though we missed our dinner cruise and I was initially terribly disappointed, in this city there are countless other splendors just waiting around the corner.

11.05.13
by

Travel with the Spouse: The Togetherness Test

I liken international travel with one’s spouse (especially when not on an organized tour) to an Advanced Placement Exam in Marital Compatibility.  And I admit to some apprehension approaching our recent 2-½ week trip to France.  My husband and I had not done much foreign travel together, and had certainly not been together, just the two of us, 24/7 for that length of time since our honeymoon in 1988; and even then (1) our honeymoon was not that long and (2) we both still thought the other perfect.

Although I am not a fan of reality TV (so the following comparisons may not be 100% accurate) I was hoping our trip to Paris would be more “The Bachelorette” (those episodes in which starry-eyed couples are whisked away to romantic far-flung scenic locations) and not “Survivor” (where contestants conspire to rid themselves of each other) but maybe a bit of “The Amazing Race” thrown in.    Though, with respect to the “The Amazing Race,” which I actually enjoy, I had always been vocal in my opinion that I would much rather be on a team with my son than my husband.   My son has a better sense of humor, and I could envision my husband and I being that bickering couple that can’t even agree on how to get the envelope with the next clue open.  We can both be rather, um, opinionated.

Indeed, our first few days in Paris were trying.    If the journey was an AP Exam for us as a couple, it was a physical endurance test for my husband.  For starters, he is very tall, doesn’t particularly like big cities or crowds, and is lactose intolerant. Consequently, he deserves bonus points right off the bat for venturing to the most densely populated city in Europe, where the apartments are so small he could barely fit in the shower with the door closed (much less turn around), and which is chock-full of cheese.    Add fatigue, jet lag, inclement weather, and the language barrier to the mix and we had a recipe for disaster brewing.  In fact, observing my husband, clearly at first a fish out of water in Paris, I was initially worried that my “dream” trip was headed towards spectacular calamity.  The fatigue led to grumpiness and unlike home, where one can simply go to the other side of the house or run errands, there was nowhere to escape each other and those irritating moods, quirks and habits. (Yes, we have discovered some imperfections in each other in the ensuing 25 years.)  I have also learned, over the years, that my husband is not a “Gee whiz, we are in Paris and isn’t this swell!”  kind of a guy.   He will instead often plod through a day impassively and then later declare it a wonderful experience.  Accordingly, all I could do was trust that this trip would ultimately prove to be at least retroactively fun.

On our recent trip to Paris

On our recent trip to Paris

As the days progressed and we recovered from our fatigue and jet lag, got our bearings and the weather mercifully improved (and we learned to ignore the French) we fell into a happier, more comfortable rhythm.  The days were mostly  “The Amazing Race” and we learned to function like a team.  Happily, our evenings truly were “The Bachelorette” and we had wonderful, romantic evenings with candlelit dinners and strolls back to our apartment along the River Seine.   And to my great relief, we never had a serious “Survivor” moment where we wished we could vote the other off the island.

Traveling with one’s spouse can be both rewarding and risky business.  Here’s my take-aways from the whole experience:

Teamwork and engagement are important.  I’m the planner in the family so I did all the pre-trip planning, and consequently began to think of it as “my trip.” I initially approached our days in Paris like a self-appointed Tour Guide and did all the legwork and made all the arrangements and it began to feel like a job. Even though part of me had trouble giving up control of “my trip”, I found to my relief that things worked much better and we both had more fun once my husband fully engaged and took on tasks.  There was much to figure out on the ground with respect to transportation (metro system, trains, street maps, etc.). He became our Chief Navigation Officer and was responsible for getting us to and from places with his iPhone navigation apps, and took ownership for some of the planning, as when he spearheaded a wonderfully memorable night walk to take photos at some of our favorite monuments.    Next time, I will look for ways to get him more involved earlier.

Go with the flow.  When traveling to a foreign country, especially on your own like we did, there are numerous surprises and things that don’t go according to plan. We both had to learn to be flexible with our plans and with each other.  There were times when I really wanted to do something, but I could see from my husband’s face that that something might put him over the edge.  It’s also important to recognize when one or both parties might need some alone time to recharge, or to do separate activities.  And some of our favorite experiences stemmed from spontaneous detours from plan that I might have initially resisted.  I hated the idea of going to a falafel place in Paris but we did and it was great.

Girlfriend trips are different.  I have gone on great trips over the years with my female friends.  We usually laugh, shop, talk and do all the other things girlfriends do when they get together.  A trip with my husband is fundamentally different, because the relationship is fundamentally different.  I love both types of trips , but I have learned the types of trips and activities that work better with my friends and those that work better with my husband, and its better not to mix the two..   Trying to get my husband to spend a day shopping or wandering aimlessly or playing bingo with me on a cruise ship is just not going to work.   That’s what my girlfriends are for!

Know when to bite your tongue.  Big one for me!  Once one or both of us gets tired and cranky, it doesn’t take much from the other for things to quickly escalate out of control.  And when together constantly, it can become a pressure cooker situation with no place to hide. It can start over the silliest things – like when I stopped to take a picture of a flower stand and then realized that my husband had taken off without me and then I finally caught up with him on busy Blvd St Germaine and was ready to tear his head off but thankfully thought better of it before I got too far in my “commentary”.  We had made a pact before we left home not to let any disagreements ruin our time together on this trip.  There were some minor flare-ups, but nothing serious, and it helped to count to ten and remember our pact.

Granted, these take-aways may seem to be rather basic relationship advice, but are things that can trip my husband and I up under normal circumstances, and it was important to recognize that extended togetherness can put additional strain on a marriage or other relationship and must be carefully managed.  International travel can be hard work!

And if this trip was an AP exam, what was the result?   We certainly didn’t get a perfect score, but we found ourselves to be surprisingly compatible!  That we successfully overcame every trial we faced together (sometimes smoothly, sometimes ugly) was a real boost to our relationship.  It was a challenging, incredible, life changing and shared experience.   If I had done this trip with someone else, I would not have been able to adequately convey what I saw and experienced to my husband.   Now that we’re back home, I love hearing him enthusiastically tell other people about all the things we did in France and his perspectives on the experience.   The trip confirmed and deepened our level of trust with each other.  When I got sick on the train coming back from Giverny (I’ll spare the details), I was exceedingly grateful that I was with my husband because I have the utmost confidence in him.   After years of balancing careers and family and tag teaming and co-parenting, now that we’re retired empty nesters, we re-discovered our abiding friendship.  We still really like each other! My husband may have some really annoying habits, but so do I (although I’m convinced mine are less annoying). Nonetheless our more unvarnished acceptance and affection for each other is a richer and more satisfying companionship.

Probably the single best indicator occurred before we had even left Paris, enroute to the airport for our flight home, when my husband turned to me and said (with palpable enthusiasm in his voice) ”So where should we go on our next big trip?!”

10.24.13
by

Paris: The Highlight Reel

After spending over 2 weeks in Paris recently, I’ve been repeatedly asked what I enjoyed most about the trip.  Rather than show the 30-minute slide show (with music!) that I’ve been subjecting my friends to, I’ll do a quick run-down. Note that my opinions are completely based on this, my one and only, trip to Paris, but here goes:

A typical view on our night-time walk back to our apartment

A typical view on our night-time walks back to our apartment

The nights – The city is at its absolute magical and romantic best at night.  With the lights illuminating the buildings, monuments and the Seine, Paris by night is spectacularly beautiful.  My husband and I would find a restaurant each night, where we would enjoy a magnificent. 3-hour dinner with a bottle of wine (we never had a bad meal) and then walk back to our apartment hand-in-hand, completely mesmerized with the city and each other.  It was as if we were under Paris’s spell.

Me and my "vela" across from Notre DameBike riding – We went on two bike tours in Paris.  One was a day tour with Bike About Tours and the other a night tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours.  Both cater to English-speaking tourists and provide young spunky guides to steer their charges through the perils of Paris boulevards and provide some commentary along the way.  We were at first skeptical of the wisdom of taking on Paris by bike, but the tours came highly recommended so we decided to chance it…and loved it!    We found biking an easier and faster way to cover more ground than walking. For our day tour, we rode all over the city with a lovely young Swedish guide named Angelica.  She gave us historical commentary as well as her personal perspective as a young student immigrant to Paris.   For our night tour, we had a young burly German-American guide named Nick who was in Paris working on a master’s degree in information technology.  His main goal was to keep us all alive.  I have never been more terrified (and more euphoric) than on our ride down Boulevard St Germaine at night in heavy traffic.  Nick’s often-repeated survival strategy was for us to all stay together in a block and when faced with oncoming traffic use “The Power of the Palm” (i.e., holding the hand in a bold gesture toward the oncoming vehicle.)  My gratitude at outliving that stretch turned to wonderment when we crossed the Seine and biked into the courtyard of the Louvre.  I was overcome with emotion at the beauty of the scene.  I remember thinking to myself “I can’t friggin’ believe that I am actually here at the Louvre… at night…on a bike!”  It was beyond cool.

Seine River cruise – I signed us up for the evening of the first full day we were in Paris, thinking it would be a nice introduction to the city.  But we couldn’t find the boat launch and it was one frustrating experience walking around the docks dressed up trying to find the right spot and not able to ask for directions (see my previous post about my issues with French).  Later in the week, after I read the instructions more carefully and realized we actually walked right by the launch twice, we did the cruise on what proved to be a much better, clearer night.   We saw a dramatic sunset onboard during dinner, and then the lights of the city. The waiter was kind enough to move us to a window seat.  And by this time, having spent a little time walking around the city, it was enjoyable to see familiar sights from the water.

Musee D’Orsay – This was by far my favorite museum.  It is housed in a former train station, which itself is stunning.  The D’Orsay holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh.  It was also where the seemingly meek museum security guard suddenly shouted “Madame!” at me from across the lobby when I took an unauthorized photo (I couldn’t help myself).  My second favorite museum was the Musee de l’Orangerie, which contains the famous water lilies paintings by Monet.  This was a quick 20-minute stop but one of the most unforgettable.

Luxembourg Gardens – I’ve been to several famous parks and gardens in the U.S., including New York’s Central Park, but I have never seen anything like Luxembourg Gardens.  The flowers!  The lake!  The fountains!  We strolled through during the middle of a weekday afternoon and it was bustling with Parisians soaking up sun, children on the playground, tennis matches and bocce ball games in progress.  It was an explosion of color and beauty and activity.  I later read that the French equivalent CIA has it headquarters under the park, which only added to its appeal.

Waiting at the "Midnight in Paris" stairs for the Magic Cab to pick me up!

Waiting at the “Midnight in Paris” stairs for the Magic Cab to pick me up!

Walking  – We loved exploring the neighborhoods of Paris.  One day on a whim we did a “Midnight in Paris” treasure hunt.  We re-watched the Woody Allen movie before we left home and decided to find the scene locations.  We found a self-tour someone had posted on-line and set off on our quest. We found two of Hemingway’s apartments, Gertrude Stein’s salon, homes of Cole Porter and Ezra Pound, and the famous “stairs,” where the character played by Owen Wilson stops and rests after getting lost in Paris one evening.  Around the corner comes a vintage 1920s cab, which picks him up and transports him back in time, where he meets Hemingway, Porter, Stein and others.  The actual stairs used in the movie are at the Church of St Etienne du Mont near the Pantheon. We also did a self-tour of the Montmartre area, and found an eclectic mix of sites including Picasso’s studio, Renoir’s apartment, Van Gogh’s house, the café from the French film Amelie and the last remaining vineyard in Paris.

The Jupiter Fountain Water Show

The Jupiter Fountain Water Show

The Gardens of Versailles – I didn’t care much for the Chateau (palace) of the Louis’ (XIV – XVI).  It was definitely worth seeing — beautiful in an ostentatious, over-the-top sort of way.  But the crowds were horrific and I was happy to be spilled out the back door to what I found most spectacular and memorable about the visit – the gardens.  It was a stunningly gorgeous day and we were fortunate to visit on a day when the water fountains were flowing.  The last thing we saw before leaving was a 15-minute water display at the “Jupiter Fountain” made up of at least 40 individual fountains.  It was not high-tech, with lights or lasers or gadgetry,  but rather a lovely and graceful water display on a beautiful day with period music playing in the background.  At the conclusion, I noticed a young worker who carried what proved to be an enormous ancient metal sprinkler key (not unlike a gigantic version of ours before we installed automatic timers) open a cap in the pavement, turn a valve with the key, and off went the water!  Just as they’ve been doing since the 1790s no doubt.

Normandy and Giverny – We took two side-trips, one to Normandy to tour the D-day Beaches and Mont St Michel, and the other to Giverny to see Monet’s house and garden.  Both were highlights of the trip and warrant posts of their own to describe.

My first night-time viewof the Eiffel Tower, doing its sparkle show!

My first night-time view of the Eiffel Tower, doing its sparkle show!

Eiffel Tower – Even though I’d seen a zillion pictures my entire life, the Eiffel Tower in person is still hands down the most spectacular sight in Paris.  I’d already been to Epcot Center and Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casinso (with its scale model of the Tower) so I thought I’d already pretty much seen it.  But the sight of the real thing in person at night takes your breath away. The night of our ill-fated dinner cruise (when we couldn’t find the launch spot) we instead went to dinner at a restaurant nearby.  As we rounded a corner, I caught my first sight of the Eiffel Tower all lit up.  Not only that…every hour on the hour for five minutes there is a sparkly light display on the Tower……and that was my first view.   I immediately burst into tears at the sight.   I realized that, even though we missed our dinner cruise and I was initially terribly disappointed, in this city there are countless other splendors just waiting around the corner.

10.19.13
by

Paris: Pahr-Lay Voo?

I always thought French was such a beautiful language…until I got in a wrestling match with it.  Some people have a knack for languages.  That group would not include me. In addition to English, I struggled through four years of Spanish in school.  Although I’m not great at it, if I find myself in a foreign country, any foreign country, I for some reason reflexively revert to random Spanish.  I once greeted (Hola!”)  and tried to give instructions in Spanish to a cab driver in Japan.  My brain evidently divides the world into English-speaking and Everything Else.

My husband was no help – he took German in school. In anticipation of our trip to Paris, we had every intention of learning some French.  I looked into potentially taking a community college course but couldn’t find one that fit my schedule.  Then I downloaded a French app on my iPhone that proved to be useless (“the cat is black”) and with which I developed a weird love-hate relationship.  (A bell would ring when a correct answer was given and an obnoxious gong would sound when I messed up.) We still have the “Quick and Easy” French language CDs that someone lent us sitting, un-cracked, on the kitchen counter.   And, I got busy with other preparations.

Everyone assured us, however, that “Parisians all speak English” and “you only need to know a few key phrases.”  I listened to Rick Steves podcasts which I interpreted as saying that as long as you start any communication with pleasantries such as “Bonjour Madame,” (to create some goodwill) you would then be forgiven for either not speaking or butchering the language.

I never left the apartment without my key tools of communication

I never left the apartment without my key tools of communication

So off we headed to France, having memorized about 3 key phrases, most of which we already knew from movies and It’s a Small World. Just to be safe, I downloaded iTranslate on my iPhone, and a friend lent me a little Berlitz “French for Travelers” book.

On the flight over, I pulled out the Berlitz and glanced over the special rules of French.  For example, a “G” is pronounced “J” or “Z,”  the last consonant in a syllable is usually silent or picked up at the beginning of the next, and an “R” is a weird throat sound.  I was starting to get nervous.   The phrases were listed phonetically and I noticed that they were pronounced much differently than they were spelled.  The French seem to disregard whole chunks of letters in a word and add or mispronounce others.  I spent much of the flight repeating over and over to myself “pahrlay voo ahnggleh” (do you speak English?) and  “zher ner pahrlpah frahngsseh”  (I don’t speak French.).  How stupid was that – learning how to say you can’t speak a language…in that language?!

Our language troubles in France began almost immediately.  When we arrived at our apartment, a young fellow named Leandro met us.   He spoke no English.   He gave us the keys and explained everything we needed to know in French…. and pantomime.  When it came time to agree on a time for check-out, we pulled out our iPhones and negotiated via iTranslate, When he left I wasn’t completely sure how anything worked or what I had just agreed to.  Then we walked to the Metro station to buy either a weekly pass or a carnet (I wasn’t sure which was best or how to buy).  We found the Information Desk, as Rick Steves advised to get help, and I did my best “Bonjour Madame, pahrlay voo ahnggleh” and she looked at me, unimpressed, and said (in perfect English I might add) “No”.  The next trial was finding supplies at the market.  Everything was in French! (And why did that surprise me?) I found a friendly young Parisian who admitted to speaking a “little” English but “soy milk” wasn’t in her vocabulary.  By the end of the first day, we were mentally exhausted.

Over the course of our visit, I found the language barrier more problematic than anticipated.  English was not as widely spoken as I had expected. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t learned more French and that I probably epitomized the stereotypical ignorant American who expects everyone to speak English.  When I did attempt French, I’m sure I bungled it horribly.  The French word for “where” is pronounced “oo-ay” so when I asked for directions I’d try to say “oo-ay  toilet or oo-ay metro.”  One entire day, I got puzzled looks with my requests for directions—- since I couldn’t remember, I was alternating between “ee-ay” or “i-ay” or “oy-vay”.  When a proper response to a question was “oui” I often said “si” (back to my random Spanish).  My husband, despite my frequent coaching, never quite mastered the “Bonjour Madame” lead-in, and charged into every conversation in English without any pleasantries either in French or English.  We became accustomed to that Look of Disdain that Parisians do so well.  While on a train to Normandy, it came to a halt, an announcement was made in French only, and many people got off.  Some time later, another announcement in French, and everyone got back on.  We still have no idea what happened.  At that point, I mentioned to my husband that not speaking or understanding the language gave me the sense of being deaf and dumb.

But more importantly, not speaking the language impeded our ability to connect with the locals.  One thing I enjoy about traveling is meeting people in the places we visit.  Since we stayed in an apartment rather than a hotel, locals rather than English-speaking support staff and fellow guests surrounded us. I shared my frustration with an Australian woman we met in Normandy and she told me she had taken French lessons but it didn’t help that much.  So, I’m not sure I could’ve learned enough French to have the level of engagement I enjoy, but I think next time I visit a non-English speaking country I would like to make more of an effort to learn the language.  At least so I could say “I speak a little of your language” in their language.

10.16.13
by

Paris: Mort de Musee (Death by Museum)

I can now cross a major item off my Bucket List – my husband and I just returned from a 15-day dream trip to Paris.  The first five days of our trip, however, nearly contributed to an Early Bucket, triggered equally by fatigue and a husband-led revolt.

Since we weren’t going on an organized tour, I spent an inordinate amount of time working on the itinerary in the four weeks following my retirement and before we left.  (I had hoped to use my last days in the office to plan my trip but I was kept busy until the bitter end.)  I used the Rick Steves “Paris” book as my Bible and received numerous tips from almost everyone I know who heard I was going to Paris and had been there before.   Of course I didn’t want to miss anything, so it was a challenge putting an itinerary together.   I’m the planner in our family and due to both choice and circumstances my husband was completely uninvolved until he started packing.

The Four-Day Museum Passes seemed like a good idea

The Four-Day Museum Passes seemed like a good idea

The Rick Steves book recommended the purchase of Paris Museum Passes, which cover many of the major museums and sites in Paris.  The passes both save money and allow holders to bypass long lines, and come in two, four or six day versions (but must be used on consecutive days).   The strategy I decided to employ (based on Rick Steves advice) was to list all the Museum Pass attractions I wanted to see, add up how much they would cost without the pass, and then assess which version would be most cost- and time-effective.   Based on this analysis, I decided on 4-day passes (5-day passes would have been ideal but they don’t exist).  Since the various sites are open different hours and days, the next puzzle was to identify the four consecutive days that would work for the sites identified.  Unfortunately, the only four-consecutive-day block that would work was right smack at the beginning of our trip.  We would have one day to get settled and then, BAM!, we’d start our Museum Pass days.  I thought it would be aggressive in terms of slightly grueling days at the beginning of our trip, but hey, we could do it!

We arrived in Paris at 6:00 AM on a Tuesday morning.  It was cold and rainy and we were severely jet-lagged and tired.   We spent most of Tuesday sleeping and getting oriented to our apartment and neighborhood.  Then Wednesday dawned and it was time to buy our Museum Passes and start ticking off the list.  Here was our itinerary for Wed – Sat:

Wednesday:

Historic Paris Walk (Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, Conciergerie, Deportation Memorial, Ile St Louis, Latin Quarater, Pont Neuf)

Thursday:

Orsay Museum, Rodin Museum, Napoleon’s Tomb and Army Museum, Rue Cler Walk and “relax” at Cafe

Friday:

Champs Elysees Walk (starting at Arc de Triomph and ending at Tuileries Garden for lunch), Orangerie Museum, Louvre

Saturday: 

Versailles (Château, Gardens,  Trianon Palaces, and Domaine de Marie Antoinette)

My husband at the end of one of our Museum Pass days

My husband at the end of one of our Museum Pass days

I approached the days like a drill sergeant with special orders. My husband was doing his best to be a good sport and would dutifully ask “What’s Next?” after finishing each site, but he soon began to resemble a prisoner on a death march. The real trouble began somewhere between Napoleon’s Tomb and the Arc de Triomph when his mood turned suddenly foul.  It got so bad on the Champs Elysees (not even a hot chocolate and pastries at Laduree broke the mood) that I briefly considered waving the white flag and declaring a Free Day (Museum Pass be damned!)   Luckily, there was some relief when we met an American couple from Davis, CA, at the café for lunch who turned out to be SF Giants fans.  I looked to the heavens in the Tuilleries Garden and said a prayer of thankfulness. Talking about the World Series last year lifted my husband’s spirits and gave him that extra boost he needed to get up and attack the Louvre.

A moment I will never forget came around 4:30 pm near the end of our last Museum Pass Day, at Versailles (which was an entire day trip in itself and a 30-minute train ride from Paris).  My husband looked at me with the most pathetic disoriented look in his eyes and asked “Are We Going to Giverny today, too?”

In hindsight, we might have either stretched out the museums, broken them up or done them after we got our Paris legs under us.  On the other hand, we both felt like we got the “work” out of the way early, saw the Things You Must See When You Go To Paris and were now free to wander freely…and THAT was fun!  More on that later.