Next Stop Milan!

Zut alors!

It rained all day today. What an experience that was. You have to understand that Parisians never stop moving. I don’t know whether that is from all the smoking and/or the very strong coffee, but unless a Parisian is sitting down or otherwise occupied by something stationary, he or she never stops moving.

This includes driving and/or walking on the streets. If you’re walking, you keep on moving. If people start bunching up, you keep on moving. If it’s raining out, like it was today, and the sidewalks aren’t big enough for two umbrellas side by side (which is universally the case no matter how big or small the street itself may be), you keep on moving. And you do all this without ever making eye contact with anyone else on the street!

And then, if you’re driving, you keep on moving. Unless you come up to a red stop light directly in your path you keep on moving. If you’re a pedestrian, sure there are those little red and green walk/don’t walk lights; but unless there’s actually cars barreling down on you, you keep on moving. And if you’re driving and you have the light to turn and there are pedestrians crossing because the direct traffic coming at them is stopped, you keep on moving and just weave between pedestrians.

Mon dieu!

So add to that the element of rain and you can imagine how completely disoriented a stranger in Paris can be when out trying to do some purposeful shopping, as I was today. Since I’m heading for Milan tomorrow with hopes of meeting the descendants of the rest of the Arcontis who didn’t head for the New World with my great grandfather, I thought it might be nice to take a small present. At least in France, if you’re invited to someone’s home (for all I know the relatives will want to meet in a restaurant or someplace else – if they want to meet at all!), it’s customary to bring flowers or candies, something like that (but never wine, like we do in the States, unless it’s very good wine – they’re way to particular about wine here). So I thought, well, chocolates might be nice, found the name and address of La Maison du Chocolat, supposedly a great chocolate shop, and headed that way.

The area of Paris that corresponds to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive back in the States is the area around the Champs Elysées (although that’s actually more like Melrose), the Boulevard Haussmann, the Rue du Faubourgh St-Honoré. This, of course, is where La Maison du Chocolat was supposed to be located. So I dutifully took the Métro out to the station at La Madeleine, which is a huge open place with many radiating streets (these Beverly Hills corresponding ones) and wound my way to Rue du Faubourgh St-Honoré. I took a photo of the Church of La Madeleine, in the center of the place, but didn’t go in since I was on a mission.

So here I am battling my way down St-Honoré looking for No. 225, the number for the Chocolate House. The numbers are descending as I’m walking from the 280s, I get to the 230s and see 221 at the corner – and no Maison du Chocolat anywhere. Luckily I’d passed a Godiva Chocolate store on the way; although I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of buying chocolates you could also get anywhere other than Paris, I thought I’d take a look. The chocolates were very pretty and looked appropriate for Paris, and then I came across a gift box with a cute Parisian looking picture on top and labeled “Paris,” so I figured, hey, looks like Parisian chocolate to me. I’m sure there’ll be a Godiva store in a city as fashion-centered as Milan, but…

I did have the chance to walk up another of those main streets and return to the art gallery I’d tried to go into the other day to pick up the Verlinde catalog for my son Andy. It was open today and they had a nice color catalog of his work, so there was another mission accomplished. In the course of walking back toward the Place de la Madeleine, I went past the Place Vendome, another big plaza with radiating streets, and shot a photo. That was it for trying to take photos in the rain.

Then it was back to the Métro, back home, drop off the stuff, then back onto the street and down to Monoprix to pick up some toiletries before the Milan trip – including some cologne. I very rarely wear cologne. Historically it’s given me allergy attacks; my recent prescription of Allegra seems to have relieved that, thankfully. It’s still once in a blue moon that I wear it, but, since it’s raining, it’s back to being as humid as it can possibly be here and I’ve been sweating rivers for so long now because of the humidity that I thought maybe I should take an extra precaution against being olfactorily offensive. I mean, Europeans already have a few bruised sensibilities about us américains these days...

I haven’t mentioned food for a bit, I don’t think. The last couple of days I’ve bought sandwiches for lunch at a place along the Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine, the major street leading to my Passage. The sandwiches are great and not that expensive, so it saves some money on the prepared food end of things. Yesterday’s was curried chicken and very tasty. Came in a baguette-style roll, at least a foot long. Yum. Today I went back there and ordered another sandwich (chicken with caramelized onions – yum again) as well as a pasta salad – and without my even saying anything, both were immediately warmed up before packaging for me to take away. Interesting. I take it it’s just assumed you want a hot sandwich on a rainy day and a cold one otherwise. In any event: They were right. It was perfect for a rainy day. Tonight was the leftovers from the really good spaghetti I cooked last night (seriously!).

The rest of the day was pretty much spent getting ready for tomorrow’s trip, tying up loose ends, and just keeping dry. I’ll tell you, this is where having an apartment really pays off in Paris. The hotels are all pretty much tiny, barely bigger than the beds. You get cramped really quickly in Paris hotel rooms. With an apartment you can actually – well, live in Paris.

By the way, I should mention that so far two people have e-mailed me asking about "the riots" and one about "the attacks." I don't know how they'd say this in French, but I'd say, "Huh?" I haven't heard anything about anything like that and it's been as peaceful as ever here, at least in my district. Eh bien...

Next posting from Milan!

Oh, today's two photos:

















This is the Church of La Madeleine. That's right, the church. What can I say? It was built by Napoleon -- you remember him, the guy who had himself depicted as a Roman emperor all the time...

















This is the Place Vendome. The figure at the top of the monument is dressed as a Roman emperor. Any thoughts on who that might be?