Yesterday, we saw Paris. All of Paris. On foot. Twice.
My dogs are killing me.
The day started innocently enough: we arranged with our friend and former clinic administrator, David Schough, to meet at our hotel around lunchtime. Our plan was to go to Laduree for lunch and then to the Orsay museum to see the impressionists for the afternoon.
Around 11:30, we headed out to Boulevard St. Germain to run 2 “quick” errands. The first one was indeed quick: we had bought 170 Euros worth of gifts at a store a few days earlier, but forgot to get the “de-tax” form from them to get reimbursed for the 17% French sales tax we paid. It turns out that everything carries this tax, and people who do not live in the European Union countries are exempt from the tax. Well, not exactly exempt, nothing is ever that simple: we have to pay the tax, then present the goods and the “de-tax” form to the French customs people to get stamped. Then we mail the form in to the French government, and if you haven’t screwed anything up, they send you a check or credit your VISA card.
Unfortunately, we discovered that the minimum purchase amount to qualify for the rebate is 175 Euros. The employee told us this, and we sheepishly left the shop, having paid only 170 Euros for our stuff. Since it has to be bought all on the same day, we were out of luck for that purchase.
Then we went to the Artisanats shop where we had bought the now legendary Christmas crèche, and asked to get a de-tax form for that purchase. No problem, the clerk said, until we explained that we would be shipping 8 statues back via DHL, and taking 6 statues with us as carry-on luggage. At that point the simple process got very complicated: she ended up giving us a de-tax form for the 6 statues we are carrying on the plane, and a receipt for the other 8, to be presented to DHL later today in hopes that they can give us a de-tax form that will be stamped when the package clears customs on its way to our house. Hopefully, that form will make it to our house with the box, and we can then send both forms to the Artisanats shop, and maybe by Christmas get the check from them for the rebate amount. That’s somehow appropriate, since it is a Christmas manger scene after all.
That whole saga will hopefully end this afternoon when we box up the 8 statues, haul them to DHL, and send them off, praying that they don’t arrive at our house smashed into the crushed rock they were made out of. Meanwhile, poor David was left waiting at our hotel for a half an hour while the French bureaucratic machine slowly moved forward. We finally arrived and set off for Place de la Madeleine, where lunch at Laduree awaited.
We got there around 2 PM, and were served by a delightful young man who speaks at least 3 languages very well, since he works in a French restaurant, spoke to us in flawless English, and spoke to the group next to us in what sounded like fluent Italian. We had a lovely lunch of club sandwiches, swordfish with artichokes, and baguette slices. Then we got to the really good stuff: I tried yet another variety of chocolat liegeois, this one with chocolate ice cream, hot fudge sauce, Chantilly cream, and sliced almonds. As usual, it was the best one yet. Beth had hot chocolate for dessert—I mean it, this was not a beverage, it was essentially a hot chocolate mousse. Laduree, La Maison du Chocolat, and Angelina all vie for the right to call their hot chocolate the best in the world. We’ve only had it from Laduree, but it’s certainly far above any other kind that we’ve every tried. We have the recipe for the hot chocolate from La Maison du Chocolat, and it’s extremely good, but there’s nothing like actually being in Paris.
Having tarried overlong over lunch, we hurried down rue Royal and across the Place de la Concorde to the Musee Orsay to spend the rest of the afternoon with the Impressionists. The building itself is fabulous, having been built around 1900 at the height of the Belle Époque, the full flowering of pre-war France. It’s actually a huge train station that was essentially abandoned in the 30s, and I think the vast interior was used for an elaborate set for Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ tour de force about William Randolph Hearst (it is still considered by film buffs to be the greatest film ever made).
After many years of disuse, there was talk of tearing it down, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed, and it was converted into the most fantastic museum of Impressionist art. The upper galleries are filled with Monet, Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh, Sisley, Caillebot, and countless other Impressionists. We thoroughly enjoyed the stroll through their sculptures (the famous danseuse of Degas is my favorite), paintings (Renoir’s “Ball at the Moulin de Gallette” is my favorite), watercolors, and pastels.
Unfortunately, we didn’t arrive as early as we had hoped, so we were far from finished with the exhibits when the closing announcement came. We tried to pretend that we didn’t understand the French, but then she repeated it in English, Italian, German, and Japanese for good measure. As we exited one salon, a group of museum hosts would form a line behind us, sort of like the drivers in a deer hunt, forcing us toward the exit. We pointed to the giant clock on the wall of the great hall, which said 5:40, and asked if the museum didn’t close at 6:00? They said, the museum is evacuated at 5:45. I wasn’t sure if this required an emergency crew to evacuate any victims who accidentally remained in the building after 5:45 or not, and the host was in no mood to answer this sort of theoretical question at that point.
We had hoped to receive an explanation as to why they advertised the museum as closing at 6 PM, when it actually closed at 5:45, but the host kept repeating that the museum was evacuated at 5:45. I decided that I really didn’t want to become a victime of this serious event, so I encouraged Beth and David to make for the exit quickly to avoid evacuation. We got out just in time, and this apparently assuaged the Museum Nazis sufficiently. Beth grumbled for several minutes about the bait-and-switch regarding the closing time, but the beautiful sunshine and the spell of Paris prevailed, and the mood lightened quickly.
We spent the next 2 hours walking the first lap around Paris: from the Orsay we walked west on the Rive Gauche to the pont Alexandre III (by far the gaudiest and grandest of the bridges of Paris), across to the rive Droite, past the Grand and Petit Palais, the Palais D’Elysees (where President Chirac lives, the equivalent of our White House, but much larger and more French), on to rue St. Honore, past many embassies, including that of the U.S., and past many high-end shops (Lanvin, Yves St. Laurent, Gucci, etc.). We crossed the Place de la Concorde again, this time entering the Jardin des Tulleries, past the Louvre museum, onto Ile de la Cite, and finally to Café Flore de l’Ile on Ile St. Louis.
We dined there, sitting at a little table on the terrace, of course. The people watching was as good as ever, and we enjoyed another memorable meal with our friend David. Around 10 PM, Beth was feeling her oats, and decided that we needed to walk back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up. We walked for another 2 hours, not quite reaching the Tower, but enjoying the “city of lights” immensely. By the time we got back to our hotel, we were all pretty well done for. We hope David caught the last Metro back to his hotel, which is a good half hour walk from here, and we practically fell into bed, ignoring the brobdignagian task of packing that awaited us in the morning.
As Beth is currently in the midst of said task, and I’m taking my leisure with this blog, I will wrap up this (alas) final post and publish it for your pleasure. We had a final French lesson with Marguerite this morning, this time in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, where we spoke mostly French for the entire lesson, switching to English briefly whenever the frustration quotient rose too high. She complemented both of us on our progress over the course of the lessons, and we parted as friends, with a kiss on both cheeks in perfect French fashion. For any who plan a trip to Paris, Marguerite is a great teacher, not to mention une jeune femme tres sympa, and can be reached via her website:
http://www.frenchasyoulikeit.com/
J’espere que je ne vous ennuyez pas avec ce blog. It was fun for me, and hopefully not too painful for the reader. Until next time, au revoir!
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