The Founding Fathers in Paris

This past Sunday, I participated in a Literary Walking Tour hosted by Lire et Partir, a "literary tourism" company. Led by three American expatriate women, the promenade entailed a three-hour stroll through the 6th and 7th arrondissements of Paris, with stops at sites of particular relevance to American revolutionary history.

We met at this statue of Thomas Jefferson, located along the quai near the bridge Pont Senghor, across the street from the Musée D'Orsay - and from another, less famous museum: the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur. This latter museum is housed in the Hôtel de Salm, evidently Jefferson's favorite building in Paris and the architectural inspiration for Monticello, the White House, and the main quad of the University of Virginia. The building was undergoing repairs, but here's a painting to give you an idea of what it looks like.

The statue of Jefferson shows him to be holding an old blueprint for Monticello - a sketch to which the actual building bears little resemblance (being much more akin to the Hôtel upon which the statue gazes) .

Other cool stops along the tour: a jardin across from the Institut de France which features a statue of Voltaire. The facial expression of this statue is priceless - just as nasty and mischievous as you can imagine the philosopher to have been in real life.

We also stopped at this building on Rue Jacob, at the heart of St. Germain des Prés (just steps away from the Ladurée shop with it's pastel-colored macaroons). Formerly the Hôtel d'York, it's the site of the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, whereby England recognized the Independence of the United States of America.

On a personal note, I've finally solved the mystery of the Treaty of Paris four-star restaurant located on Main Street in Annapolis. I've often walked by the restaurant and puzzled over the Paris connection: here it is. After the Treaty was signed in Paris - at the Hôtel d'York - it needed to be brought back to the States to be ratified by the Continental Congress, which was at the time convening in Annapolis, at the Maryland State House. On January 14, 1964, enough delegates were finally present in 'naptown to reach a quorum. The treaty was ratified and sent to England, arriving just in time for the 6-months-from-initial-signing deadline that had been agreed upon in Paris.

While the Congress was convening in Annapolis, many delegates stayed at The Maryland Inn, the historic hotel which houses the previously mentioned four-star Treaty of Paris restaurant. According to Wikipedia, it was here that the signatories from Paris (Franklin, Adams, Jay) came to dine in celebration of the treaty's ratification. Mystery solved!

Photos and a confession

My collection of Paris photos is growing unwieldy, so I decided it was time to upload some of the better shots for your viewing pleasure. Captions may come with time. In other news, je quitte Paris next week for a retreat to Plum Village, a buddhist sahnga in the countryside near Bordeaux. Why? Because I need a break from the city. Yep, I need a break from the oh-so-enchanting, magical city of Paris. The vision most Americans have of Pah-ree is a bit too idyllic; in reality, it's a large, loud, international urban center, in which the daily struggle against beaurocracy, crowds, high prices, and sexually-aggressive Frenchmen can be exhausting and at times unpleasant. Which is to say that I've already developped something of a love-hate relationship with my new home. I often ask myself, "why did I want to live in Paris, again?". Some days it's fantastic, rewarding, everything I'd hope for... at other times it's frustrating or just plain ugly. I wish I could do a better job of conveying the other side, but it's usually not the sort of scenario where I can pull out my fancy digital camera and snap away. So here's the Paris that I can give you, the Paris that you're expecting to see...

La Maison

I think it's about time I do a post on where I live - so here it is, complete with slideshow and image captions. The apartment is a duplex in Butte aux Cailles (Quail Hill), a quaint little corner of Paris that is something of a throw-back to the 1920s/1930s. Although just a short walk from Place d'Italie, the area ressembles a French village more than an urban neighborhood. The Maison de Faubourg where we live is close to the intersection of Rue de la Butte aux Cailles and Rue des Cinq Diamants, the social center of this somewhat bo-bo (bohemian-bourgeois) area.

The house itself is cute, quirky, and very French. The slanted ceilings on the top floor are not too much of a hassle (I used to hit my head in the shower a lot), but it does have that hobbit house-feel. The chauffage is gas, and very effective, so even in winter it'll be cosy and warm. As they say, a picture's worth a thousand words - so here are some images to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Food Porn and Miscellanea

I've had requests for food porn, so today I paid a visit to La Maison Berthillon and this time I brought my camera. The artisinale glacier located on Ile Saint-Louis is widely reputed to be the the best ice cream maker in the world (a claim that I'm not sure I support), but those in the know also recognize the salon as being one of the best places to get Tarte Tatin in Paris. My Irish friend has been missing her mom's apple pie, and been unimpressed by her encounters with French tarte aux pommes, so I brought her along as an expert judge.



We each ordered a slice of the tarte, with a boule of ice cream alongside. She stuck with classic Vanille, while I went for the Caramel au Beurre Salé, one of Berthillon's best-known parfums, a delicious if somewhat-overwhelming combination of sweet, salty, and creamy flavors.

The tarte was, essentially, perfect. Served cold, it is of a slightly mushy consistency which scoops easily into a spoon. The carmelized apple top is sticky with just a hint of bitterness from burnt sugar, and the body of the tarte transitions gradually from firm fruit to a sponge-like medium portion that gives way to a crisp pastry crust. As I dug into the tarte with my spoon, juices from the apples started to pool on the plate, intermingling with the melting ice cream. Delicious.




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And now for the miscellanea: The Strangest Thing I've Seen in Paris this Week
(Two weeks ago it was a two-foot-long, thick strand of hair that had been removed from a woman's ovarian cyst and preserved in formaldehyde since the end of the 19th century and is on display at the Musée Dupuytren)

This week, it's a tie! Between the witch who lives in my neighborhood and a table from the Museum at the School of Medicine. The witch is an elderly woman with a severe case of hyperhyphosis (her back is bent forward from the waist, so that her torso is always facing downwards as she shuffles along my street, small dog in tow). There are colored tatoos all across her face and hands, and she is constantly muttering incantations of some sort (as far I can tell, it's not French). I think she must live on Rue des Cinq Diamants, I see her walking with her dog most mornings as I come back from the market or head out for the day.

The other strange sight is this table which is on display at the Musée de la Médecine. Constructed by an Italian Doctor names Efisio Marini in 1866 as a gift for Napoleon III, it is a sort of mosaic composed of petrified ears, cross-sectioned vertebrae, lungs, liver, brain, gland tissue, blood and bile. Featured at the center is a petrified foot, plated in silver with an inscription by Marini dedicating his gift to the emporer. I can't find any information in english on who this Dr. Efisio Marini was or why he would have been so possessed as to create such a work or art, or how one even goes about petrifying blood, but if any of you speak italian, please read the following wikipedia entry and then fill me in.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efisio_Marini

Sorry, but no photos. Not sure you would really want to see a picture, anyways.

Day at the Races

This past Sunday, my friend and I attended the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamps Hippodrome. It's the most important horse race in France, taking place at a famous race course located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne - a giant park on the Western outskirts of Paris known for being an evening hang-out for Prostitutes and drug dealers, and for having a romantic restaurant located in the middle of a man-made lake . The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe is a big society event, complete with champagne (13 euros per glass), Arabian princes, and ladies in fantastic hats (admission is gratuit for les femmes chapeautées).
Despite the rainy weather, the pain from my high heels, and the fact that none of the horses we bid on in any of the 8 races even placed... we had a great time. I'm going to try to link some photos through Picasa you so can see what it's about.

Getting Started...

Hello, Everyone!

Finally, here is the first-installation of the much-promised Blog on my adventures in Paris. I have already been living in Paris for about six weeks, but time goes by quickly when you're trying to get your bearings. I just settled into a new home, located in the picturesque "village" of Butte-aux-cailles (Quail Hill), just a short walk from Place d'Italie in the thirteenth arrondissement of Paris. I will be living with Gaël and Fabien, two 25-year-old mecs originally from Poitiers, in a loft/duplex located on Rue Des Cinq Diamants (photos to come). It's cute, sunny, very French, and most importantly, it's my new home (no silly sous-location here, I've actually cosigned the 9 month lease).
I have some catching-up to do - I'll try and make some posts this week on what I've done with my time thus far (investigated vegetarian restaurants, visited great museums, looked at a formaldehyde-preserved brains from the collections of neurologists Broca and Charcot). I'll try and make my posts brief but entertaining, my descriptions of food tantalizing for those of you craving food-porn, but I'll also be writing for myself, for reflection, so that I won't have spend a year abroad and have nothing to show for my time and experiences.