Velibs and Manifs

It turns out there is a velib station nearly right in front of our building.  'Velib' is the French bike sharing system.  We've been meaning to try it for quite a while.  We finally got a weekend day nice enough to bike, and without too many chores to do, so we signed up and headed towards the Jardin du Palais Royal, about a twenty minute ride.   Or so we thought.

We made it past the Eiffel Tower and rode onto a pedestrian bridge over the Seine.  We took a little break there, while tourists took pictures of themselves in front of the Eiffel Tower.  We looked up and down the concrete-banked river and saw stone bridges ornamented with sculptures and street lights.  As we looked, I suddenly noticed a "manif" - thousands of people marching across the next bridge, waving pink and blue flags and singing and waving flags, blowing whistles and air horns, and generally making a rucus.  The first thing that came to mind, was "how are we going to get across that?!"  So, we biked the next half mile over to the "manif", what the French call a demonstration.

Many of the people were carrying pink or blue flags with an iconic representation of a four-person family holding hands - a mother, father, brother, and sister.  A majority of people had on t-shirts with the vague tag line "Manif pour Tout" (demonstration for all).  Lots had signs criticizing President Hollande.  I saw one woman with a home made sign that showed a huge photo of a baby's face with an slack-jawed, adult look of shock on its face, and the tag line "My mommy's name is Roger!?"  Another said "Nine months in the uterus is time well spent."  So, we supposed it was either against gay marriage in general, or against gay adoption, or both.  Gay marriage was passed at the national level last month.

After we pushed our bikes across the river of demonstrators, we came up on a cordon of police in their special armored uniforms.

[Many of the French police wear armor on their shoulders and upper arms and on their shins.  The armor is made of overlapping plates of black kevlar, sort of like giant snake scales, so that the armor doesn't inhibit movement when crazed protesters are hurling molotov cocktails at them.

I thought the armor was overkill when I first saw it, but Paris has a lot of protests with extremists.  So, I'm not exaggerating when I say people throw molotov cocktails.  It's almost routine around here.]

Anyway, the darned cops would not let us OUT of the protest area, down the completely empty street that led to our destination. We spent the next hour weaving among the protesters, trying to find some side street or bridge that wasn't blocked by police.

They had every side street for miles sealed tight.  Eventually, we ditched the bikes at a nearby Velib station and walked back toward home.  Then we had the bright idea to take the metro under all this mess.  But, no, it turned out all the metro stops in the area were also locked.

Of course, I got very frustrated that the police were creating a problem that made no sense.  But what was more daunting, is that, after an hour, this crowd that filled a road five lanes across was still not anywhere near exhausted.  Huge throngs continued to fill the streets for the entire hour, and there was no end in sight.  Every time there was a thin area of the crowd, I'd think it was almost over, then more huge crowds would pour down the street from some unseen starting point.  This was certainly one of the biggest demonstrations I've ever seen.  [News reported it anywhere from 150,000 to 1,000,000 people the next day, so it was probably somewhere in between.  It turned out there were five different starting points for the march, so there were four other routes just as choked with thousands of protesters all heading to one huge rally.]

Of course, I completely disagree with the protesters.  Committed consenting adult gay couples should be able to marry and adopt.

Anyway, it turns out that our attempt to walk back home was probably as fun or more fun than going where we'd intended to go.  It was an extremely rare day where it was comfortable to go for a walk.  On the way home, we randomly encountered an amazing Art Nouveau house.

Sorry to say I've got no explanation for this house.

Then we ran into this building with grasses and flowers completely covering its four story walls.  It's on Quai Branley, adjacent to the Museum of Natural History, so we think it might be the offices of that museum.

I recall reading people saying that just walking around Paris with no plan at all is pretty entertaining.  If the weather is decent, which is rare since we've been here, then I'd say that's true.  And I haven't even mentioned the roving, drunken, tux-wearing, moussed-up British bachelor's party sitting on the sidewalk drinking beer from bottles.  Sorry, no photos.

Wipeout on the Champ de Mars

Blood everywhere!  I got a little overzealous sprinting at the end of a run with Jennifer on the Champ de Mars.  We ran the loop from École Militaire (Napolean's alma mater) to the Eiffel Tower together the other morning.  Of course, we go a little slower when we go together, so Jennifer always tells me to sprint at the end.  I got going so fast I was practically floating on air, and kept going for a pretty good while.  As I flew out of control towards the end of the gravel, I noticed one of those massive car barriers made of stone pylons with huge chains drooping between them.  I was going too fast to come to a complete stop, so the obvious thing to do was hop over the one foot-high middle of the chain, right?  Well, I guess I was a little more exhausted than I thought, miscalculated, and caught my toe on the chain while airborne.  As I was falling, I was already mad at myself.  And then it was a flat splat on the right knee, the left shoulder, both hands, and the right forehead - bonk!  Ouch!  I had just passed a woman walking the other way.  She turned around after hearing the thud, and said "Messieur?!"  From a position of lying pretty much flat on my face, I rolled over and sat up and said "I'm fine, no problem", with blood on my forehead. She persisted.  Jennifer hadn't even seen it.  She came jogging along to find the woman pulling a napkin out of her purse, which I was very grateful for.  Useful for wiping gravel out of the bloody scrapes!

Evidence after a couple days of healing...

Grocery Store Hours

I put off going to the grocery until after dinner, about 9:00 PM.  By the time I got to the Franprix, I found out they close at 9:00 PM.  So, I said to myself 'I'll pick some up in the morning.  Next morning, I have to be ready for the movers to arrive with our shipment at 9:00 AM, so I head over to the grocery store about 8:15.   I'm happy to see the door open from a distance, but when I get there, there's a cleaning guy sweeping, and he waves me off - 'We're closed.'  What?!  They don't open until 9:00 AM.  OK, I'll just go across the street to the giant (by Parisian standards) Monoprix.  Guess what?  They don't open until 9:00 AM either.  Hmm.  Guess I'd better start planning my grocery trips a little better.

New apartment!

I know everyone's curious to see our new apartment, so here goes.

This is our chauffeur waiting to take us to the opera.

Our front door.

Detail of front door arch.  

Our foyer.

The stairs to the loft.  

The stairs to the wine cellar, or 'cave' (pronounced 'kahv') as they call it here.

Most of these are Le Petit Palais, built in 1900 for the Universal exhibition.  It's a free museum these days.  

Still rainy, cool, and gray

It was a three day weekend in Paris.  They had a holiday Monday, "Whit Monday (Pentecost).''  (The seventh Sunday after Easter, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples. Also called Whitsunday.)  I'd never heard it called Whitsunday.  I didn't even know there was such an occasion in the Bible.

Since we had some rare good weather Saturday morning, we went for a picnic.  It's a quick walk from our front door to the Champ de Mars.  The Champ de Mars is the park that runs from the Eiffel Tower on the Seine to the École Militaire.  We're close to the École Militaire.  'Champ' means 'field' in French, and Mars is the god of war.  Since the park is in front of the military school, the name can be translated as sort of 'the field of the god of war', or something like that.  They used to hold military exercises there.  The park has multiple gravel paths along the sides and down the middle, so I'll probably use it as my running track, along with others from the surrounding neighborhoods.  Maybe I can get motivated to run tomorrow.  So, Saturday around noon, we had our picnic on the field of the god of war, on green grass and surrounded by flowering bushes and trees, and of course, the Eiffel Tower.

Since the crappy weather continued into Monday, we finally gave up on our plan to visit Fontainbleu.  Instead, we decided to go to the Pompidou Center, the biggest modern art museum in France.  On the way there, we walked past a nearby cathedral and mural.

There was a long line to get in, and it was about noon, so we decided to go for lunch first.  We ended up at one of the many cafes on all sides of the museum.  This one had gas burner heaters over the outside seating, so we sat 'outside.'  Outside is in quotes because Paris is full of small areas in front of restaurants with rain-proof awnings and clear glass or plastic walls.  They're legally outside, so it's OK to smoke.  We had the greatest French onion soup so far.  The cheese on top was browned just the right amount, the onions were packed with flavor, and the bread was not too soggy, but not too stiff, and had lots of flavor.  Mmmm, perfect for sitting outside on a cool, rainy day.

Numericable: The French Company

Well, we're finally getting a taste of a really bad French bureaucracy at work.  Numericable is a poor excuse for a mobile phone and internet provider in France. We're in our new apartment, but don't have cable TV or internet because of two appointment fiascos caused by Numericable's incompetent and apathetic staff.  The first time, despite specifically asking them to change the address on our account to our new apartment, and repeatedly telling the person making the appointment that we're moving, I get a call from the technician saying "OK, I'm at the front door." I go outside and there's no one there.  He's at the front door of the old apartment!  I wanted to strangle someone.  First I asked him if he could just come to the correct address and he said yes.  Then, I get a text message an hour later saying he talked with his supervisor, and because the address was "fasle", I have to call and make a new appointment.  Arg! 

A week later, I'm waiting in the apartment until the end of the appointment time window, and no one shows up.  I go right to the office immediately and have them open my account online.  It has a note from the techncian about the appointment: "I went to the apartment and called the client at 6612345677 and got no answer.  Since client was not there, canceled appointment." But the phone number he called had nothing to do with us.  We can't imagine where he got it from.  Our phones come from Numericable, they give us our phone number!  How can he not know the right phone number!??  So, now it's time to make another appointment and wait again.  Praying for a miracle from a company from Hell.

I can imagine a few people out there saying to themselves, ''You idiot, just use a different company!"  Man, why didn't I think of that!?  Like many places in the US, there are a lot of providers, but there is only one high speed provider for a given building in Paris.  Sort of like one cable provider for a given neighborhood in the US. 

- Update July 2025 - Giving credit for decent service since... Since that day over two years ago, we've had pretty good service from Numericable. We did have one five-day period of outage, which they never apologized for, or offered a refund for, or even acknowledged in any way. So, that was really bad, as I need the internet for work. But, the phone network was still up and I could use my phone as a hot spot. I believe the five day outage was caused by botched efforts to merge the Numericable and SFR networks, after the merger of the two companies. There have been two other one-day outages. But, over a period of over two years, I would say those are no worse than an American cable company.

Tulips at the Jardin des Plantes

We visited Paris' Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Gardens) Sunday.  On the way, we went to a corner creperie and sat on the sidewalk patio facing the Pantheon.  The Pantheon in Paris is nothing like the one in Rome.  This is a massive, cathedral-like building that blatantly mixes church and state.  It's the official temple of France's national heroes.  We enjoyed our savory crepes for lunch while watching people dodge scooters, cars, rental bikes, and tourist buses while crossing the street in front of us.  It was pleasant, even though it was chilly and blustery.

The gardens themselves were not terribly well-maintained or impressive.  This is a stark contrast to Park Monceau, which is the amazing park I've been running in, near the apartment we're about to leave in the 8th Arrondissement.  Park Monceau is in an incredibly expensive neighborhood full of private palaces, and consequently gets non-stop maintenance and gardening.  Anyway, at Jardin des Plantes, there's at least one nice view in the park.  Runners seem to love this park.

The best part of the park was the tulips.  There were some huge patches, and some really unusual ones.

Jennifer Spots Pickpockets in Paris

We'd been warned about pickpockets lots of times, and I tend to rest my hand on my wallet a lot, but no harm has come to us yet.  For example, friends told us of girl whose mobile (phone) was grabbed while riding the metro.  But, that story had a happy ending because she screamed out "My phone!", and the crowd saw the guy running and tripped him up.  Then other commuters surrounded him while he was picking himself up.  Everyone yelled at him to give the phone back, and so he did, then ran off.

Well, now we have our own story.  Jennifer was on the way home on the metro last night when she noticed this young woman standing up against an older guy who was with his wife.  She was thinking "That girl's standing oddly close to him; she must be his daughter.", when the guy suddenly turns around and grabs the girl's wrist, his wallet in her hand, and a small chain leading from his wallet back into his pocket!  He and his wife started yelling at her while he looked in his wallet to see if everything was still there.  Then the guy grabbed the girl's purse and started rifling through it.  Jennifer had heard pickpockets usually work in pairs, and saw another girl exchange glances with the culprit, then start pushing toward the far end of the car as the train came into the stop.  Jennifer told the wife, who initially grabbed a similar-looking, but wrong, girl. Jennifer shook her head, and the woman tried to catch the right girl, but it was too late.  At the stop, both girls rushed off and into the crowds, and that was that.

Made me wonder what kind of cool wallet the guy had.  Must have been a rude surprise for that girl. It bothers me that these people always walk away with no punishment.  They'll just move on the next victim.  Anyway, now we've seen two examples of the good guys winning.  :)

Poussette de Marché Anyone?

OK, this is a definite lifestyle change indicator.  No cars - grocery shopping on foot.  So, we need ''one of those things." (See me pointing at a person going down the street with one).  Searching for ''one of those things'' online doesn't get you very far.  So, by some lucky guessing, I found out they're called a poussette de marché.  This could be translated as "market stroller."  That's what they're sold as on the web.  But, when I mentioned it to our apartment broker, she gave me a puzzled look for two seconds, and then said, "Oh, a caddy!''

Look how many poussettes de marché there are to choose from on just one web site:

http://www.chariot-course.com/

And how expensive they are.  You can buy a Bentley of caddys, but I'm not sure who would.  If you're really rich, you probably don't use one of these anyway.  They've got deux roules, quarte roules, and even six roules (wheels).  Even Jennifer's French coworkers weren't sure why you'd want six wheels.  Our educated guess is six wheels are supposedly for dragging them up stairs - bump, bump, bump.

We have to look at this as an adventure, not a demotion, right?!

Socialistes! Socialisme!

Socialism might be pretty from a distance - everyone is provided for, no one starves in old age, and all that.  But, up close, we're starting to notice some warts.  What's this I hear about the government deciding how much I can afford to pay for my apartment!?  During our apartment search, everyone told us there's a rule that you can only pay one third of your income for your apartment, even if you're willing to pay more.  Paternalism?  Mommy state?  You bet.  Luckily, we make enough that this didn't really impinge on our lifestyle.

But now they've gone too far.  We've got over $20,000 Euros in our joint bank account to cover the exorbitant 6 months rent deposit, the actual rent, all the appliances we have to buy, etc.  When I tried to place an order online for about 4000 Euros of stuff, the bank refused it.  When I called the bank, they said they limit my expenditures to only 1500 Euros per month.  Say what?  Now, if you call and ask, they may grant you a temporary increase.  We asked to increase it to $4000/month for two months, and they said we're only allowed to put the increase in place one month at a time.  We'll have to call back in a month if we want the privilege of spending our own money.  I'm bridling here!

Now I have to admit they do have one reason for this rule that doesn't really apply in the US.  In France, the credit cards are directly connected into your bank account, so there's a risk of loss to fraud.  We're not quite clear on who is responsible for the losses.  We think there's a sort of deductible, then it's on them.  But maybe not.  And if we ask for an increased limit, does that increase our liability?  Probably!

Costa Brava

Last weekend, we took a short trip to Spain with our friends Jonathan, Roybn, and Jonathan's brother Mark.

I liked the new terminal at Charles de Gualle Airport.

After wandering the streets of Barcelona for a couple of hours, we went to a restaurant our friends had eaten at last time they were here.  Our reservations were for 10:30 PM, and there were groups of people being turned away every minute we waited, because they didn't have reservations.  The food, wine, and service were exceptional.  Very memorable.

The next morning, we drove about one and a half hours south of Barcelona to Begur.  Begur is a very small, traditional Catalan town with an old castle on a hill.  They limit development in the area, so there are no tall hotels, and lots of unspoiled forests.  Here's a view from in town.  

This is truly a Catalan area.  The signs are all in Catalan and Spanish.  You can hear people speaking in Catalan.   It's very strange to be in a Catalan area for a Spanish speaker, because it's a very similar language, but not the same.  They say ''aeroport'' instead of ''aeropuerto.''  In general, they leave off the last O that lots of Spanish words have. For gold, they say ''aro'', instead of ''oro.''  

The place Jonathan and Robyn rented for us had a spectacular view from the deck.   

There was a Buddha statue at our rental apartment.  Unfortunately, as the sign says, it was ''Out of Order.''  :)

We had good enough weather to hang out on the beach one afternoon.  We walked the coast trail about twenty minutes in one direction and saw more of the great coastline.  If you look carefully at the center of the picture above, you can see white, 300 foot-high cliffs of stone across from an island.  The next day, we drove there.  It only took about a half hour or so.  

Once we got there, we headed to the top.  From up there, you can look back on the town and its marina.

Once you get to the top of the cliffs, you can look down to the sea.  You can hear the sound of the waves  on the rocks below, and hear the seagulls. 

We walked further along, then crept near the edge of the cliff and saw this.

We even saw some people down there.