Chateau de Vincennes

This painting, depicting the month of December, comes from the famous book of hours commissioned by Jean de Berry, brother of French king Charles V. It was painted by the Limbourg brothers around 1412. And okay while the attack of hunting dogs on a wild boar is probably not the most poetic subject matter, you've got to admit it's beautiful, especially the contrast between the oh so blue sky and those gleaming white towers.

Not a bad comparison to what I saw yesterday (captured during the fleeting hours when the sky was actually a marvelous shade of blue):



It's the keep, the most impressive part of what remains of the Chateau de Vincennes, clearly identifiable as the middle structure in the illuminated manuscript.

Anyone who's spent any time in Paris knows the name of the chateau; it is, after all, the end of line 1, the most traveled line of the Paris métro. But my guess is that only a fraction of those folks have actually visited it. There's not a ton to see; Napoleon tore down eight of the towers that once crowned the fortifications and the Germans did their bit in damaging what had long been a military base. But the keep and the royal chapel remain, both impressively restored after works that lasted some 12 years. Particularly cool is the use of special technology (kind of like a Game Boy console) that allows you to stand in Charles V's study and see how it looked back in the day, lavishly painted ceilings, intricately carved wooden cabinetry, and roaring fire in the fireplace.

Hint: The chateau is one of the sites open for free the first Sunday of the month and the lines are much shorter than those at the Louvre or the Musee d'Orsay.

Just Another Parisienne in America

When you travel, you notice the stuff that's different from home and you spend a lot of time and energy trying to understand the routines and rituals of new places. Do I order first and then pay? Do I get my food at the counter or do they bring it to me? Do I need to leave a tip? How much is the right amount? You know what I mean.

From time to time, I've scanned travel guides for French visitors to the U.S., and I've even spent some time lurking in a few on-line travel forums where the French pose their pressing questions about U.S. travel. I thought there might be a post in it but, since most of the questions appear to be about how best to structure a three week RV vacation in the great American West, something I've never done or even contemplated, I pretty much dropped the idea. I mean, I'd like to see the Grand Canyon sometime (although preferably not from the window of a Winnebago) but I'll leave that to another time and place.

Enter the request from the University of Illinois Press to review their latest, a new translation by Vanderbilt professor Mary Beth Raycraft of a turn of the century Parisienne's travelogue about her visit to the U.S. A Parisienne in Chicago: Impressions of the World's Columbian Exposition is not going to make any best seller lists or get picked up by Oprah for her book club, but it is a pleasant dip into cross cultural exploration. Madame Leon Grandin spent about a year in the U.S., most of it in Chicago, where her sculptor husband had work for the great universal exposition in 1892 that marked the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage. During her stay, she visited the fair multiple times but she also made her way into schools and factories, museums and the Chicago stockyards, and even took a train trip to witness a great fire underway in Milwaukee.

Much of what she saw delighted her: the manners of school children and their love of learning, the independence of American women and the loyalty and support they enjoyed from their husbands, and the can-do spirit that we still today think of as particularly American. And then there were the things that saddened her (treatment of Native Americans), frustrated her (no wine with dinner!), and yes, even grossed her out (public spitting and nose picking, which she mentions more than once). At the end of her journey, she is looking forward to returning home to France but full of regret at leaving a place she has learned to love.

Recommended for: those interested in social history, Chicago natives, anyone obsessed with the differences between French and American societies. It's available for purchase at Amazon and perhaps by special order from your favorite independent bookseller.

Not Found in Nature

I see some of the most amazing sights in Paris just walking down the street. I mean, they're walking down the street. I'm talking about young girls in crazy get ups, older men in ascots, and grande dames with their furs and artfully arranged French twists. And it's almost impossible for me to get out my camera, adjust the settings, and get the shot before they cross the street or just walk by in the other direction, off into the sunset, lost forever.

I thought it was going to be another one of those lost opportunities the other day. I was waiting for the Métro with one of my kids and this lady, with the orangiest orange hair I have ever seen, sauntered down the platform, in her leather pants and leather gloves, and her jaunty multicolored scarf with the same unbelievable orange tones in it. It was my good luck that she sat solo across the aisle from me when we boarded the train and I was able to take pictures of my kid with orange hair lady in the "background." I cropped my kid out (plenty of those photos at home) and I'm pleased as punch to share this photo, in part as an offering for all those other missed moments.

Paying Tribute

The scene early yesterday morning at one of the entrances to the Polish embassy. The gate was to open about an hour later for those wishing to sign the book of condolences. It's almost unimaginable that a country could lose so much of its political and intellectual leadership in the blink of an eye, compounding a hundredfold the tragedy they had set out to commemorate.

Finally

Aaaah spring. My favorite time of year.

Facing the Critics

If you can't enough of blogs about France, head on over to A Taste of Garlic where Keith Eckstein, a Brit now living in Brittany, is keeping tabs on all of us. He's got a list of links a mile long and suggestions for books to read that will keep you busy from here on out.

Yesterday, Keith posted a review of Just Another American in Paris and apparently I have completely failed in my duty as a Paris blogger to raise the subject of lingerie. Plus I'm a lot more obsessed with dog poop than I realized.

Seriously, thanks for the exposure, Keith, and I'll look into what I might say about French lingerie that hasn't already been said a thousand times before.

The Logic of French Banking

Ages ago I ranted about my inability to break a 50 euro bill at a French bank, a bank at which I am a paying client. (Yes, there's really no such thing as free banking in France. But maybe that's the way things are going all over.) Since then, I've heard other expats with the same beef, boiling over with frustration at ATMs that dispense 50 euro bills like candy, bills that if presented at your local boulangerie, news kiosk, or grocery will be met with raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and request for a smaller bill.

But then this week, I heard another story that got to me to thinking. An acquaintance, who is the treasurer for a local volunteer organization, was explaining that her bank will not allow her to deposit cash. Actually she used to be able to make deposits but during a recent renovation, the branch lost its facilities for securing large sums of cash. So "checks only" is now the order of the day; if she must deposit cash, she has to go to the one location near the Opera (one of the most touristy areas of Paris and one where pickpockets are hard at work) to do so. Yes, that's right. A bank that doesn't accept cash because apparently it doesn't have a real safe.

Aha! It was a light bulb moment. They can't give you cash because they haven't got any. Makes sense right?

Perhaps only in some alternate universe that we will just call "France."

On further reflection, it was one of the moments when I realized that while I am slowly beginning to understand how this country works, I still don't get it.