Au Revoir

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By the time many of you see this video, we will be on a plane, winging our way back across the Atlantic to our home in Washington, DC.  While I'm sad that our Parisian adventure is over and cannot watch this video without welling up, my heart is filled with joy from the amazing experiences we've had and the many wonderful friends we've made.

In writing this blog, I've been purposefully oblique about many details of my family life.  The video finally reveals some of these, including photos of our neighborhood, my children, my husband, and yes, even one of me.   As for the song choice, it's not a bit Parisian but the words seemed to capture what I most want to say to those with whom I spent time here and to Paris herself.

I remain undecided as to whether I will continue to blog back in DC.  But if I do, I'll post here to let you know where to find me.  In any case, my thanks to everyone who has followed along with our adventure.  It was my pleasure to write about the experience of being an American in Paris and I'm honored that so many of you seemed to enjoy it just as much.

Of Rats and Men

We're coming down to the wire here and I realize that there's not time to write about my visit to the royal palace at Compiegne, Anish Kapoor's Leviathan installation at the Grand Palais which I visited twice, dinner at Spring (after they cancelled our lunch reservation....grrrr), and half a dozen other things that I never got around to saying much about.  So it goes.

But I could not leave Paris without taking the time to pass by the shop of Julien Aurouze on rue des Halles where it runs into rue de Rivoli.  I can't remember where I first read about Aurouze but I was reminded of this firm, which has been in the business of exterminating rats and other vermin since 1872, when reading David D. Downie's book Paris, Paris.  It actually had a cameo appearance in the movie Ratatouille in a memorable scene in which the main character Remy is taken by his father to the shop (where dead rat trophies hang in the window)  to illustrate the point that humans can't be trusted.  And yes, there really are dead rats, captured and stuffed around 1925, hanging in the window.

Even though I've never actually seen a rat in Paris, I looked at that window and thought, "Done.  My Parisian experience is complete."  The funny thing is though that of all the things I've since read about Aurouze's shop, no one ever mentions the fact that the business next door is a boulangerie.  Yummy.