Au revoir à Paris

This is my last day in Paris.  Classes ended with a riotous game of Nonsense, which involves secret words, invented stories that must be told in 1 minute and scoring based on how many of the secret words in the invented stories you can guess.  We all love it, from the youngest to the oldest, and it really makes you think fast on your feet in French.  Although I absorbed only a portion of all that was there to learn during the last four weeks, I have my notes and reams of new vocabulary to take home with me. I feel more confident about my French, particularly the subjunctive, which is excruciatingly difficult in this language.  And talking to people has gotten easier and easier.  I managed to get my hair cut and my nails done, to find an apartment that I like (subject to lease negotiations), and to begin the process of opening a bank account.

My conversation with an excruciatingly young and extremely handsome banker this afternoon made me realize something else about the pleasures of living in France -- the men.  Oh, they are grumpy on the Metro and waiters can be more supercilious than any other humans on earth.  But, in the end, when you engage in a conversation with a French man, you are his focus and he flirts (just a little bit) and it makes you feel like a million bucks.

Beyond all that, I made appointments over the phone (a first), got the hang of the French equivalent of Open Table for restaurant reservations, and chatted with an assortment of French people who, for the first time, did not immediately revert to English when I opened my mouth.  Sometimes I still get tongue-tied, but it is getting better.  And, most important, I made some more new friends.

All in all a successful foray into this so familiar but also so foreign land.

I'll be home before you know it and look forward to catching up with all of you. xoxo

New Friends, New Places

Although my confidence in French took a beating during my third week in Paris, I continued to network and make new friends, enjoying some great new experiences in the process.  I had dinner with Jennifer and John's friend Sara Wright and with the Perry's, a couple from Kansas City via North Carolina who were both in graduate school at Indiana University when I was there.

St. James Club

On Friday afternoon, I made the pilgrimage to the St. James Club, a reciprocal club of the Women's University Club.  It was originally the home of Adolphe Theirs, the first President of France's Third Republic in 1871.  It was near the first aerodrome in Paris and it was from there that the Mongolfier brothers sent their first hot air balloons into the skies.  The interior of the building and courtyard are decorated with the Montgolfiers in mind and the result is stunning.



On Saturday, a friend and I took the magic train (because free on the weekends if you have a Carte Navigo, a transit pass) to Provins, a village about 90 minutes from Paris that has on its hilltop an intact medieval village complete with most of its wall and moat.  It has been a World Heritage Site since 2002.

The Wall and Moat of Provins

Although it was the tag end of the season, it was well worth the visit.  The old half-timbered buildings and the church and original defensive tower are a rare find and the countryside around Provins is gorgeous.  In the 12th and 13th centuries, Provins was the capital of the Counts of Champagne and each spring it hosted a massive fair in which merchants from all over Europe came to trade their wares.  It was to Provins that the Count of Champagne brought the "damascus rose" from the Crusades.  The Tithe Barn, the main market building, still exists along with many half-timbered houses, the original market cross and much more.

Provins Market Square

Half-timbered Buildings

What really made the trip eye-opening was the exhibition of falconry.  Ever since reading Helen MacDonald's wonderful book, H is for Hawk, I've been fascinated by the whole idea of falconry.  In an open-air theater tucked up against a corner of the ramparts, a group of exceptional falconers gave a demonstration of their art with Secretary birds, falcons, buzzards, owls, eagles, caracaras, vultures and kites, probably every kind of bird that has been so tamed.  At times, the birds were flying right over our heads and I finally just put my camera away to enjoy the show.  Here are a few photos.

On Sunday, after church, I went over to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne for lunch at the restaurant "Le Frank" and a walk around.  The museum is a stunning Geary building, roughly in the profile of a ship under sail.  It stands in a pool of water which, in one section, cascades down a flight of steps like waves washing onto shore.  The art is both collected and commissioned for the space, very avant-garde and often interpreted with music.  And the openings at the top create a series of terraces with great views.  The restaurant serves wonderful food and is decorated with lights in the shape of fish hanging from the mostly glass ceiling.  All well worth the trip.

Fondation Louis Vuitton

"Le Frank" Restaurant,
Fondation Louis Vuitton

Revelations

Last week (my third) in Paris was an interesting one.

One of my favorite books is Eva Hoffman's memoir, Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language.  In it, she describes the experience of leaving Poland with her family and moving to Vancouver, B.C., where her parents suddenly went from being in charge of everything to seeming lost and alone and she, even though she learned the new words faster than they, was never sure of what they really meant -- those subtle cultural contexts that it takes a native to know.  I confess I hit the wall in French for a time last week.  In the first instance, I was struggling with a system for classifying subordinate clauses that still eludes me.  "I know how to use the damn things," I want to say, "why do I have to know this?"  Does it matter in everyday speech whether a subordinate clause has for its purpose 'cause', 'consequence', 'but' (objective) and so on?  And then I have discovered just how long it takes to do everything in a foreign country and how difficult to understand and use the points of inflection  (the plight of Eva's parents) -- even finding eggs in the grocery store involves wandering forever.  And so I'm wondering if four hours a day in school (however much I enjoy interacting with the teachers and other students) with homework afterwards and no time to go to the market in the morning or visit a museum on a weekday, or take a cooking class is really what I'm after.  How much mastery of French is enough?  Should I maybe just get a tutor and go to a bunch of meet-ups?  There are an amazing number of web sites that pair English-speaking francophones with native French anglophones (given French attitudes toward the English, who knew there were any?).

So, my determination to be here is not diminished, but my idea of how to go about it is beginning to evolve.  Meantime, I have found a perfect apartment, with room for guests if you come serially, and now it's just a question of negotiating a deal with the owner.

In spite of the frustrations, I collected some more Franglish:  le speed-dating (self-evident); yéyé (rock and roll music -- from the Beattle's refrain, yeah, yeah, yeah in the song She Loves You); une femme trophée (a trophy wife).  I think they are just delicious!

I've had some other revelations too.  This past weekend was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's appearance in the pulpit of the American Church here in Paris while he was in Europe to accept the Nobel Prize.  The church had several events connected with the anniversary, one of which was a lecture by Dr. Clayton Carson, Centennial Professor of History at Stanford and probably the pre-eminent expert on King's life and writings.  He gave a terrific talk that reminded us of a speech we seldom hear discussed, King's address at the Nobel ceremonies, in which he defined the civil rights struggle in the U.S. as a side-show in the larger struggle for human rights around the globe.  Carson went on to talk about all the human rights that have been recognized because of and since the U.S. civil rights struggle -- women's rights, rights of gay and trans-gender people, rights of less abled persons, rights of old people, and so on.   He is an older gentleman with a quiet voice but he was powerfully reminding us that Dr. King never imagined that the successes of the civil rights movement meant the drive toward human rights was over.  He never imagined the day when he could go home because his work was finished.  And on Sunday, if we had any doubt,  Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, Dean of the Duke University Chapel and Assoc. Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary, gave probably the best sermon I've ever heard using as his text 1 Samuel 3:1-10 (see the quote below).   It was quiet and erudite, talking about how the beginning of action is listening and how listening is an antidote to fear, but ending in a stemwinder of a call to action.  It was absolutely electrifying and makes me want to work on refugee issues here more than ever.  The news sadly demonstrates daily that there is still much to do.

So, the journey continues...

The Lord Calls Samuel

3 The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

² One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. ³ The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. ⁴ Then the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” ⁵ And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
⁶ Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
⁸ A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
¹⁰ The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Un Bon Weekend

I came to Paris with an ambitious list of things to do and the idea that a month would last forever.  Now my time in Paris is more than half gone and I am way behind on all my earnest to-dos.  Nevertheless, this past weekend was a bit of a tourist break.

The Grand Palais has two extraordinary exhibits going on and one of my new friends and I decided to take in both of them on Friday afternoon.   But with time for tea in between and a leisurely dinner afterwards, it totally worked for us.

The first we visited was "Picasso Mania."  I had planned to visit the newly redone Picasso Museum as it has been closed for three or more years, but this exhibit has gotten such rave reviews that we decided to see it instead.  And it certainly lived up to its reputation.  The goal was to collect in one place works of art influenced by Picasso and in some cases created in tribute to this giant of 20th century art.  So, there were several of Picasso's most influential pieces and then many others produced over the years that used Picasso's work as a point of departure.  There were so many artists and schools represented -- Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and David Hockney to name a few.  I confess that Marcie and I were a little cross-eyed by the time we had wandered through so many disorienting works of art.  Some of my favorites, though, were by Hockney and others who used cameras to create the effect Picasso got with cubism.  Here's one that I particularly liked, a landscape -- I suppose you could call it a collage -- of photos taken over and over of the same street scene.

Picasso Mania Exhibit

After resting our feet and fortifying ourselves with some tea, we returned to another entrance to the Grand Palais to see the Élisabeth Louise Vigée LeBrun exhibit.  The first thing we both thought was "this is so restful!"  I found it utterly fascinating because, to tell the truth, I had never heard of this extraordinary portraitist before.  She was born in 1755 in Paris and died there in 1842.  Her father was a well-known artist in pastels and recognized the enormous talent of his daughter early on.   At first painting members of her family and friends, she developed a charming style that seemed to bring out the personality of her subjects, especially the women, in the most positive light.  Moving in aristocratic circles because of her father's connections, she began to gain commissions for official and informal portraits of France's nobility and eventually became the portraitist of Marie Antoinette and her family.

Don't we all know this picture of Marie Antoinette?  Well, it was painted by Vigée Le Brun.  Élisabeth fled Paris with her daughter during the revolution and lived abroad in various European capitals like Naples, Vienna and St. Peterburg for 12 years before returning to France.  Her technique with fabric, lace and fur is about the best I've ever seen and since all of the people she painted wore lots of same, these portraits are simply glorious to look at.  So realistic one wants to reach out and touch the taffeta and lace.  What's also amazing is that the curators tracked these paintings down all over the world.  One was even leant by Queen Elizabeth of England!

An Early Self-Portrait

I particularly liked the informal family portraits and self-portraits she did.

A self-portrait of Le Brun and her daughter

 On Saturday, I made a pilgrimage to the Musée Nissim-de-Comondo on the rue Monceau, an outpost of the Louvre's Musée des Arts Decoratifs.  Lloyd and I had intended to visit it when we were here to see Meredith during her fall term in Paris.  Unhappily, it was closed the day we trekked over there, and I have never gotten back.  Since reading The Hare with Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal's book about the Ephrussi family from which he descends and who were contemporaries of the Rothschilds and the Comondos (and collectors also), I've been even more interested in going.   The Comondo Museum is actually the mansion built by Nissim's father, a superb collector devoted to paintings, sculpture, furnishings and objects of the last half of the 18th century.  Wanting a building suitable for living but in the style of his superb collection, in the late 19th century he tore down the family mansion that abuts the park and had a home built in a style to match his collection.  The result is a tour-de-force.  Unhappily, his son Nissim was killed in World War I and his father determined to leave the entire thing intact to the French government.  How lucky we are that this collection was not scattered.  Here are a few views of the house:

Entrance Hall

Grand Salon

On Sunday, I met Mary and Fred Davis, Margaret McKeown's friends, for a chamber music concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées featuring Schumann's Trio No. 3 and Schubert's Trio No. 1.  There is a lovely series of hour-long concerts starting at 11 am on most Sunday mornings at the theater and this one was superb.  We had lunch afterward at one of the Davis's favorite spots.

Altogether an amazing weekend!

Un Rendez-vous

Last Friday afternoon, I took the TGV to Marseille to see the Sudour family, whom I met almost twenty years ago at the Hutch.   When I think about my days riding the "Weary Erie" from Meadville, PA (home of Allegheny College) to Summit, NJ (the station nearest my parents' home) -- a ride that took over 15 hours -- I can't get over the efficiency of the high-speed train system that the French and other European countries have contrived.  You leave the Gare de Lyons at 2:40 and arrive at Marseille at 5:55.

The Sudour's little studio, my home in Marseille

And there were the Sudours to welcome me!  Courtesy of Jennifer Potter's introduction, I've been reading Susan Loomis' book In a French Kitchen, and that's exactly where I was deposited for the weekend.  Nathalie is a superb cook, relying on the bounty of the countryside around the homes of her mother and mother-in-law (in the Perigord and the Massif Central, respectively), a big freezer and a magnificent talent for making use of whatever is at hand.

Nathalie, Patrick, Elliott and Louise on their terrace

Like the home cooks interviewed by Susan Loomis for her book, Nathalie puts on two 4-course meals a day on the weekends and at least one on weekdays.  And they are beyond description in their taste and inventiveness.  A pumpkin soup, followed by rouget (a Mediterranean fish) with veggies, a cheese course, and fruit plate on Friday night (this after we'd arrived from the train station at nearly 7 pm!).  On Saturday, we enjoyed a typical French breakfast of bread and croissants and then, at lunch, ate a meal of pasta with scallops and assorted other courses, followed that evening by a Salade Périgordine, which featured bacon, goose gizard, ham and other smoked meats with lettuce and other salad ingredients (make your own).  A panna cotta appeared in there somewhere, but I was so dazed I can't remember:).  On Sunday, at mid-day, we ate magret de canard (duck breast) and sautéed potatoes preceded by a fabulous zucchini salad and followed by a spectacular cake (like a big mille feuille with apples) bought in her mother's community and frozen for the occasion.  Susan Hammel used to complain about how much weight she gained when visiting me on Whidbey Island.  I can't hold a candle to Nathalie:)!

The View from Subiton Calenque

Subiton Calenque

And in between, I had an opportunity to experience more of the extraordinary opportunities that Marseille affords the traveler.  Ever since the movie The French Connection, Marseille has been thought to be like Chicago in the twenties without the jazz (and the drug scene does persist), but it is truly an amazing multi-cultural city with an interesting arts scene and a hinterland with an unusual geography.  

On Saturday afternoon, we walked out to the Subiton Calanque -- the calenques are huge limestone cliffs that jut into the Mediterranean between Marseille and Cassis.  The day was absolutely spectacular -- sunny and a perfect 70 or so degrees.   The path was full of people, walking running, and biking, and dogs and kids.  We had perfect views of the sea at every turn of the path.  Close in to shore, the sea seems to turn a particularly electric green color and we could see the wakes of boats hugging the shoreline.

Karen, Louise, Patrick, Elliott and Nathalie

On Sunday, we had an entirely different adventure.  We attended an exhibit by Alfredo Jaar at the Musée d'Art Contemporain (the MOMA of Marseille).  I've not heard of him before, but his reputation here in France is as an artist whose work is uncompromising, innovative and compelling. The subject "Nous L'avons Tant Aimée, La Révolution" (We All Loved the Revolution) was on the subject of artistic and political upheaval.  One enters the exhibition through three rooms the floors of which are covered in broken green glass.  It was really something to walk on -- like walking on egg shells.  And it discombobulates the observer.  Not all the works were by Jaar, but he had chosen each piece in the exhibit -- paintings, sculptures, installations, films --  and they all were part of the theme, dating back to the sixties.  I found it utterly captivating and wished I could go through it again because there was so much I feel that I missed in the interpretation and the works themselves.

Unfortunately, the time came all too soon to return to Paris.

With fond farewells and much gratitude to Nathalie, Patrick, Louise & Elliott.

Parlez-vous français?

My classes at L'Atelier 9 began in earnest on Monday, October 5.  It's a short subway ride from my local station, Solferino, with only one change of line and about 8 stops altogether.  I've been put in the B2 section of French, a level higher than the one I was in last January.  For the most part, I'm keeping up, but it has been a blur of conversation, comprehension, grammar and vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary.  More words than I will ever remember.  I've started putting the new ones on post-it notes around the apartment (e.g. the kitchen cupboards and the bathroom mirror), but am still overwhelmed.  The first week, my class consisted of 7 students (now reduced to 6 due to the departure of one of the Americans)  -- a Danish physician in her early thirties taking a sabbatical, an Australian retiree, and the rest Americans of various stripes, all much younger than I.  One of them, Shannan, is a lawyer in Philadelphia, in her early thirties I would guess, who is going after French with a passion and she is just amazing given that she didn't study the language in school.   Shannan, Lea (the Dane) and I have become pals who lunch together once in a while and share information.  And we don't speak English, though it is a language that is also common to us.  Our "prof" Chloë, like Vanessa in January, is a superb teacher, full of jokes and fun, correcting but not beating us down -- in other words, absorbing a certain amount of mistakes as long as our meaning is clear and the errors not too egregious.  I really like her.

Late last week, and continuing into this one, we started learning French expressions and slang.  I felt like saying, "But I haven't learned proper French yet!"  And when Chloë on several occasions advised the young adult students, "You're mother would never use this expression," I felt like saying "Wait a minute, I am your mother!!!"  Nevertheless, this is the language used constantly in films and TV programs, so it is necessary to have a working knowledge of what is known as 'familiar' French.  There are actually three kinds:  soutenu (stuck up or academic), courant (standard), and familiar (familier) -- well, actually there's a fourth, vulgaire, which probably doesn't need a translation.

One thing is clear:  English words continue to pour into the French language like a river in flood.  At the beginning of the technology revolution, the Academie Française, which is the arbiter of the language, invented all sorts of words like "ordinateur" for computer and "couriel" for email.  But the French have abandoned many of them and "l'émail" has now been shortened to "le mèl."  The French love abbreviations:  ado for adolescent, velo for bicycle, frigo for refrigerator, and many more.

Here are four new Franglish words.  See if you can guess the meaning (I'll give the definitions at the end):

1. auto-stoppeur
2. la press People
3. nikel
4. un maniac

From my point of view, in spite of all my travails with the language, I am actually speaking more, being understood more, and feeling pretty good about it.  On Monday, I had a lunch with Cobi Camberlein (a friend of a colleague at Horizon House) and her French husband and we managed a civilized (though slow by their standards) conversation in French.   Wahoo! 

I'm trying in the midst of all this to pursue apartments, health care, the visa application process and such mundane things as a good stylist and how one gets one nails done.  What I've found out so far is the latter is still way more expensive than in the US, but many things are not (e.g. dry cleaning is actually cheaper).

So, while I struggle anew with sentences involving woulda, shoulda, coulda (how many times must I review this?), you are all enjoying (I hope) a wonderful Fall.

And for those of you who took the quiz, here are the answers:

1. auto-stoppeur = hitchhiker
2. la press People = self-made celebrities like the Kardashians
3. nikel = super clean, super, perfect
4. un maniac = a neatnik

La Nuit Blanche chez Hermès

Saturday, October 3, was the celebration of La Nuit Blanche in Paris (and in many other cities around the world).   Founded in the early naughties here in Paris, the idea of a night-time festival of art and creativity (food, music...) has spread from Montreal to Melbourne.  There are events and block parities all over Paris.  This year, Hermès created a special exhibition on the barges on the Seine, which happen to be at the foot of my street, rue de Solférino (and thanks to Harvey for sending me an article about it.)

Lloyd and I discovered the windows of the Hermès store on the rue de Rivoli early in our travels together and made a pilgrimage there every time we were in Paris ever after.  When we took all the family to the Loire and discovered that the husband of the châtelaine at the Château des Réaux had given her a Hermès scarf every year at Christmas, we realized what a romantic gift something from Hermès has always been.

There is something about the windows of the Hermès store that flaunts wealth but does so tongue-in-cheek.  The first one Lloyd and I discovered featured a racing bicycle with all of the struts and handlebars covered in tangerine leather.  And scattered on the ground were small gardening tools (of the type used for pots and window boxes) with handles covered in a complementary sky blue.  Outrageous!  Ridiculous!  Utterly seductive!

The coy windows of Hermès remind me of what it means to be a flâneur, someone who walks without purpose, finding in the obvious the hidden reality, the secret temptations, the jokes and absurdities of the cities he loves.  I started this blog talking about being a flâneur (I suppose the female version must be flâneuse) and so it was with utter delight that I discovered that the title of the Hermès exhibit on the banks of the Seine was Dans L'oeil du Flâneur (In the Eye of a Stroller).

I"ve honestly never seen anything quite like this exhibit -- full of memorabilia, jokes, tricks and a passion for Paris and its eccentricities.   The walls were white, the rooms not square, and all beautifully and variably lit.  There was a room featuring a few of the canes collected by the founder of Hermès.  There was a Café des Objets Oubliés (the Cafe of Forgotten Objects) in which, instead of pastries, one found items that had never sold well under glass on the counter and shelves -- ugly bracelets, pieces of fruit fashioned in leather, and so on.  There was a giant elephant in a shop window sporting a blue china tea set on its head, knees and the end of its trunk and a football helmet covered in fur.  There were passages with subtle light shows, tea tables and dress forms that spun at odd moments, a chandelier made of wine glasses and a celebration of graffiti in which, tucked behind a wall, one could see a bunch of empty spray cans and a Hermès briefcase -- it was utterly humorous and mad.  And perfect to see on La Nuit Blanche!

Here are some of the photos.

On rue de Solférino

The French don't seem to have a word that I've ever heard for the mass exodus when everybody leaves on vacation in August, but they definitely have a word for when everybody comes back:  la rentrée.  It's that time in September when school begins again and everybody gets back to work.

On Thursday, I had my rentrée to Paris and the city couldn't have been decked out in more splendid fall weather -- beautiful clear blue skies, trees just beginning to turn color, and temperatures barely cresting 70°F.

Pont Alexandre III and Grand Palais

My apartment on the rue de Solférino is a few blocks from the Seine in one direction and from the Boulevard St.-Germain in the other.  It is a stately one-bedroom with enormously high ceilings and incredibly ornate moldings.  The American Church is just under a mile away and I pass this lovely vista in one direction and Les Invalides in the other on my way there.

Here are my living room and bedroom.  Very cosy.  The kitchen is quite small, with a contraption the likes of which I've never seen before -- a piece of equipment called a three-in-one.  On the top are four burners.  In the middle is an oven that can double as a broiler, and on the bottom is a dishwasher!  Susan Loomis, whom my friend Jenny Potter introduced me to before I left Seattle, lives in France and teaches cooking classes.  In her new book, In A French Kitchen, she says that most French cooks have very small kitchens with very bad lighting and very little equipment.  My kitchen fits that description to a tee.  But I think the three-in-one takes the cake!

My Three-in-One

If I ever imagined that I might not have enough to do living here alone, I was amazingly mistaken!  On Friday, the day after I arrived, I met an old friend from Seattle, Margaret McKeown, a real expert on Paris because she is so intrepid a traveler and has been here so many times.  She was staying with an expat friend, Mary Davis, so we all had lunch together and then Margaret took me on a shopping romp through the 11th arrondissement.  By the time I got home, I felt I'd pulled an all nighter and could hardly take another step, but I had a wonderful day.

On Saturday, I went to the American Church's annual expat expo, Bloom Where You're Planted, and came away with several new friends and a bag full of information about moving and living here -- from restaurants to tax and estate implications.  The bottom line:  live here as long as you want, but don't die in France!  It was a really amazing day -- from 9 to 6 -- with plenary lectures and breakout sessions on a variety of topics and ending with a wine and cheese tasting.  I've managed so far to follow up on the connections I made that day with genuinely wonderful people in my age range but haven't touched the pile of material.

I returned to the Church for the 11:00 service on Sunday.  They say that 11 o'clock on Sunday is the most segregated hour in American life.  And it's true that we mostly choose churches where we live and where everybody is like us in terms of race and economic status.  The expats in Paris who want a sort of standard brand Protestant service on Sunday and a religious experience for their kids can't afford to do that because there is only one church (I'm not counting the Episcopal Cathedral, which probably looks similar).  The result is a rainbow hued congregation that fills the place every Sunday.   Members of the church come in every color from every economic segment and arrondissement in Paris -- and it's just a wonderful experience to worship with them.

After the service, Alison Benney, an acquaintance from my last trip who has lived here for more than 20 years, introduced me over "le brunch" to her new friend and recently arrived expat, Marcie Mortensson, who is also flying solo over here and is an absolute hoot!  A retired HR VP, she is the queen of work-arounds.   The one thing I learned in all of this is that one's experience with the French government can be highly variable -- one couple reporting that they had their long-stay visa in 72 hours and others having much less happy experiences.  Bad news for me, Chicago seems to be the easy French Consulate and San Francisco the stickler -- and one must, of course, go to the consulate in one's region.  But all of that's for another day...

French language school started today (Monday, October 5).  I have a different teacher named Chloë, who seems very nice.  We did some grammar and played some games that made us think (and speak) on our feet.  And yes, there's homework.

Farewell to Cambridge

Classes ended this morning and we'll have our Closing Dinner tonight at 7:00.  It has been an amazing two weeks!  I've gotten a great deal out of my courses and even more from the plenary lectures including, since I last posted, a lecture on diplomacy and another on changing influences in the Islamic World.  I also learned that nasty King John, under interdict from the Pope, seriously considered making England an Islamic country rather than bow to Rome -- he could have beaten Henry VIII to it and invented the Church of England instead (but then John wasn't known for a particularly keen intellect).

Ellen, Joan, Sigrid and Pat at the Orchard

We've all had great fun discovering pubs (I particularly like the Anchor and the Eagle) and tea shops (Fitzbillie's and Harriet's) and the extraordinary Fitzwilliam Museum.  On Wednesday afternoon, we went to Grantchester, about 3 miles south of Cambridge, to have tea at The Orchard.  For fans of the BBC show of the same name, the church in the series is right there in the village.  We sat under trees laden with apples,  as the Bloomsbury Group used to do when in Cambridge.   The swoopy canvas lawn chairs are a bit uncomfortable (one sinks into rather than sits on them) but the atmosphere can't be beat.  We walked through the meadows and fields along the Cam to get home.  It was quite an adventure as we were sharing the fields with some cows who didn't always want to get out of the way.

Which brings me to the inevitable conclusion of this excursion.  Cambridge is rich in history and old buildings, but also charming eccentricities.   The names of many of the colleges are tricky -- for example, Gonville and Caius (Keys), Emmanuel ("Emma"), and Magdelene ("maudlin", which is exactly what the mood of the place must have been when, last of all the colleges, they accepted women in the late 1980s!).  In the meadow along the Cam behind King's college one often finds several big brown cows grazing (prevented from reaching the beautifully mown back lawn by a haha) and there is evidence of bee-keeping in several of the back yards of the colleges -- a rather smart move, actually, in view of the abundance of flower gardens in the University.

Since Cambridge was founded before wrist watches -- or even time zones -- there are time pieces on towers and above gates practically everywhere.  While most toll the hours of the day, some track months or seasons -- and they really are beautiful, however doubtful their accuracy may be.

Queen's College

Gonville & Caius College

 We leave for London tomorrow.  Two nights at the Landsdowne Club and then home on Monday.  I plan to visit the Tate Britain, which I haven't seen in years, and take in the revival of Gypsy starring Imelda Staunton, who has gotten rave reviews.  I'll also have time for lunch with an old high school friend who has been practicing law here in London for her entire career.  Much to catch up on as I haven't seen her since our 50th reunion 5 years ago -- and not for 50 years before that!

I'll be able to catch up with all of you in person very soon.  It's wonderful to travel, but so nice to come home too!

Emmanuel College

Lavenham

Lavenham and Bury St. Edmonds, both located in the adjoining county of Suffolk, were our destinations on Sunday.   It takes about 90 minutes to drive to Lavenham, thought to be the finest of the "wool towns".  It was certainly the richest (at one time richer even than York) and contains over 300 buildings listed as being of architectural and historical significance, most built between 1400 and 1500.  Its road to riches lay in the richly colored blue wool cloth that was made there and shipped to the Continent, what we call serge.  So, when a man dons his blue serge suit, it is made from a kind of cloth the manufacture of which began in this little village over 600 years ago.

Sculpture in Kate Denton's Gardem

We began our visit in the garden of a locally based sculptor, Kate Denton.  She and her husband have purchased a house on the outskirts of the village -- not really a manor house but a comfortable upper middle class home with considerable land, which they have converted into a stunning garden filled with her sculptures.  So, for example, one walks through the grounds and turns to find a stag poised in a glade -- only this one doesn't run off as it is made of bronze.  There is a rising swan in one of the ponds and birds tucked here and there.  On one wall sits a statue of her daughter when she was a girl with two dogs at her feet waiting for their next adventure.  In style, she is very reminiscent of Georgia Gerber on Whidbey Island.

Sculpture in Kare Denton's Garden

Across a little bridge and down a path alongside the church, one comes to the center of Lavenham.  There were not many building materials in the area in 1400 -- no great stone quarries and not much timber, so the houses were built in a half-timbered style and the space between the vertical timbers indicated the wealth of the person who built the building (the more timbers, the richer one was).  Some of the plaster between the timbers is decorated in a style called pargeting (pargeter was a plasterer back then) and adds even more interest to these remarkable houses (all still occupied).  To this day, Lavenham remains a small village; it doesn't even have a grocery store.  But it does have a hotel named The Swan, where Ellen and I had lunch, and in the bar of The Swan, one can still find the signatures of American GIs who flew out of nearby airfields.  But the very best way to show you Lavenham is to say no more and just show you the best pictures I was able to obtain.

Main Street, Lavenham

The Guildhall, Lavenham

Pargeting on Lavenham House

Crooked Little House

The little house on the right is quite crooked, the result of using somewhat green wood in the construction of the building and then letting it settle in whatever way it chose.  This house, although it  remains strong, settled bent to one side.  The nursery rhyme below is reputed to be based on this crooked little house in Lavenham, now a crooked little shop.

There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse.
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

From Lavenham, we drove to Bury St. Edmonds, the site of a rich and powerful monastery that was "dissolved" by Henry VIII.  The church remains, but the ruins of the monastery itself have been turned into a large and beautiful public garden that is full of people on a nice Sunday afternoon.  It is really a pleasure to walk among the ruins and the flower beds.  And always a pleasure to stop for a late afternoon cup of tea.

Bury St. Edmond's Garden with Church in the Background

Bletchley Park

Main house, Bletchley Park

On Saturday our group made an excursion to Bletchley Park, now made popular by the film The Imitation Game but really made famous by its success breaking the German Enigma Code during World War II.   Churchill, on a rare visit, told they staff they were the "geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled."  Indeed, the current efforts to restore Bletchley Park are the result in part of the decommissioning of some of its secrets, efforts to obtain a pardon and official apology for the "gross indecency" conviction of Turing after the war, and in part by the interest of computer buffs in recreating Turing's original "Bombe", the machine that calculated the enigma code each day.  Churchill ordered all the machines destroyed after the war to preserve the secret of the work done at Bletchley Park.

The Bombe

It is interesting to note the contribution made by Poles who defected to the Allied side after Hitler invaded their country.  In the first instance, Turing's machine wound up being named after a Polish ice cream dish (a Bomba) that was reputedly being eaten by a group of Polish cypher geeks when they got the idea for how to beat the Enigma.  Not only did most of the Polish Air Force defect to Britain in 1939, but they brought with them the work of their scientists and decoders on the Enigma Machine -- work they had done during the terrible year between the Munich Pact and the invasion of their country.  That work was critical in giving the Bletchley Park group a starting point much further advanced than would otherwise have been possible.

Work Station

The old country house that the British government took over in 1939 was quite lovely, but Turing and his group worked in what had been the fruit cellar behind the house (read: cold and damp) and most of the rest of the crew were in huts built hastily and with virtually no amenities.  One hut communicated with another by telephone and so nobody knew the location or identity of the person to whom s/he was speaking.  Could be London; could be two huts over.  It meant that even people rooming together had no idea what their companions did -- or even where they worked.

Typical dormitory room

The dormitories were not much better than the work spaces and pity those who lived off site, bicycling to work on dark country lanes in rain and winter.

Bletchley Park is still very much a work in progress with more restoration and more exhibits going up all the time.  What it lacks in coherence at the moment is more than made up for by its extraordinarily powerful story, however.  It was really wonderful to experience its atmosphere first hand.

A Busy Week

An entire week has passed and it is hard to figure out exactly where it has gone.  One thing is clear:  without term papers and exams, being a college student is a hoot!  No shopping or cooking, no household to manage, no repairs and maintenance to worry about.  Just go to class, eat great food cooked by somebody else, have your room cleaned each day, enjoy your friends, and explore one of the world's best college towns.

I am sharing this experience with a wonderful group of people from the Women's University Club, but have met so many others.  When Lloyd and I were here 16 years ago, the retirees were a small group and it seemed like the rest were either teachers getting continuing education credits or groups of college kids from American schools, usually with a faculty advisor in tow.  This made for rowdy dorms, we were told, and made it more difficult for us to find others with the interests we shared.  This time, there are many more adult learners and the students who are here seem to have come on their own and are highly motivated.  I've met a retired Italian bureaucrat (self-described) who lives in Strasburg, an investment banker from Turin who loves Shakespeare, a student and a couple of teachers from Australia, a German student studying non-fiction writing -- and the list goes on.  Perhaps one of the most interesting is an Iranian woman, now living in the Emirates, who is studying the Religious Reformation of the 16th Century with me.  Go figure!

Our plenary lectures have been utterly wonderful.  Cambridge's reigning queen of the Middle Ages, Rowena Archer (a diminutive person with long gray hair), walked us through the battle of Agincourt complete with real props -- helmets, pikes and longbows (and a terrific demonstration of why yew alone and not other woods has the flexibility to bend as a bow needs to do).  Karen Ottewell gave a terrific talk on the history of English.  Condensed into one hour, it was a bit of a sprint, along the lines of this YouTube video:  The History of English in 10 Minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABi2-Qi-UXY).  And we've learned about new methods of drug discovery, the excavation of Herculaneum in Italy (near Vesuvius), how the Rothschild bronzes came to be attributed to Michelangelo... and more.

Evidence of World War II is not hard to find as the broad flat lands around Cambridge are perfect for airfields.  Ellen and I had lunch in The Eagle, a pub frequented by both British and American pilots.  The back room is still crammed with memorabilia, squadron insignia, a photo of the crew of the Memphis Belle and much more.  On Wednesday afternoon, we also visited the American Military Cemetery just outside Cambridge.  It contains the graves of over 3,500 Americans who died in service and the names of over 5,000 more whose bodies were never recovered, including members of the merchant marine and sailors who were killed during the German U-boat campaign in the Atlantic in the early years of the war.  Our visit was late in the afternoon, and several of us were able to participate in the flag lowering ceremony.  It was an honor to fold the flag.  The cemetery is in a beautiful setting on a bit of a hill with fluffy clouds in Constable skies overhead and those long rows of crosses.  

American Military Cemetery, Cambridge

I also had the opportunity to take the train up to Ely, about 25 minutes away to visit the great cathedral there, preceded by lunch in a delightful tea shop on the banks of the Ouse River.  Four of us who made the trip attended an evensong service at 5:30 and, as is usually the case in such circumstances, we sat in the Choir of the Church with the choir and clergy.  The effect of the music rising to the vault of the cathedral a couple of hundred feet overhead is simply stunning.  The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid in 1081 and it was completed in the 1300s.  The nave is 250 feet long.  We returned to dinner in a Jamie Oliver restaurant that was just delicious!

Ely Cathedral

The Fitzwilliam Museum was my destination on Friday afternoon.  It has a huge collection of art from every age -- Egyptian, through Greek, through all the major schools of art in Medieval and Modern Europe and Asia.  I was particularly interested in a special exhibit of some watercolors by Turner that were collected by John Ruskin, a critic and watercolorist in his own right.  They were tiny and not of the same quality as the gorgeous Turner paintings in the Tate Britain in London, but beautiful nonetheless.  The Fitzwilliam is so close to the little attached house/apartment that Lloyd and I rented in 1999 that I couldn't resist walking down to snap one last photo of a place where we were so very happy that wonderful July.  It looks rather blah, but backed onto the Botanical Garden and had a beautiful terrace out back.

Brooklands Court

On the way home, I came upon a shop sign that read:  Ede and Ravenscroft, Robemakers, 1689.

On Friday evening, there was a concert by students and faculty in the Early Music program at Great St. Mary's Church in the center of Cambridge.  It was terrific to see such rarely heard and beautiful music played on period instruments by people who took such joy in it.