Our Long Sejour en France

 Yes, I Googled "I'm bored with Paris," and apparently it's a thing. I'm actually pretty bored with Paris. I just don't think I can sustain a diet of sightseeing, not without copious amounts of patisseries and French cuisine - and that's not happening for me.  I've realized that I need to have some kind of meaningful activity to occupy some of my time. So I'm going to have to be more assertive in figuring out how to volunteer at the church we're attending. Maybe I'll find a gym in the 18th Arrondissement after we move. Today Chris was occupied, so I took off and went shopping in this gigantic mall downtown. Chris and I have been pretty joined at the hip from the start of this trip. It was probably healthy for me to break away for a while. On Sunday we went to the Picasso museum here after mass. I've actually had about enough of Picasso for now. But we were excited because we saw the Picasso pillow cover that we first encountered in Barc...

 Let's talk about language.  I spent the better part of a year brushing up on my French using the Pimsleur app recommended to me by my grad school buddy Roberta (shout out to you, Roberta!). I learned a lot! So I actually feel pretty confident about speaking French. I'm also competent in reading French. Not to brag, but I used a French language resource in my dissertation! 😏 So I was really excited about coming to France and being able to speak the language. My first real experience in conversing in French was with the caretaker at our Airbnb. I was encouraged when he showed us around the apartment and I was able to understand his instructions and explanations. French is not his first language, so he speaks a bit slower than native speakers. Furthermore, he was glad I spoke French because he doesn't speak English. So it all worked out. Then I started going to grocery stores and pharmacies. Not so easy then. Once people realize I can't understand them, they often just s...

 Sorry about the rant. Thanks for listening. We've been busy since our guests left, so there's a lot of catch up on. On Saturday we decided to go to the flea market (Marché aux Puces). When we first got there, it looked a lot like a Western souk (the market we went to in Tangiers) - meaning a lot of junk. Fortunately, Chris had the presence of mind to nudge me to ask a vendor where the antiques (les choses anciens) were. Once we found that market, we happily roamed the labyrinth of stores window shopping antiques. Chris found this rug shop and enjoyed looking at the rugs from a fairly honest dealer. I looked around the shop and found a nice gift for my daughter-in-law T [Are you reading, T? A little shoutout to you!]. Sunday we went to mass at the church I found when I Googled "most progressive church in Paris": St. Merry. It is in the area of The Hotel de Ville and the Pompidou Center. Chris and I are trying to learn the Our Father in French, so we can at least minim...

 Many of you know that I have a lot of food restrictions - most of which make eating a lot of French cuisine problematic. Over the last 2 weeks, I've watched Chris and friends and family stop at patisseries for goodies that I cannot eat. But I've done some research and there are gluten-free and dairy-free bakeries in Paris. So today Chris and I set off for one of them. Rather than go south toward the river and the center of tourist activities, we went east, toward Montmartre. We decided to take the bus (accidently bought a bunch of bus tickets, so we figured we'd see Paris from the bus) and the Métro. The Métro station was in Montmartre, which is just that: a mont or mountain/hill. To get out of the station, we climbed and climbed and climbed. It is one of the  deepest stations in the Metro network . It took some work, but we eventually mastered the GPS, once we figured out that stairs counted as routes - until it dead-ended us at the foot of yet another steep staircase (on...

We are finishing up our second week in Paris. Last Thursday, my friend Joan and her husband Remy came to stay with us. They are starting a 3-week stay in France, heading off to Provence on Thursday. Then Chris's sister Lisa and her husband Jan will stay with us few days. I've been slowly recuperating from what turned out to be campylobacter bacteria infection. I received an alarmed email from the doctor who treated me to switch from the antibiotic I was taking to azithromycin. She prescribed a 1000-mg blast to deal with it. I had totally lost my appetite, so as I slowly increased my repertoire of food, I started to feel better.  On Saturday, the four of us decided to hop a Big Red Bus and get the overview tour of Paris. It was helpful for me to do something relatively low impact. It turned out to take longer than we thought, as we ended up in some serious traffic tieups around rush hour.  Here's a picture of the Eiffel Tower from the bus: That evening we attended an immersi...

 I'm back! Did you miss me? My "cold" turned out to be an infection. Actually, two infections: one in the lungs (no surprise there) and the other in the bowels. After a couple of days of being very sick and dehydrated (I won't go into the TMI details), Chris took me to the American Hospital in Paris. Once I got authorization from our international health insurance (had to have this to stay as long as we are), they thoroughly treated and investigated: an IV saline drip, an EKG, a CT scan, and then an IV drip of amoxicillin. They gave me a prescription for Augmentin, but I'm having trouble finding a pharmacy that can fill it. Apparently there are some shortages of antibiotics, which I think I read something about in The New York Times. Today is Ascension and the pharmacies are closed, but I'm hoping I can find something tomorrow. So not a whole lot to report. My friend Joan and her husband Remy have arrived today to spend a week with us, so I'm hoping to fee...

 Translation: I caught a cold! Isn't that great? Sounds like I trapped it somehow. So much more empowering than falling victim, as I usually feel. Rather, it's an accomplishment. It hasn't stopped me entirely, though. More on that below. First, we've been settling in to Paris and our apartment. We still really like it, but the kitchen really shows its age. The condition of the kitchenware is pretty bad: dull knives; dirty pots and pans (someone didn't clean properly before they left); glassware made for children rather than adults. But we're making do. Given that we're staying for a month, we decided it was worth buying adult glassware.  We're gradually finding grocery stores where we can find some more familiar items and food is actually reasonably fresh. Our first adventure in food shopping yielded shriveled green beans. I'm still yearning for unsweetened coconut milk. Chris says "lots of luck." But I'm not finished looking. On Thursd...

 Some of you may know that Chris and I have been trying to get to Paris - first, in 2015 and then again in 2020. I got sick enough in 2015 that I couldn't travel. You all know what happened in 2020. But we are now in Paris, so 2024 has been good to us. Many of you asked us if we were excited about our prolonged trip. Before we left Indianapolis, we were not excited, just because we were too encumbered with selling our house, packing up and emptying the house, working with our architect on the renovations for our Chicago apartment, and planning our trip. But I finally got excited when I knew we were on our way to Paris. Here we are in the TGV train (très grande vitesse - very high speed) on our way to Paris from Barcelona: The train maxed out at 290 km/hr. at one point! So much better than flying! Before saying more about our first few hours in Paris, I should finish up in Barcelona. Naomi left this past Tuesday to go home to Chicago. Chris and I spent our final day in Barcelona at ...