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mardi 11 mars 2003 |
guillaume standing on rue cler, a marvelous walking street with an enchanting array of fromageries, boulangeries, chocolatiers and other treats one block away from our apartment on rue duvivier.
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tuesday morning i went out for a baguette. i shopped at a different bakery each morning. there were two on rue cler, and three more a half block down different side streets from rue cler. exploring early before most shops open i began to see regular patterns. before eight o'clock young students with daypacks drifted singly and in pairs down rue cler. kids under about eight years old were walked by adults.
after buying a baguette at a boulangerie down a side street i went to a photo shop that was open early and made photocopies of my handwritten letter to john in colorado. i also purchased another disposable camera. while i was making copies a loud american tourist entered the shop. she spoke no french, made the shopkeeper count the money for her because euros were too confusing, and did not thank him when she left. i was patient and polite, and when i completed my business i said, "merci, au revoir." to which the clerk replied, "bon voyage." almost without exception everywhere we went french sales clerks were polite and patient. there were one or two exceptions, but in general it was, "bonjour monsieur! merci madame! au revoir!" i kept in mind the advice from michel, our french neighbor back home in anderson valley, who told us "the french are not casual like here in california. they always say please and thank you."
i walked back to our apartment. after our continental breakfast of fresh bread, cheese and fruit juice margueritte and i walked over to rue cler. our family neighborhood featured an abundance of walked dogs along with their abundant droppings. parisians may be polite in conversation, but apparently they draw the line at picking up their dog shit. we always watched where we stepped, both to avoid the dog shit and also because of the many uneven paving stones. i often wondered if the stones i walked on had been in place for hundreds of years.
at the end of rue cler we turned right on avenue de la motte picquet and walked one block to the ecole militaire metro station. the loud american woman from the photo shop stood by the metro map with three female friends, planning their day. we slipped around them and disappeared through the turnstiles like the rest of the crowd in the station. fading away in the distance i could hear the women debating loudly in english how much it might cost to buy metro tickets.
we rode to invalides metro station and walked down rue de l'universite past the assemblee nationale and the ministere de la defense. we crossed boulevard saint germain and turned down rue de solferino. we turned right at rue de lille, passing the grande chancellerie legion d'honneur, then turning left at boulevard de bellechasse, we walked by the entrance to the musee d'orsay rer station. rounding the corner to the museum we discovered the line for admission to the musee d'orsay was a block long. margueritte held our place in line while i walked to the front to be sure it was the right line.
our line was long enough room for three separate musicians to work the crowd, including a solo jazz guitarist and a funny older musician singing along while playing an accordian and a small drum kit at the same time. i went in the bookstore and looked around, then i kept going on a lap around the block, just to be sure there were not other entrances with shorter lines. i walked down the back side of the museum along rue de lille, a one lane street with traffic at a complete gridlock standstill for four blocks. an occasional random impatient driver honked pointlessly.
when i came around the block margueritte's place in line had moved from the corner down past the first musician. it took us about thirty minutes to get to the front of the line and enter the museee d'orsay.