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jeudi 13 mars 2003 |
children drawing pictures of point zero, the marker in square jean xxiii, in front of the notre dame on ile de la cite, from which all kilometer distances in france are measured.
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we packed our luggage the night before. early in the morning i went out for baguettes. i was determined to go a new boulangerie, so i walked past the ones in our neighborhood. i walked down rue de grenelle and turned onto avenue bosquet. i routed around construction interfering with the sidewalk. it took a long time to find a boulangerie as i wandered randomly down different streets.
we ate breakfast, cleaned the apartment and packed our luggage for the schlep across town. margueritte called our new landlord, fabrice, to confirm our arrival at the new apartment. our current landlord, christian, showed up. we thanked him profusely for his wonderful apartment. he gave us brochures to pass along. we walked up rue cler for the last time and got on the metro at ecole militaire.
it was a bit difficult to haul luggage in the crowded metro. we each took up two spaces everywhere we stood. but the parisians were polite. we changed trains at concorde station, with its wonderful long sonorous corridors so perfect for musicians. we rode line one to st-paul and climbed up into a new neighborhood along rue de rivoli in the fourth arrondissment. a carousel and a newsstand shared a small plaza crowded with benches and the busy metro entrance. we stepped aside to be out of pedestrian traffic. i balanced our bags on a bench and got out my michelin pocket map of paris. i glanced about through the crowds on the sidewalks at the various intersections near the plaza. i quickly oriented us. we promptly crossed rue de rivoli at a signal and turned right, traipsing down the sidewalk. a block later i stopped to check the name of the cross street against my tourist map. then we turned around in the "other" right direction.
after a few blocks we turned up rue vielle du temple, a very narrow one lane, one way street packed with cars, scooters and trucks in a slow motion gridlock. in a few blocks we were at our door, squeezed between a cafe and a boulangerie that was over half pastries. our landlord was not waiting for us. the sidewalk was filthy so i was unwilling to put our bags down, which was kind of crazy because the bags were heavy and i was getting irritated holding them up. the new neighborhood was very different than rue duvivier, as we had noticed walking by this corner the day before. the street was packed with people in their twenties and thirties, unlike the family and children environment of rue duvivier.
i'm not sure how long we waited for fabrice to show up. i think he was 45 minutes late. the apartment was up three flights of stairs. he wielded four different keys to open the three doors we passed through to enter our small apartment. it was not nearly as charming as the one we had just left on rue duvivier, but i was very glad to set our bags down. fabrice's english was excellent. he explained the european washer drier carefully to margueritte. i asked about a nearby internet cafe. he said the world's largest internet cafe was just a few blocks away on boulevard de sebastapol. the apartment had a well organised reference binder on the table beside the fax machine and the television. the binder included directions to the internet cafe in addition to instructions for the appliances. we thanked him, and after he left we unpacked and rested a bit.
getting up, we walked down our street to the seine and crossed pont louis philippe onto ile st. louis. we ate lunch in a small cafe, then we crossed pont st. louis to ile de la cite and visited the cathedral du notre dame. the plaza was quite crowded. there was a long line for a chance to climb to the viewing platform on the tower. margueritte stood in line, which was cold in the breezy shade of the cathedral, while i stood out in the hazy sun, watching schoolkids play at point zero.