Monday, October 8, 2002

    We thought that we better go to the airport to pick up our delinquent bag. So this morning B and Marie Francois discussed methods of transportation and mapped out an itinerary. We also invited Marie Francois to supper, at a restaurant of her choosing, but with the proviso that we could get chocroute. She readily agreed and made a reservation. We were to be back by 7:30.
    We began the day with a visit to the Eiffel Tower. We rode the metro, and were joking about French Kiss, and Kate who kept missing seeing the Tower. As we emerged from the metro, I immediately turned right and started to walk along the promenade in search of the Tower. B took my arm, turned me right around, and pointed—at the Tower, of course! Shades of my Father's sense of direction. We walked around under the Tower and took some photos in black and white, which I had bought for fun. B said b&w would actually be very nice for Paris. There were long lines to go up the Eiffel Tower, and we agreed to skip that excursion. Our taxi driver would be disappointed.
    From the Tower we metroed back to the Ile de la Cité, and went to find Saint Chapelle. B is particularly interested in seeing stained glass here in Paris. He remembers it so fondly from his art history courses in college. The windows in Saint Sulpice were lovely; Notre Dame was better. But Saint Chapelle was astounding! Finding the way in was a bit tricky. B had it on his map, and we got right to it, or so he thought. We could see its spire above the wall of the Palais Justice. But the walls of the Palais kept us from it. So we walked along, around a corner. We knew from the map we were on the back end of the chapel, so we continued all round the Palais, passing armed security wearing bullet proof vests, watching them search bags and briefcases. Surely the entrance must be on the other side of the block, at the front of the church.
    Eventually we were back to our starting point, and flummoxed. Yes, there was a sign, pointing the way we had walked. So we tried again, and this time went slowly. Ah, French signage. B said, "I thought we were supposed to go in through these big gates. I remember seeing pictures of them." The huge gates, into a courtyard in the Palais, were firmly closed and guarded. But as we looked about, we noticed a sign on the side of a protruding wall, pointing back the way we had just come. Of course, if you were following the signs from the metro by the river, it wasn't visible until you had passed it. And there, a few steps back along the wall, was an entrance through the Palais wall marked for Saint Chapelle. It was like going through an airport security gate, with scanners and all.
    Once inside the courtyard, we were at the side of the chapel, and admired the bits and pieces on the ground along its wall, between the buttresses. Notre Dame had the same at its back. We went into the lower chapel, and B found the way up while I got a few postcards. When we emerged from the winding stone staircase into the upper chapel, B was smiling beatifically and I was awed. The entire chapel is tall, narrow stained glass windows in rich colors, with only thin columns between. The starry blue ceiling, brightly painted statues of saints on the columns, the golden the altar, the colored light all around were stunning. B caught different patches of color on his hand, "To take back with us." But there was more!
    Next we rode the metro to Saint Denis, a church in a different part of Paris. It was up on the northern edge of the city, and looked and felt different. The people were Algerian, Moroccan and African. At least, that's what we assume from the signs in the groceries and shops. They were facial types I've rarely seen. The district was a bit rundown, except for some sprucing up right around the cathedral.
    B was worried. He wasn't sure we had come to the right place.
    "This is Bishop Suger's church," he said. "It's supposed to be the first gothic church. But it's way too big." We went in to explore. B bought two guide books, and read a bit. Then he was satisfied.
    "OK, this is it. It's the choir that's important. That's the part that's the first example, and all I remembered were the pictures of it. I wasn't remembering the whole big cathedral. " No one really knows why Abbot Suger hired the architect he did, or why they designed the choir and its windows this way. But, it began the change from Romanesque to Gothic architecture. We paid a small fee to enter the choir area, and found that it was also the place of ancient tombs (the guidebook says "The world's greatest assembly of funerary monuments. . ."). Some date to the 500s! The choir and its windows were lovely, with columns that divide it into inner and outer circles. B was happy he hadn't led us astray, that he had finally, twenty five years after being enchanted by pictures of it, seen the first Gothic cathedral; and, I think, especially happy to be able to share it with me.
    I'm beginning to hear American speech from a different standpoint—it's sounding odd to me, out of place of course, but also nasal and harsh compared to the lovely sounds of the French accent.
    As our last stop, we had to go to the airport. B and Marie had worked it out so that we would catch the train from St. Denis. We knew the station was near, but couldn't see any particular signs. We stopped in a very nice tourist office across the square from the church, and were told, yes, we could ride the metro back to the train station, but that it was only a short walk. We took a map from the helpful clerk and walked away from the church, along a main shopping street. This was rather exotic, with the ethnic stores and their patrons all around. It was only a few minutes walk, and we found the train station with no trouble. So, on to the airport.: a rather dull ride through industrial and suburban scenery.
    Once at the airport, which is gigantic, we decided to use our phone card to call the baggage office at Air France, both for information and to verify their location in the complex. They told B we should go to the gate at which we had arrived, and if that was no help to go on to Hall C and the baggage office there. Well, of course we had no idea which gate we had come in. There are hundreds of them! So we decided to just play dumb and go to the office.
    The man at the counter wrote us a pass, and told us to go through a door a bit further down, on the left. After some mucking about and asking for help, we determined that we were indeed being told to go through a door prominently marked "Interdit." "Yes, OK, it's unlocked." On the other side were French customs and security checks, all unmanned, then, the AF baggage claim! And Security kicked up a fuss over a tripod in Montpellier!
    Five women were in the office, and we were the only customers. The first lady we talked to checked her computer and decisively pronounced that there was no record of our bag—file not found. Huh? Well, they said, it means they don't have the bag, perhaps someone else picked it up and took it away. With no record, there was no way to find it, it was gone. See, here is your number on your claim ticket, and this number isn't on record. Lost, stolen, gone. We were in agony. B's beloved ancient feather pillow was in that bag!
    Meanwhile, another lady was typing away and then she said, "C'est ici. Le nom Maminski." She had simply typed in my name, and found our bag! Well, then there was a flurry of looking at screens and typing and discussion, and it was quickly discovered that the claim number had been entered incorrectly. So of course the bag couldn't be found by number. Oh, the apologies and congratulations that ensued. Now everyone was beaming, not least ourselves. If we had waited, and our bag had gone to the giant lost luggage warehouse with a wrong number in the computer, we would probably have lost it for good. We waited there in the office for our bag to be brought out, still the only customers, and our first lady told us about a trip to America. Everyone we meet seems to have a story about a trip to America, even if it's only a niece's friend's teacher who has been. I suppose we'd be the same if we met someone here at home from one of the places we've traveled.
    By now we were such good friends with the lost baggage clerks that they were giving us business cards and addresses for restaurants we must visit in Paris. Our bag arrived, and there was another flurry of congratulations and well wishes. The French are so dramatic, and it's fun. But of course now we were running late, and stopped to call Marie. She told us not to worry, to just come home soon as we could.
    We hustled along as fast as possible, and were about a half hour late. Marie made a quick phone call, some rapid fire French ensued. Perhaps they had not held our table, but they would certainly seat us. We all bustled to the metro and were soon at the brasserie Balzar, if possible even warmer and cozier than Moissonier, and certainly as busy as Bofingers. It was brightly lighted, and the din of conversation made for a convivial evening. There is, since this is France, some kind of ranking or descriptive system for different types of what we call restaurants. Brasseries aren't restaurants, they are brasseries. There are restaurants, like the Tour D'Argent that we passed and recognized from the silly Root Around Europe movie, but those are different. I suppose there are other types as well. Brasseries seem to specialize in what might be called "home cooking," which is very much to our liking, but also very filling.
    There were parties of Americans to both sides of us, and we struck up a very friendly conversation with the husband and wife at the end table. They had been visiting their daughter who is in school in Luxembourg.
   Of course Marie and I shared chocroute, and it was divine! The sauerkraut was fine threads, not at all chunky, and much more mild than our American variety, cooked in wine with just a hint of vinegar. The sausages were sweet and delicately flavored, and it comes with chunks of salty "bacon" and meltingly soft pork. Ooh la la! B began with, of all things, carrot soup, which he pronounced delicious. Then he had a real treat, and an education. The menu listed andouillette and he was intrigued, for this seemed like it might be the original of the spicy andouille sausage we love to have in New Orleans.
    Marie Francois told him it was tripe, sausage made of tripe. He wasn't daunted. When he ordered, our server told B he didn't want it. We think he was worried B, as an American, wouldn't like it and kick up a fuss. B insisted. Our server asked, "Avez vous mangé?" B lied, and said he had. It seemed the only way to get some! When it came, fat and enticing, B found that inside the tripe was only loosely cut up, and that the sausage wasn't at all spicy, but very, very rich and flavored more with herbs than spices. He loved it, and told our server, who was relieved and pleased. How, though, or if, the French andouillette became the Cajun andouille we still don't know.
    When the party on our other side stood up to go, one of the men was holding a little dog. As they walked out, he told us the dog's name was Ragout. Marie Francois thought that was terrible, to name a dog after food. Walking home, Marie took my arm and we walked arm-in-arm all the way home. B strolled behind, looking, in his Panama hat, blazer and pleated pants like a true Parisian boulevardier.

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