Getting High in Paris

     Ha!  Gotcha, you bunch of old hippies.  I'm not referring to mind altering substances, but to places with high elevations.  We went to three spots with a view.

The Eiffel Tower is named after its engineer, Gustave Eiffel.  It was built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair.  At 1,063 feet tall, it is the tallest structure in Paris.  

Mike took this picture during our night time Seine River Cruise.

The Arc de Triomphe honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.  This monument is only 164 feet in high, but a lower view can be more fun - like watching the world go by from the attic window.

France's unknown soldier from World War I is interred at the Arc de Triomphe.

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica was built on top of butte Monmartre.  You can climb the many steps to the church, or you can take a funicular car up the hill.  

View from the Sacré-Cœur.

   
     During our visit we saw a number of couples posing for wedding pictures.  My cousin told me that, unlike Americans, most French couples do the professional wedding photos after the wedding.  On the one hand, it seems like a lot of trouble and expense to get coiffed, manicured, and dressed up a second time.  On the other hand, with the wedding day behind them, the bride and groom are more relaxed.  It must be a major relief not to worry about damaging the dress.

This bride, posing at the Eiffel Tower chose a red gown.

This couple posed in the traffic circling the Arc de Triomphe. 

Paris - A City of Bridges

     As of 2006, there were more than 300 bridges of one type or another in Paris.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_Paris  There are bridges for cars, bridges for trains, and bridges just for pedestrians.  If you are a movie buff, you might remember a line in the film "Sabrina" in which the title character recommends picking your favorite bridge in Paris, then having your coffee there every day.  I managed to traverse just a few of these structures.  I couldn't pick a favorite.

This entertainer was on the Pont Saint-Louis. 

This is Pont Nuef, the oldest standing bridge over the Seine River.  

Young people sitting along the river at Pont Nuef.  

It's a tradition for lovers to inscribe their names on a lock, attach the lock to a bridge's fencing, and throw the key into the river.  As long as the lock remains, the love will last, or so the story goes.

There are so many locks attached to this pedestrian bridge, the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghar, that the walls appear to be solid.  There is some concern that the weight of the locks will weaken the bridge.  There is also talk of moving these locks to a different site and outlawing future locking on bridges.  Until then, the tradition continues with lock sellers doing a brisk business on the bridge.

A closer view of the locks on Passerelle L-S-S..

   

Visiting Notre Dame and the Ile de la Cite

     The Ile de la Cite is an island in the Seine River.  It's the site of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Palais de Justice.

Map of Ile de la Cite from Google images.

Arial view of Ile de la Cite from Google images.  Check out Notre Dame on the lower left.

The western facade of Notre dame.

The large rose or circular window was created around 1225.  Beneath the window are twenty-eight statues called the Gallery of Kings.  They originally represented twenty-eight generations of the kings of Judah, but later came to represent the kings of France.

Me in this beautiful place.

So much stained glass.

This sculpture is called "Apparitions of the Risen Christ."

Beautiful chandeliers light the interior.

     Also on the Ile de la Cite is the La Conciergerie, a former royal palace and a prison.  During the French Revolution prisoners were taken to the Conciergerie to await their trial and the beheading that was sure to follow.  Most displays in this museum were behind glass, so they were difficult to photograph.  I had to resort to Google images to get good pictures of cells in the prison.

Wealthy prisoners paid for high end cells like this.  Poor prisoners got a layer of straw on the floor.

Marie Antoinette might have been the most famous prisoner held in the Conciergerie.  This is her cell complete with a wax figure of Marie A.   

There were two courtyards for prisoners to get some fresh air, bathe, and do laundry.

If one managed to scale the walls, these spikes deterred escape.

This is the entrance to the Palais de Justice, the place where justice has been dispensed since the 1500's.  The modern court system is located here.  We watched Parisians line up to go through the metal detectors for their day in court.  The Conciergerie is part of this complex.  Saine-Chapelle is also part of the complex.  We entered this gate to see Sainte-Chapelle, a medieval Gothic chapel.  

Enormous doors.  The design is mostly worn off of the floor tiles.  Construction began on the chapel around 1239.  The building was consecrated in 1248.  Originally, the ground floor chapel was for the masses.  The upper floor was for royalty, only.

The upper floor.
The chapel is called a "jewel box" structure - its stained glass considered some of the best of its kind in the world.

Wow!

Renting an Apartment in Paris - Some Things to Think About

     Mike and I just returned from France.  We decided to rent an apartment rather than staying in a hotel.  It promised to be a better value especially since we would have a kitchen for preparing some of our meals.  The apartment had a washer and dryer, so we figured we wouldn't have to take so many changes of clothing.  We also thought it would be nice to have a living room area for watching TV (even if the only channels in English were BBC and Al Jazeerah).  To top it all off, after having seen our share of "House Hunters International" episodes, we yearned for a real Parisian experience.  Here are a few things to think about before you run out and do the same thing.
     We booked our pied-à-terre through Rentals in Paris.  You can see the write up and pictures of the apartment by clicking this link: http://www.rentals-paris.com/birague.shtml
     It looks fabulous, huh?  Rentals in Paris did a superb job staging this place for photos.  The website's pictures didn't match the apartment's reality.  I won't put side-by-side pics on my blog since I don't "own" the Rentals in Paris photos.  You'll have to compare by jumping back and forth from their website to my pictures.

The website shows a flat screen TV sitting atop a sleek, modern entertainment console.  Routers and remotes are neatly laid out next to the television.  We found the TV mounted on the wall.  The routers and remotes were in the basket on the floor.  

The stove shown on the rental website is a stainless steel range with four burners.  We had a two burner induction cook top, the other half of the range area being filled in with some ceramic tile.  Obviously, the four burner cook top had been replaced.  I'm sure the new appliance performs better than the old one did, but it doesn't have the same look, does it?  We never cooked anything that required more than two burners, but the renter who wants to cook up a big feast with be disappointed they didn't get four burners.

The website pictured a modern leather (perhaps pleather) sofa in front of the TV.  We found some sort of metal two seater that could have been a child's day bed or a piece of porch furniture.  It wasn't comfortable and a good-sized American male would fear falling through it. 

This is not a complaint, just a word of warning.  City apartments are small, especially apartments in European cities.  The den was not much more than four suitcases wide.  The ceilings might have been six feet high.  The other rooms in the apartment, while small, had adequate ceiling height.  

My cousins, whom we went to visit, asked us if our apartment was clean.  We responded that it was clean enough, but not extremely clean.  They said, "Oh, it's French clean!"  This foot stool was covered in an assortment of smears.  We found dust and a bit of greasy film on top of the refrigerator, cabinet fronts, and back splash .  The apartment was adequately clean, but I wouldn't eat off the floors (as the saying goes).  I didn't find any bugs, dead or alive, so that pleased me.

The curtains in one bedroom showed what looked like water stains.  Also, the hems had been taken out, maybe for a little extra length.  Hemless, frayed drapes don't convey "beauty" or "elegance" to me.     

     Heat and hot water was more than adequate, but the air conditioning touted in the apartment's write up would have failed us if the weather had been warm.  There was a floor model AC unit that vented through a window and would serve only one room at a time.  The washer and dryer did not perform like American appliances.  The wash and dry cycles were extremely long and temperatures for the cycles had to be set in degrees Celsius.  Make sure you bring along the formula for converting temperatures.  

     A final caution would be to think about how many stairs you are willing to climb.  While our apartment was said to be on the second floor, one has to remember that the first floor is called the ground floor in France.  The second level is the first floor, and the third level is the second floor.  We had to climb two flights of winding stairs.  The original wooden stairs were worn and sloped downward.  We aren't as sure of our footing as we used to be, so we were a bit wary when we descended those stairs each morning.  We huffed and puffed climbing the stairs each evening, but we are proud to say we increased our stamina after the first week.    

     The beds were comfortable, as advertised.  The neighborhood was safe and filled with nice restaurants.  There was a supermarket and pharmacy just a short walk away.  There were two metro stations, also a short walk in opposite directions.  We were able to stay for less in an expensive and exclusive area by going the apartment rental route.  If you decide to do the same, take the descriptions and the photographs on rental sites with a big spoonful of salt.       

      

After They Served

     Check out these great pictures.  After serving in World War II, my father worked at Ft. Dix. His shop was featured in a military publication.  I suppose the people photographed received a free set of pictures.  I found these shots in my parents' things.    

No smiling allowed!  Dad is back row, fifth from the left.

Making shells.  Dad is on the left.  The guy on the right has a matching hairdo.

Big gun.

Sleeves rolled up - that's how real men get their work done.  This is my favorite.  

Love the light fixtures.

Wall Decor

     I've been wondering what to place on the wall over the sofa.  I've been wondering for almost five years.  I nixed mirrors, ledges loaded with tchotchkes, and an arrangement of family portraits.  Mike and I were lucky enough to receive some decorative metal work that previously hung over a barn door.  I cleaned and repainted it.  Now it hangs over our sofa.

This was weathered to a gray color.  The black areas are where I sprayed WD-40 so I could loosen the scews that held it together.

I washed off the oily WD-40 with detergent and sprayed with primer.  One of the curlicues broke off.  I glued it together with J-B Weld and sanded the seam before applying the primer.

Primed and ready for the black paint.

I poked a metal rod into the ground and put the finials on the rod for painting.

I hung the center rods from a tree branch and sprayed them.  These hollow, four-sided rods were full of empty cocoons and other creepy stuff.  I made a giant pipe cleaner by wrapping a smaller rod with a wet paper towel.  The cocoons were gone after a few passes with my pipe cleaner. 

I painted with Rustoleum Hammered Black and decided it was too shiny.  I sprayed another coat of flat black.

 I taped some cardstock together, making long strips.  I laid the re-assembled metal work on the cardstock,
traced it, then cut out the tracing.  Using blue painter's tape, I moved the tracing around
until I found the perfect place to install my objets d'art.
Note the black blob on the sofa - my canine supervisor.

The finished project.

Flat Stanley

     Back in 1996, when my nephew was little, I helped him with his Flat Stanley Project.  My nephew lived in Virginia, so I don't know if Stanley was a big thing around these parts.  Stanley helped students with reading, letter writing, and geography.
     Stanley Lambchop is the main character of a 1964 children's book written by Jeff Brown.  Stanley suffered an injury.  He was flattened when a big bulletin board squashed him while he was sleeping.  He found that being flat had its advantages.  He could slide under doors and hide in plain sight by pretending to be a picture on the wall.  He could get into an envelope and travel by mail.
     In 1995, a Canadian school teacher named Dale Hubert, inspired by Jeff Brown's book, started the Flat Stanley Project.  Children make a paper Stanley and send him off in the mail.  The recipient treats Stanley as a guest and shows him around (documenting the adventure in writing and perhaps with pictures), then sends Stan home in the post.
     My mother and I had a great time with Stanley.  We took him to Paris.  I'm sure the Parisians thought we were crazy posing for pictures with a paper cutout.

Stanley-packed and ready to go to the airport.

My mother with Stanley near the Eiffel Tower.

Mom and Stan posing in front of a fountain at Versailles.

     At the end of our vacation, Stanley was mailed to my nephew's school with a letter and some pictures of his adventure.  That was the end of the line for our paper doll.  I asked my nephew what happened to the "real" Stanley, the one in the book.  Well, when he was tired of living the flat life, his brother pumped him up with a bicycle pump, and Stanley resumed his 3-D existence.    
     Dale Hubert has retired from teaching.  He still runs his Flat Stanley Project.  
http://www.flatstanleyproject.com/default.html
http://www.dalehubert.com/index.html
     Tuesday, May 6, 2014 is Teacher Appreciation Day.  My hat is off to Dale Hubert for touching not only the lives of his students in Canada, but the lives of all the kids who read about Stanley and dropped him into a mailbox.  Also, thanks to one of my teachers, Mr. Baldwin, who made geometry crystal clear.  Finally, thanks to my friend Joanne who has been teaching since 1975.  You are a rare and special person.