Paris!

After a few days of family fun by the swimming pool, we flew back to Paris, to visit Emilie’s friends and colleagues, and for Brian to begin to see Paris through Emilie’s eyes. It was Brian’s first visit to Paris since age eighteen, and Emilie’s first visit in six months. We were there for 72 hours. For both of us, it was much too short.

We stayed at Emilie’s parents’ apartment, at the corner of Rue du Bac and Rue de Varenne, in the 7th arrondissement. Here’s the building, the apartment is on the fourth/fifth floor (depending on American or French floor counting).


Look closely and you’ll notice a couple of military looking blokes on the corner – that’s some of the nationaal police that are stationed on that and several other corners and who along with the Gendarmerie patrolled the neighborhood because of the high concentration of ministeries and embassies in the area. In fact, just half a block down Rue de Varenne, and within easy sniper range, I mean view, of Emilie’s parents’ apartment is the Hotel de Matignon, the Prime Minister’s (Currently Dominique de Villepin) residence and office, and one of the “Talking Buildings” of the world (e.g. newspapers report “Today Matignon said…”)

I didn’t take any photos of them too close, but the cops carried machine guns. I hate that.

Since it was Brian's first visit with Emilie, we took the opportunity to be introduced to Paris through her eyes - her eyes at age five, fifteen, and twenty-five.

That is, we visited the apartment that she lived in between the ages of five and twenty-two (no good photos, sorry, though by the legends of her friends and family it was a warm, welcoming, and wonderful place, off of Boulevard Montparnasse in the 14th.)

We also visited the school (Ecole Alsaciennes) where she attended from kindergarten through high school (Baccalaureate). It’s a very compact school in a warren of classrooms, playgrounds and gardens stuffed into a Paris block on Rue Notre-Dame des Champs just down the street from her parents’ former apartment. We relived schoolyard antics…

And met some of the people that used to look after her and her siblings…


And the Jardin du Luxembourg, where Emilie’s grand-mere would take her on Wednesday afternoons. Paris is such a dense city, the city parks are as crowded with children on holiday as a foie gras farm at feeding time, such as these, spearing rings on the carousel with their grand-parents looking on as Emilie did twenty years ago…


We also visited the Grand Ecole (a top university) that she attended, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, aka “Science Po” for short. We unfortunately missed crashing a class being taught by her friend Cecilia, but we roamed the halls and off-campus bars where the students hang out. Here’s a photo of current students discussing weighty matters of politics and governance (and not just who has the best weekend plans, I’m sure) in the courtyard…


Finally, we visited where Emilie was working at age 25, the Hotel de Ville (or City Hall) of Paris, for the Mayor’s Office. Again, we missed crashing an actual committee hearing or anything, so we visited the reception rooms, and their over-the-top elegance. Remember when Wille Brown got so much grief for wanting to gild the dome of San Francisco City Hall? Well check this out…


(setting up for a reception)


(France! Glorious France!)

Besides touring Emilie’s old haunts, our other goal was to meet old friends. We went out to dinner (for couscous, apparently a de facto new addition to the dear national cuisine) with Anne, a Green Party representative in the Regional Assembly.


On the way, we stopped to watch a bit of the end-of-first-round World Cup match between France and Spain.

France won, and there were fireworks and festivity in the streets till dawn.

(Now they just won the quarterfinals (against Brazil!) and are in the semi-finals with Portugal. Allez Les Bleus!)

Bretagne-style crepes with Emilie’s 20+ year-friend Emilie and her partner Max…

An essential culinary and cultural staple, all the better with flambé!


And then on our last full night, we went out with half a dozen friends to the canal-side in the 19th arrondissement, where seemingly a few hundreds of paris young people, petanque balls (a.k.a. bowls in England or Bocci Ball in Italy) and guitars, and of course plenty of vin et fromage…



Emilie and Cecilia and Delphine…


And hilarity late into the night… (with Cecile, Cecilia, Janaina and Delphine, Emilie's friends from college)

Lastly, during more interesting and culture-laden travels, we happened to pass a couple of sights that are also somewhat well-known and make good photos…