Paris Journal 2006

Saturday, August 26

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Dragon made of recycled aluminum, cardboard, plastic, and steel, in the Jardin des Plantes.

Yesterday’s edition of Le Parisien featured a whole page on the issue I brought up earlier this summer, and that is that more and more Parisians speak English and they do so willingly. The headline was “The Parisians are not such idiots in English!” They interviewed four very good looking young tourists from California, a family from England, a Japanese couple, and a young man from Italy. Approximately 40 percent of the tourists in France come from these English speaking countries: Britain, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.A. All over the world, it seems, people are generally acknowledging that some knowledge of English is almost essential. Just when I was finally getting to know French pretty well . . . . We went to L’Antre Amis for dinner last night, and they were friendlier than ever. The food was especially good, too. Last year, we also had one of the best meals ever in that restaurant in August. I did catch a couple glimpses of the chef this time. Hats off to the chef! I’ve been enjoying reading the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s book, Témoinage, although I find that I like him less and less. He is a bit of a fascist, I think, and I certainly do not like the way he’s handled the situation with the squatters at Cachan. See August 20 and 23. Nevertheless, from his book I am learning more idiomatic French and more about very recent French history. His writing style is pretty easy to read, too. If you like the Paris métro, be sure to check out this very cool entry in Wikipedia. Alas, for many of us, summer is drawing to an end. Our friends from Fort Myers, Kim and Ed, are leaving Paris today. We had a lovely dinner with them at Oh Duo! on Wednesday. I think Madame Valero was very impressed by Kim’s ability to express herself in French. I saw Madame Valero out on the street as I was waiting for Tom outside the newstand at Place Charles Michels. Rather, she saw me first, and gave me a nice big smile and wave. J and M will soon be going back to Sanibel, too. But our friend Alan will be returning to Paris next week. At the end of the week, we make our big move over to the apartment near Saint Sulpice, where we will remain for the rest of September. My aunt wrote to me that she knows someone who spent part of a summer studying organ at the Saint Sulpice. He said that in order to get to the organ console, he had to walk out on the roof and back in! Has anyone else ever heard of that? I’ll have to check it out. Here’s a detailed photo of the organ console, and an interesting web page about the organ and church.

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