If it's Tuesday, it must be the Musee Carnavalet by Jenni

I really didn't intend to post daily travelogues. You all have brought this on yourselves by your enthusiastic response to the last two posts. So I'll keep at it until someone tells me to stop.

First, some random thoughts. Despite Sister's warning, I have not been tossed out of Paris for wearing sneakers. I have seen many Parisians - even some Parisiennes - wearing sneakers. I did bring a pair of white sandals, which are fine for short evening walks and not at all fine for four-mile treks that include sand and gravel paths through Paris's parks.

This afternoon as we sat at a sidewalk brasserie having lunch, Emma said "Now THAT'S something you don't see in the US - people walking with bread. One of those long loaves of bread sticking up out of a backpack! That's so cool"!

We have further discovered the hegemony of American culture - American music, American stores (Levi's, Urban Outfitter and Nike, plus a bunch I don't remember), and American food (le hot-dog, le hamburger, and ubiquitous outposts of McDonalds and Starbucks). If nothing else, Emma will understand some of the ways in which Europe is just like home.

My French is kinda sorta coming back. I can read fairly well. I can make myself understood most of the time (and many Parisians are very patient. Merci). I can only understand what's said to me if they are speaking v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Frustrating. I really wish I'd done something to try and brush up before the trip.

I had forgotten how far north Paris is, and what that means for daylight when it's a few days away from the summer solstice. It's 8:53 PM as I write this and it's daylight. Last night, David and I went to bed at 11:00 and it wasn't full dark yet. In the dark days of December, I dream of evenings like this. Right now, though, I kind of wish it was just a little bit darker. On the other hand, who needs sleep?

Back to the travelogue:

We slept later this morning and had a slow start. The little boulangerie/patissierie around the corner is apparently closed on Tuesdays, so we had "a real breakfast" (Emma's words) in a cafe nearby. As you've seen by the post above, we then found an internet cafe so Emma could post her first vlog. That all took us to about 12:00 and we decided to take Rick Steves' walk through the Marais, backwards.
He has you start at the Place de la Bastille to the Centre Pompidou; we're staying a half-block from the Centre Pompidou, so we started at that end and wandered toward the Place de la Bastille. It is handy to be married to a man who sees maps in his head.

Le Marais is the Jewish district of Paris. It's also the gay district. Emma: "All the men here are so *fashionable*. Is that because they're French?" Me: "Partly". The streets - which are so narrow I am constantlhy surprised that people actually *drive* on them - are lined with boutiques, cafes, salons de the, a few Jewish bookstores and several falafel stands and restaurants. One of the things I've learned on this trip is that my daughter can accurately identify a gay bar. I didn't know that.

One of the first stores we saw was All Saints, which sells leather jackets, bags, and shoes, as well as denim and cotton clothing. Emma has been looking for a leather jacket; she's surprised by the cooler weather here (because she didn't listen to us when we told her...) and she fell in love with a tan jacket at All Saints. The good news was it was several hundred dollars less expensive than the one she liked at Galeries Lafayette yesterday. The bad news was that the first jacket was $600.00, which left a lot of room to go down without really becoming reasonable. We left the jacket there.

Emma chose the restaurant for lunch because she liked the way it looked. We will definitely let her do that again. She had a bacon cheesburger, I had a chicken Caesar salad and David had steak tartare. He's gone native more than we have.

I had a kir royale with my lunch. Why not live a little?

From there we walked to the Place de la Bastille. It's nothing special to look at. I am enough of a history nerd to love simply being in places like that - standing on the same ground that saw the beginning of the French Revolution.

Our next stop was the Musee Carnavalet, which we reached by walking through the Places des Vosges. I can see why Rick Steves suggests that you stroll by the art galleries at the Places des Vosges at night, when the stores are closed. Gorgeous, amazing art. We'd rather send Emma to college, though. There's a lovely little park in the center of the square, full of picknickers and loungers.

I'm very glad we went to the museum. We learned a long time ago that the best way to cope with Emma's distaste for art museum is to get her the audioguide. This is especially true when all the signs in the museum are in French. She was a very good sport. The Carnavalet has areas devoted to various epochs of French history, as well as two temporary exhibits, a "sign room", and several galleries devoted to Paris seen through paintings. We started in the sign room and then wandered into the Paris through painting exhibit, which was fascinating. They had a few paintings with immersive sound experiences - stand in front of the painting and you hear the kids playing in the park, or the music and chatter of a socialite's debut. Very startling when you're not expecting it, and very interesting. 

From there we went upstairs to the displays that cover the years from the Revolution to the establishment of the Empire. Fascinating. I don't think I ever learned much about French history, and I'm sure I've forgotten most of what I did learn. Tonight I start learning it again.

The biggest surprise to me was l'affaire Orsini: the attempted assasination of Napoleon III by Felice Orsini in support of Italian independence. She hid a bomb in her carriage. That's right - a 19th century car bomb (or bombe de carriage, anyway). In addition to a painting showing the event, the museum has three small bombs that Orsini saved for another attempt. Fascinating.

Less surprising, and very impressive, was the Fouquet boutique, an Art Nouveau masterpiece transported to the museum in the 1940s. 

Emma in one of the historical galleries. Those shoes came from yesterday's shopping trip at Galeries Lafayette. "They're not all that comfortable. That's OK, though. It makes your feet stronger".

As we walked back from the museum, we took a different path and I noticed a few men with kipot and tzitzit. On the next block, Emma said "Why are there soldiers there?" Sure enough, there were two men in camo gear with automatic weapons guarding the doors into a building. "Maybe it's an Embassy", I said - and then we walked past and I realized it was a synagogue and yeshiva. Emma: "Why do they need guards?" Me: "Why do you think?" Emma (sadly): "Oh." I reminded her that when we have High Holiday services at the JCC, we hire an off-duty police officer, who is also armed and in uniform. We'd talked about the anti-Semitic violence when it happened, and we (obviously) decided to come anyway. I do not enjoy teaching my daughter about this part of life as a Jew.

After the museum, we resumed our hunt for Emma's leather jacket. Our search took us to a French boutique called Mango, the local outpost of H&M, and the BHV (Bazaar Hotel de Ville, a large department store near our apartment). No luck. After that we sat, rested our feet (at least the old folks did) and talked about budgets and presents and how we decide where to spend our money. We realized that if my mother were still able to participate fully in our lives, she would either be with us, or she would have given Emma a check specifically for buying clothes in France. Mom would have bought that jacket for Emma without a second thought - so we went back and bought it as a present from Ga to Emma. She loves it, and it will have much more meaning to her this way.

That took us to dinner at Chez Marianne, a French/Jewish/Middle Eastern restaurant. Falafel, chopped chicken liver, hummus, bricks (crispy fried crepes with a ground meat filling), tapenade, fresh pita. A waitress who scolded us when we didn't finish it all. Definitely a Jewish restaurant. Another visit to Amorino - this time in the neighborhood - finished us off.

All told I think we walked about four miles today. I'd forgotten how good it feels to come home after a day lke that, take a shower, and put my feet up with a glass of wine. 

I am very glad we were extravagant enough to take two weeks for this trip. We have enough time to go to Sweden, and we don't have to rush through anything here in Paris. We have all next week to use our Museum Pass and wait on line. Tomorrow: the zoo (Emma's request) and a foie gras tasting here at the apartment, courtesy of the agent, Louis. 

Bonne nuit!