So its another Sunday in Paris. After yesterday's experience of Finn with no nap we decided to take it easy this morning and do our daily big outing this afternoon. I'd like to state that I was premature in declaring Friday chilly. Today was chilly. Little snowflakes accompanied me on my run this morning. We went to the flea market by metro and were accompanied by, yes, little snowflakes. Holly said her feet went numb. Emma said she was the coldest she'd been since yesterday. Finn just kinda went numb and didn't do much, except fall asleep. After lunch we went to the Guimet museum of Asian art. Today the line was even longer to get in, but was moving much faster. Wonderful collection of Tibetian art and artifacts.
I should let you know that as I'm writing this I'm eating a creme brulee from Monoprix. 3 euros for a two pack - and they each came in their own glass jar suitable for broiling! Again, I gotta say how happy I am with the food here.
Well, that about wraps it up for tonight. To summarize:
Cold, snowy, flea market, asian art museum, creme brulee.

It is still Friday, at least for a little while anyway. We tried to go to the Guillemet Musee of Asian Art this afternoon after a nice walk to the park to see the ice this morning. (Look children, ice!!) By the time Finn's nap was over and I got off the couch and we got the kids bundled and got onto the metro and got off the metro and onto another line and then off that one it was around 16h (thats 4 PM for those of you not on euro time). And there was a line around the block to get in for some reason. We decided to walk around the area (Trocadero, across the Seine from the Tour Eiffel) and check out the scenery. Nice statue of Geo. Washington on horseback with erect saber. Very revolutionary war heroesque. Anyway, we had a nice time wandering around, then the kids began to melt down so we went home on the metro.
When we got home we picked up dinner parts from three local places - the local baby supermarket (wide selection, small store), a bakery (baguette traditional), and the gormand tradition store (already made quiches). I am still gladdened and amazed by the low price and high quality of food here. 3 euros for a really nice quiche, 95 cents for a loaf of bread, 4 euros for a really decent bottle of red wine. I'll say that again in case Corey reads this. 4 euros for a really decent bottle of wine. It is great to be able to choose from 4 bakeries within a few blocks.
For Davis people I think it would be the same if you lived around the corner from the Nugget supermarket, except that it would have to be much smaller and cheaper, the food would have to be better, and you'd have to pass 3 bakeries on your way to it. So I guess it isn't like that at all.
I think I'll try to put up a new page of pictures each week, so look for another installment this weekend.

I just went for a run and I thought it felt cold. I mean it has been snowing (for 5 minutes at a time, once a day) here for a few days. I thought it was cold when my hands felt numb, and then again when I saw the frost on a car roof, and then again when I got to the park and saw the grass frosted over, but I knew it was cold when I saw the lake frozen over at the park.

Weather.com says outside temp is -3C, 27F. Yup, chilly. Apologies to the East Side Crew in St. Louis for calling -3C chilly, but hey we're from Davis.

This morning we went to St. Chapelle, which housed the crown of thorns ; ). It is next to Notre Dame. Anyway, wonderful place. We entered on the ground floor and both Holly and I thought, hmm, this isn't as beautiful as we thought it would be. And then we went up to the 1st floor. Wow. It puts Notre Dame to shame. Huge intricate stained glass windows. Not to be missed. Following that we went to get ice cream, despite the fact that when we left the house the 'real feel' temp was 22 degrees F. Nice ice cream at Berthillion's on Isle St. Louis. Even if your hands go numb.

Our next door neighbor Yvette gave Emma and Finn hand-me-down jackets! A really nice, touching, gesture from relative strangers.

Okay, I've got the pictures from the first days up and running for your printing pleasure. Let me know if there are problems with downloading them.

Another day of snow showers. Very, very cool, in many senses of the word. I've put up the next batch of pictures and they can be found at from a link at http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/paris.htm. These should open in a new window and allow you to print them to your heart's content. I'll go through and process the first batch of pictures by the end of this weekend.

Two great days of birthdays in a row. Emma's featured a trip to the Marmottan museum, featuring some of Monet's works, which is why she wanted to go there. Finn's featured a pony ride and hot chocolate.

Chilly Monday morning and we're headed off back downtown again. We made it to Brentano's book store, and then had to return home so I could go teach. After class this evening on my way home I ran into Holly, Emma, and Finn at the local small grocery store, which was funny since I was just wondering how they had faired with the really chilly weather this afternoon when I knew they'd be shopping. Anyway, just as I saw them it began to snow. Not really hard, just a little, as if to give credibility to the notion that it was really cold.

There are several projects I'm cooking up right now - some mini-essays that I'll get around to in the next few weeks, and posting the most recent pictures. The pictures should be up Wednesday, for those of you who are wondering what we've been up to, visually speaking.

This morning was a frigid, grey day so we went to the Cimitare du Montparnasse, home of Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Buvoir, the sculptor Brancusi, and a bunch of other dead people. I'll post some of the better monuments (including "the kiss" by Brancusi, which wasn't on his grave but tucked away in another corner). We went out to eat after that to the Cafe d'Orleans around the corner from our apartment. While we were waiting for our food to arrive a family sat at the table in back of us and looked over their menus. The wife then commented to her family that they should leave because "it didn't seem too French". Well, they did leave, which left Holly and me scratching our heads. We looked at the menu, looked at the bar which was filled with actual French men drinking Kir, the official French aperitif, and smoking, the semi-official French activity. Go figure. We had a chuckle, as well as the wonderful holier-than-thou glow that comes from being morally superior. After lunch we went on the metro to the Opera district to go shopping. Well, everything (almost everything) was shut down because it was Sunday. The huge grand magasins, the French equilivents of Sacks 5th Avenue, were closed and gated. It felt kind of like a ghost town. The only other people on the streets were tourists looking at the Opera, and those who didn't know that Everything shuts down on Sunday. Well, everything except the Starbucks, which was packed. We took a walk while enjoying the grey overcast and temperatures in the upper 30's. We walked past the gilded statues of the Opera, past the Place des Victoires, past the Haussmannian architecture (triangular street corners, 2d and 5th story balconies, shops on the ground floor, long wide boulevards), down to the Tuileries gardens and the back of the Louvre. We stopped and bought crepes and marvelled how easy and cheap it is to buy really good food. We decided to keep walking past another metro stop and walked across the Seine on the Pont Neuf bridge and by Notre Dame where we caught the RER train home. We did a lot of walking in really cold weather, but it was another of those days that I'm sure we will remember for a long time. The evening was capped of by a lovely dinner at home, followed by the cheese course. According to Holly, 20% of the space in our refrigerator is taken up by cheese. Hopefully we can get that up to 33% soon as we find more wonderful varities.

Emma and I set off for the African quarter this morning, just the two of us. Its nice travelling with just Emma, I really miss the time I used to have with just her on Saturdays when Holly was at work, and Finn just a glimmer in someones eye. The African quarter felt different from anywhere else we've been in Paris, or anywhere else I've ever been for that matter. Mostly north Africans, with some Algerians thrown in. Many small shops selling everything - hookas, clothing, medical supplies, beauty supplies, bulk food and spices, beautiful raw cloth, unusual shoes, halal meats, unidentified sticks (tooth brushes) both in bulk and in cellophane two packs. I bought a scarf for myself, and a necklace for Emma. We wandered around up and down some side streets and caught the metro back home. We bought some pain au chocolate (square croissant with chocolate inside) to take home and eat with Finn while drinking hot chocolate. Which we did.

Today, the Louvre. It is big, rather big, really really big. And chock full of paintings, and sculptures, and gilded things, and various crown jewels. We saw the biggies - the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrice, the Mona Lisa. And some other things. The crowd scene around Mona was surprising. Most people seemed to be viewing her through a view finder or LCD camera screen. Many people were holding up their cell phones to snap the "I'm here" shot. Rather surreal, especially after reading "The Da vinci Code". Emma really enjoyed the venus de milo, but preferred the tile mosaics since they are closest to tapestries, which she's really into these days. We walked around the gardens in the Tuilleries and over to Rue Rivoli, where Holly bought a beret for Emma for €6.

I've made a new Paris central page at http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/paris.htm
It will be the main page with links to this blog as well as the pictures as they are posted.

Monday morning and we're off to the Jardin des Plantes. We went to the Arene de Lutece, a Roman arena that dates from the 1st century BC. The city has stabilized it and it's open to the public. Another amazing historic site. We could walk on the floor where gladiators had been 2100 years before us. Rather staggering. After lunch I went to work.

Sunday in the Marais (4th arrondisment). We all went to the Carnavalet museum. It was very nice since it had lots of great information about Paris, beginning in the Pleistocene (200,000 years ago) up through the various King Louises and the revolution, and it was free. Afterwards we cruised the Marais, which is the traditional Jewish quarter, as well as having an upscale area. After a great falafel we went to the Bastile site. Oh, happy birthday Mom.

Valentine's Day from the most romantic city on Earth (according to some magazine). We blazed across the city to go to Brentano's Books, an english book store by the Opera Garnier. Nice big store. I purchased French for complete morons or something like that and we all wen home. After that Holly and I went out without the children, who were at home being sat by one of the staff from the AIFS office. Well, we paid her, it's not like we get free baby sitting. It was nice to go out an experience a French lunch without the kids. Nothing too special, except the company.

The pictures are up! and can be found at: http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/~thomsec/paris/FirstDays.htm

It is Friday the 13th, but somehow I didn't notice. Another nice day - sunny and warm. We went to the Tour Mountparnasse, the tallest building in Europe. Hazy, surprisingly smoggy view from the top. The Tour Eiffel was a dim outline in the haze, as well as everything else in the distance. Holly says the high point was fresh warm pain au chocolat afterward. Emma enjoyed the view and found Notre Dame, Luxembourg gardens, and the dome of Les Invalides, while Finn liked the telescopes.

This morning we went to the Cluny Museum (Le museum de la moyen age). The Cluny features the Lady and the Unicorn tapistry, which was nice to see, and is built on top of Roman baths that were almost two thousand years old. I really enjoyed that part since I'm from California where old things were built in 1960. I've had some thoughts about that about our apartment, which was only built in 1902. The idea that there would be an entirely different mindset to a culture with very old things that were updated and repaired rather than totally destroyed. How do you mix building materials and techniques from 1784 with fiber optic internet cable or Wi-Fi? to say nothing of older innovations like plumbing and electricity. We took the higher speed metro (RER) and for some reason the descent seemed eternal - escalator after escelator going down and down. More work. I took my French Life and Culture class out and about our neighborhood so they'd have some idea of where the grocery store is, where to find bread, go jogging and the like. They seemed to enjoy it, although some of them have really been getting around.

Went to the Marais district in the 4th Arrondisment to find an American book store called the Red Wheelbarrow. Nice bookstore, small and personable. Like the way most bookstores used to be before the advent of the mega stores. Rather typical of most things Euro-French - small and high quality. Like less is more, like bigger isn't always better. Very satisfying, except for trying to mix a small bookstore with small rambunctious children. I went to work. After work reception with nice hors d'ouvres and drinks. Since this didn't happen at ARC the drinks were more civilized - Kir coctails with white wine and cassis juice.

Today was my first day of class. I was as excited as usual, and spend the night before getting ready. I laid my clothes out and got my Pee-Chee folders out and sharpened pencils. Nice bunch of students, large classes in rooms that lacked ventilation, but overall workable. The students had a lecture on the history of Paris which was really interesting.

I had to work today. Well, actually I had to sit in an auditorium and listen to an orientation for the students and then I had to ride around Paris on a guided tour bus for a few hours. The tour bus was actually really cool. One of those touristy things that we wouldn't have done on our own, but what the heck. It turned out to be very informative and we saw a lot of the city. Sitting on the bus while these amazing sights whizzed by was another high point the Rodin Museum! Les Invalides! Napoleon's Tomb! the Arc de Triomphe! entering the insane traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe at high speed! in a bus!! the Champs Elysees! The Obelisk! The Louvre! The Opera Garnier! The square where they set up the guillotine during the revolution! just one thing after another capped off by Notre Dame again.

Our big activity today was going to the Jardin du Luxembourg. Paris to the Moon cover - the Palais de Medici built by yes, one of those Medicis in 1630, at the Jardin du Luxembourg. Huge pay-per-play playground.

We went back to Parc Mountsouris to try to see a puppet show and got rained out. The experience was rather nice and included hot chocolate.

Okay, another great day. I'll try to not keep saying that but we went to Notre Dame and the deportation memorial so I'm sorry but it was a great day. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed Notre Dame. I took some nice pictures of Point Zero, which is the actual point from which distances to Paris are measured. Geographically cool. We walked along the Seine River and saw all the little book and curio stalls, passed by the shop of a luthier (one who repairs lutes and stringed instruments), saw the bookstore Shakespere and Co.

We walked to Parc Mountsouris in the morning, which is a great park with a waterfall, small lake, hills, grass, trees with their scientific names, and some sort of mysterious meterological observatory.

My birthday. I had some cake. Great day: We took the metro for the first time. The metro rocks! Cheap, easy, convienient, fast. Everything public transit should be. So our first metro destination was the Tour Eiffel, but we didn't tell Emma where we were headed. We got off the metro at the bir hakeim stop and went upstairs and walked toward it and let Emma discover it. She was thrilled (Mommy, Daddy, I found the Eiffel Tour!! It's right there!!! I found it!!!) Very cool for that to happen. We didn't go up, but walked around underneath and enjoyed the atmosphere. We took some pictures (Emma against the tower to be posted soon, really). and then went home. Holly went shopping and cooked a great birthday dinner capped off by a fabulous cake from a local patisserie.

We are here in Paris, and most of you are not. We were in the air this morning on the first leg of our flight. I was looking forward to seeing Ireland, but there was clouds cover that began over the ocean and didn't break. We landed at Heathrow, did the changing gates thing, sat down and then boarded before I had a chance to look in the magazine shop at the cool British car mags. Took off, had lunch service (the veggie chicken caesar sandwich), and landed. Southwest and Americawest could learn a thing or two from BA in the passenger feeding arena. Once we were over the channel the clouds broke and I could see the meanders of the Seine, which was cool, but not as neat as the chateaus we saw a few minutes later. We landed at Charles de Gaulle, collected our bags and left. We had read all about the customs information (bring serial numbers and receipts for electronic equipment to prove you purchased it, red line if you have things to declare, green line if you don't) but we got our bags and left straight away. It was a little disorienting. Where are the dogs? The chain smoking customs agents in our faces? Took a shuttle from the airport around the perimeter road to our apartment. Nice driver, looked a little like our friend Ajay. Saw the big box stores (Ikea, and a bunch of French ones I didn't recognize) on the outskirts. Got the key to our apartment, got settled in and went out for a bite to eat. Really jazzed at the Frenchness of the whole scene - Small apartment! Kitchen in a closet! Cool French light switches! Small cars! Small dogs! Motorcycles! Scooters! We walked a few blocks to the next major street, ave General Le Clerc, and actually had an omlette and frites for dinner in an amusing smoke filled atmosphere. Lots of atmosphere. Then we came home and went to sleep.

Our flight over. Not too much to say. Nice big plane, great flight stewards (especially Vito, who has kids of his own and therefore an extra large soft spot for Finn, and Tony who was also great) Tony brought out kid fun bags unasked - nice tote bag with age appropriate activities for each of the kids. British Airlines has the greatest vegetarian dinner ever. Some kind of vaguely North African meal - chick pea curry stuff, couscous, eggplant stew. Great, absolutely great. Stewards coming through the cabin every 20 minutes with water and juice trays. Very attentive. Later they brought out a little Britax folding car seat, or well airplane seat, for Finn. He overflowed. Really. They said it was made for kids up to 30 pounds, which he is, and he's not a gangly guy by any means, but he overflowed. Arms and legs spilling out, but hey, he slept for a couple of hours which was great. Emma slept for a little bit, Holly pretended to sleep, and I watched the Northern Lights out the window. If you haven't flown an international flight you probably haven't seen the amazingly cool lcd units that are either in the back of the headrest in front of you or on a fold away pole if you have a bulkhead seat. They show the usual movies, and this is the coolest for geography geeks everywhere, ACTUAL GEOGRAPHY INFORMATION. I didn't bring my GPS unit on the plane because I didn't want to be wrestled to the ground by Tom Ridge's Sky Marshalls (Its a GPS unit not a bomb, I'm a geographer not a terrorist.....) The map channel scrolled through a couple of screens that showed a map of the whole route, a more detailed map, a local map showing the towns in the immediate vicinity of the plane, a flight info screen showing altitude, airspeed, tail wind speed, outside temperature, and all the units cycled through metric and US units. Very very cool. I caught a few minutes sleep.