feldmanlarry

I did something today that I have not done in decades. I woke up earlier than I needed to just for fun. I never, ever, get up before I have to. If I need to get up early to make a plane or to do something with a friend, I’ll do it and not complain. But when I’m by myself, I never get up earlier than necessary for fun. Until today.

I woke up at 7 AM after getting back around 1230 AM from my late dinner last night. My goal was to walk around the wonderful area of my apartments, Le Marais. If I had any thought of ever buying an apartment here, they were killed by this. !.5 million euros ($1,620,000) for a 90 square meter (970 sq. feet) apartment. It was in Ile St. Louis, on the 6th floor with an elevator. To be fair there was also a 36 sq meter (390 Sq. feet) apartment on the 5th floor without an elevator for 435,000 euros ($470,000).

Here are a couple of the many beautiful buildings in Le Marais. The second one says at the top “Foundry of gold and silver, treatment of wood ashes, trials and analysis.”

This plaque says “From 1942 to 1944 more than 11,000 children were deported from France by the Nazis with the active participation of the French government of Vichy and assassinated in the death camps because they were born Jewish. More than 500 of these children lived in the 3rd arrondissement. Many of them went  to the girls school on Debelleyme Street, which is today the Francois Truffaut High School.” It’s disturbing to think that where I was standing is a site where 500 girls were taken from their school to death camps.

A much less disturbing plaque was this one — “Witness of friendship between France and Canada. This piece of rock from St. Helen’s Island in Montreal was put in this square on April 27, 1967, the first day of the Montreal International Exposition.” I went to the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal and had a season ticket in 1968 when I went to a French Summer School run by Mc Gill University. This was one day off from the anniversary.

I got back around 8:15 AM and realized I had maybe enough time to get to the tip of Ile de la Cité that I really wanted to see. I grabbed a taxi but he had no change for my 50 euro note and he had no credit card reader, which was a first for me. He took me to a cafe where I bought a coffee and pain au chocolat to get change. I spilled my coffee all over the taxi but he was happy that I could pay him and leave.

When I got to the tip of the island, there was only one person there and he was fishing. I’m not sure I would eat a fish out of the water here. I hate taking selfies but asking the fisherman to take a picture would have taken more guts than I have.

On my way back, I realized I was right at the place where I attached the locket to the Pont Neuf on April 5, three weeks ago. I was amazed to be able to find it.

My last view of the beautiful City Hall (Hotel de Ville), which I passed every time I took the metro back to the apartment.

Three things happened that indicated I was becoming Francified (is that a word?).

• I was able to help people who needed directions on the metro.
• I thought of a French word for something (“monnaie’) and had a little trouble remembering the English word (“coins”).
• When I went to the patisserie that was just 5 steps from my front door, the waiter asked me if I wanted the usual. (I didn’t since I had already had my pain au chololat)

I took the 45 minute metro to Charles de Gaulle Airport, with probably a dozen stairs, tunnels, passageways, and trams / metro lines. I was flying business class on Icelandic Airlines. It was more expensive than coach but maybe 1/3 what business class would have cost on another airline. The flight was about 3.5 hours to Iceland, 1.5 hours in Iceland, then 7.5 hours to Boston (actually 8 since it had to circle the airport for a half hour). Long time but it was comfortable.

You can see the meal below. With Icelandic food, I had to choose the cod. No one has ever heard of Icelandic Duck.

It felt weird to be back in the US. I had gotten used to hearing French everywhere along with other languages. Customs was really long. they had so many people waiting to go through the automated photo stations that we had to wait in a corridor for a while. By 8:30 or so when I was in my Boston hotel room, I was tired. 8:30 is 2:30 AM Paris time. Really fast data on my phone was something I hadn’t experienced in a while. Being able to make a regular phone call, not FaceTime was another perk of being home. I had been excited about getting home since I hit the wall in Venice. It was hard to get really excited though when I was so tired. Two more legs of the journey to go.