The city of lost dreams...

In my mind Paris had a lovely, sweet side to it.  As I say this I'm thinking of life depicted in the movie "le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain."  But this is only a dream and Paris is anything but a dreamy city.

Someone from America came for a visit a couple years ago.  They had a bag that wouldn't close and I suggested that it could become a magnet for pickpockets.

Sure enough, one morning walking up the street in an area well outside the tourist zones I caught a movement just behind me.  Instinctively I stepped back and into the on-coming path of the out-stretched hand.  The Romanian gitain quickly crossed the street and walked away.  I kept my eye on him as I asked if anything had been picked.  I was told the contents were safe and only then did I look away from the thief.

The incident bothered me.  I hate being prey for sticky fingers.

With the opening of the borders in Europe through the Schengen agreement has, in part, come the free flow of thieves looking for rich pickings.  Picks are typically from Romania and are gitain (aka gypsies).  It should be noted that the locals used to prey on each other well before the gitain arrived in such large numbers, but it's the gitain who currently run the biggest pickpocket operations.

Earlier this summer I was riding the metro and saw on a station platform somewhere near the center of the city a large group of young Romanians who'd been stopped and were being arrested by the RATP police.  It looked like it could have been a group of 20 to 30 youths all huddled together.

Just the other day I was talking with a friend who lives up in the 20eme arrondisement.  They said that this summer things had gotten particularly bad.  The Metro line 7 was being heavily picked.  People of Chinese decent were being targeted.  The story I heard was that merchants of Asian descent carried a lot of cash from their businesses around the city as a way of claiming smaller receipts that they had to pay taxes on and they were being preyed upon by well-organized picks.

The history of pickpockets and organized teams of criminals is rather well known here in Paris.  But seldom do we first hand witness a successful pick.  If they target me I've been so far lucky enough to put a stop to it by looking them directly in the eye and saying "arrêt!"  Usually they blubber "OK OK" as they back away.

Yesterday, Jude and I went to the Halle Saint Pierre to see an art rude exhibition.  Scampering home before the rains hit we jumped la ligne 12 to get off of the hill of Montmartre.

Around Gare Saint Lazare two Japanese young women boarded along with a crowd of folks from the railstation.  A fat Romanian woman stood next to where I was seated and effectively blocked the aisle.  At some point a 4 day stubble bearded young man with a hatchet-shaped face and nose came and stood behind the over-sized woman.

At a station around Concorde a group of people get off the train, including the fat Romanian.  I didn't think much about it until one of the Japanese girls got a startled look on her face and realized she'd been picked.  Hatchet-face pointed to three Rom that included two teenage girls I hadn't seen who debarked and just before the doors closed the two Japanese women quickly followed.

A stop or two later I saw hatchet-face put a wallet into the pocket of a lightweight jacket he held in his hands.  Not sure if it was his or if it was the Japanese girl's and not having a phone to call the police I just sat there like a lump on the log.  The man sat nonchalantly in a seat next to the door and casually got off at Pasteur and melted back into the city.

In addition to not like being preyed upon I really dislike feeling helpless.  In America people intervene if they see something going wrong.  That impulse is very much built into me.  But in Europe the only people I've seen intervene are the police.  Habits are clearly different here, though knowing this does nothing to make me feel better.  This kind of petty crime really turns my stomach and grinds my gears.

Parisians are not naive.  They certainly are not innocent.  Far too much has happened here for any of these things to be the case.  This is actually a rather cold-hearted place when viewed from certain perspectives.  Will justice be served to those thieves?  If so, when and how?

At some point in the night I remember thinking about the two Japanese women who had their vacation ruined.  I wondered how bitter they must feel after being violated by aggressive Romanian pickpockets.  I wouldn't blame them if they never came back to Paris. 

This place can be anything but a city of dreams.

des citations de Jacques Chirac...

La machine Chirac audio clips are worth a listen.

Le Figaro's citations are worth a read, too.

+/- 3 degrees of separation ~ Jacques Chirac

This morning on Telematin they ran a series of homages to Jacques Chirac.

Looking through the Lens of America we tend to know ex-President Chirac for one, maybe two things.

First, we know him for America's rebranding of that famous spud dish to "Freedom Fries."  Indeed, it was M.Chirac who said "non" to Baby Bush when asked to join the invasion of Iraq.

Second, if we are remotely aware we might remember that M.Chirac was found guilty of corruption after leaving office for things he did during his time as maire de Paris.

He came to presidential power promising economic reform, but he left with little to show for his promises.  And yet...

This is such a narrow lens to view the man's life through.

The French, it turns out, seemed to love him dearly.  He seems to have been a very real Man of the People kind of guy.

He loved sports.  He loved to eat.  He loved historical artifacts.  He was the first French President to openly talk about France's role in the atrocities of WWII.

By comparison, recent French Presidents are pale ghosts. ex-President Bling-Bling (Sarkozy) also faces corruption charges, but there is little public sympathy.  ex-President Normal (Holland) is perhaps best known for his Scooter of Love incident.  President Macron feels like a soulless ex-banker political numbers on a spreadsheet technocrat.

By these comparisons, Jacques Chirac was a Full Blooded Frenchmen in the classic style.

Someone who belongs to our French/English Conversation group would say "hi" to M.Chirac whenever he'd run into him at one of his favorite cafes here in Paris.

Our friend would occasionally be out walking the family dog and would spy the famous man sitting in his seat (a French friend pointed out to us exactly which seat that used to be and smiled that we would know anything about the subject in the first place) watching the world go by and call out to him, "Bonjour Monsieur le President".   M.Chirac was known to reply "Je ne suis pas President."  But, he told the our friend "you have a nice dog."

In recent years M.Chirac was seen less and less in his seat at the cafe.  He was looking like he was on the decline.  We knew the end would come sooner rather than later.

While we're heard stories from our friends, and while we remember the "Freedom Fries" incident, we had no idea Jacques Chirac had done so many things and had had such a positive impact on France.  Makes us wonder why it sometimes takes death for us to realize things that could or should be realized.

RIP ex-President Chirac.

Three BBQs - or the Summer of 2019

This, the summer of two significant canicules, my wife and I enjoyed three significant BBQ events.

It's a Wednesday and coming up to late June. Jude after breakfast casually scans the weather forecast.  Calm and tranquilly she skims the 10 day prognostication.  She calls my name in a note of sudden urgency.  As I'm sitting just across the table from her, this must be serious.  Tuesday next, she tells me, goes from nice and pleasant to instant BBQ in the span of just a couple hours.  Enter canicule number one.

Quick as bunnies we find a place forecast to be much cooler than Paris, a hotel to stay, a car to rent, and un Train a Grand Vitesse to help us escape the oven that our city would soon become.  The forecast for Carnac is looking good, so it's off to south Bretagne to visit les alignements.

Our first summer BBQ came three days into the trip.  Someone in Paris left the oven door open and we started to get rather toasty warm ourselves out on the beach.  It wasn't too terribly bad, but 90+ degree heat for two days was enough to lightly brown our exteriors, while keeping the insides nice and moist.  Still, it was a good escape.

It's a Wednesday and coming up to late June. Jude after breakfast casually scans the weather forecast.  Calm and tranquilly she skims the 10 day prognostication.  She calls my name in a note of sudden urgency.  As I'm sitting just across the table, this must be really something.  Tuesday next, she tells me, goes from nice and pleasant to instant BBQ in the span of just a couple hours.  Sound familiar?

Bunny quick for the second time in thirty days we look for the coolest place we can find in Europe (after lightly BBQing ourselves in Carnac we hoped to find something better), and, well, now.  Isn't this strange?  Porto, Portugal is prognosticated to not cross over 82 degrees the entire time Paris BBQ's.  So, planes out of Roissy are booked, an apartment is rented, taxis are arranged, and sweet fortified wines are researched. Enter canicule number two.

This time our research of a cooler destination paid off.  And oh boy did it ever pay off gloriously, too.  This time the BBQ came in the form of delicious meats grilled a la Brazil.  The Portuguese love their BBQ. 

Our first meal in Porto included 1/2 a chicken for Jude, a rack of ribs for me, a glass of wine for Jude, a glass of beer for me, and two after lunch coffees.  All up our meal set us back 14Euro90.  BBQ is absolute heaven in Porto.  This was an unexpectedly wonderful escape from Paris.

The BBQ was so good that we ate it nearly every single meal other than breakfast.

After our sometimes sweet city decided to cool herself off (after record smashing heat) we looked at each other, my wife and I, and asked where to go in September?

Well find we love Bretagne and the apartment owners of our first squat (if you can call an apartment in the 16eme a squat, regardless of condition) spoke highly of a small town on the Cote d'Armor.  We rolled the intellectually satisfying emotionally charged happy feet let's get outta Dodge yet again travel dice and said sure, why not.  Let's go to Saint Brieuc, shall we?

For the second time this summer we scheduled a Train a Grand Vitesse and rented a car.  For the third time this summer we found a place to stay.  Everything was arranged and, well, since this trip didn't feel as urgent as the prior two BBQ events, we took a leisurely approach to figuring out what to see and what to do.

Wherein we discover that no matter the internal state of being, and no matter if you feel you have to "call it up" or not, brilliant BBQ is just down the street.  What, you might ask, do the French do BBQ? Why, yes, Martha, they sure do.

They call it open flame grilling and when in Bretagne, the Land of Asterix et Obelix, magic potions and herds of sanglier, it is well worth seeking out if you are so inclined.  Just walking in the front door will convince BBQ connoisseurs that they have just walked through those creaky anvil struck heavenly tall iron grill gates and into Paradise.

It was so good that we ate BBQ twice during our four day stay. 

Oh, and galettes, too.  But this is a post about BBQ.  The story of galettes and cidre de bretagne will have to wait their turn for another post.

So there you have it.  Three BBQ events in one lonesome-long record-setting climate-changed totally hot summer.  Life is good.

Michelin Guide... those restaurants etoile...

For years I've associated great restaurants with France, and the best of the best racked and stacked in the Guide Michelin.  Anything awarded one to three stars was promising to be spectacular.  Three starred eateries are supposed to provide the most incredible dining experiences in the world.

Except...

Over the years I've heard of chefs committing suicide.  I've heard of chefs handing back their stars.  I've heard of skullduggery and other mauvaises actions.

After awhile it seemed as if the rating system was, perhaps, rigged like a good ice skating competition.  Not knowing the system like the French (it's likely built into their DNA, right?) I decided to canvas some of our friends to see what their opinions and thoughts might be on the topic.

In very unexpected and atypically non-French-agreeing kind of way everyone I talked to said pretty much the same thing: The Guide Michelin system is rigged.  To a point.

I asked for clarification.  Here are the underlying assumptions -

• Anything starred is for tourists.  
• The starred restaurant facilities are likely at least as good looking as the food.  
• The staff will be trained in certain ways that appeal to the Guide. 
• Shockingly, the food might not be as good as the other parts of the dining experience.

Mais (and there is _always_ a mais), the famous rouge Guide Michelin also contains a very long list of non-starred places to chow-down.  It is these places, I have been assured, on which the rouge Guide Michelin can be trusted.


Across social, class, and economic status the French agreement on these points was, dare I say, ridiculously consistent.  Our friends tell me the only thing they consider when consulting the famous Guide is what the occasion is.

If it's something "special" and meant to impress others they will select a starred restaurant that fits their budget.  For the occasional eating-out they simply look through the list of non-starred lieu.

Sometime I'll have to tell you about a restaurant out in a bled somewhere in France where Ministers of the Republic will helicopter for lunch.  It must be something really special.

Vocabulary List - riding into battle

As we were wrapping up a visit over cocktails the other evening our hosts suggested le coup de l’étrier.

From the puzzled looks on our faces the phrase needed to be looked up and the etymology considered.
Translated literally is means the blow/hit of the stirrup.  Strange, isn't it?

Interestingly, the phrase comes from the time of Napoleon and, specifically refers to the Cassocks who fought in the Napoleonic wars.  They would use the cup of the stirrups where they placed the toe of their boots as a vessel to drink from.

I can't imagine the dirt and filth such a cup had, but, we're talking former times and perhaps sanitation wasn't what it might be today.  Before charging (quite literally) into battle, they would fill their stirrup cups with vodka and drink the  contents comme un coup ou comme un cannon.

It finally dawns on us that un coup de l’étrier refers to one (last drink) for the road.

We'll have to remember this one.  It might prove useful.