Beck had wanted to spend some time at the Jardin des Tuileries, picturing a sunny, warm day perfect for strolling or for lounging with a book and watching the crowds meander by. And while the gray sky did not promise compliance, we still made our way - no such thing as a wasted moment. We left the house sometime before 10 to make sure we'd have sufficient time before the March for Science happening later. Nearly all the shops were closed. We sat across from a Scottish family on the Metro, though their accents were so thick that my brain recognized their speech as foreign language, not English. I didn't realize until Beck pointed it out later.
When we arrived, we climbed the stairs at the foot of the gardens and made a slow journey towards the Louvre at the other end. First we passed an arrangement of bronze scupltures, a collection of disembodied hands. The only one that really unsettled me was a child-size one, separated at the wrist. The path drew us into a round, open, court with a large pond in the center. There were many, many chairs to be had - heavy, so nobody would be inspired to take one home as a souvenir, but comfortable vantage points. We sat and watched an RC sailboat take its turns around the fountain. Some ducklings, following their mother, emerged from under the lip of the fountain, immediately attracting a cadre of photographers. The sun peeked out from time to time, and I was very grateful to absorb its warmth - I seem to have completely lost my East Coast hardiness at last, and I'm not entirely adequately prepared for the temperatures here. It feels a bit silly to buy anything heavier at this point, so close to warmer weather, but I may have to. At least it'll be a nice piece to add to my wardrobe.
I talked with Beck about the bounty of public resting places I had noted all over Paris thus far. Main boulevards and park paths are lined liberally with benches. Flat surfaces are not covered in spikes or other deterrents. Cafe culture, of course, permits sitting and staying in a restaurant for as long as you wish. (I have no doubt that there are class and racial considerations to this that I'm not aware of from my limited experience.) I appreciate the availability of seating as someone who is generally without physical disability, but with whiny feet and a poor sense of direction. We US Americans spend a lot of time, money, and effort to punish the minds and bodies of those who have no home or place of rest to call their own, so it's refreshing and hopeful to see a municipality with a different strategy.
We moved on as the duckings did, heading still towards the Louvre. The Tuileries have gone through many, many iterations in its four and a half centuries. It began as a palace garden for Catherine de Medici, and each subsequent monarch and emperor put their mark on it. At times it has been closed to the public, but it was the first royal garden to be open to most citizens of Paris. We inspected four more traditional stone or plaster statues edging the circle before we left. One was named Summer, one Winter; the other two were not Autumn and Spring. Â At the next junction, there were flowerbeds inspired by some work or another inside the Louvre. I hope the gardeners get a lot of say in the design. The tulips were stunning. The sun was holding steady at low-medium shine, so we pulled a couple more chairs out of the main walking path (not on the grass, never on the grass) and settled in to read for a while.
After an hour or so of quiet pleasure, we started towards our next destination. The March for Science was starting more or less at Beck's workplace, the Museum of Natural History. En route to our metro onboarding point, we passed swans in the Seine. (Is this normal, does anyone know?) Beck took us past some wallabies that he'd been visiting on lunch breaks - the joeys are young enough to still be in pouches, but big enough that they like to stick their heads out. We picked up warm sandwiches from a shop down the street and strolled through the Jardin des Plantes to the meeting point. As with most small-to-medium protests, it looked like a lot of people milling around at that point. It was scheduled to start at 1:30, so we had originally been aiming to arrive around 2 thinking that these things take time to start. A co-worker of Beck's had been shocked that we wouldn't turn up precisely on time, though, so we rescheduled. Our initial picture of how things would go had been right, including the expectation of speeches in French that neither of us would be able to understand, and by the time we left a couple hours later, the "march" part of the march still hadn't begun.
But there was a good-sized crowd, including some English-speakers. We hovered, then pounced at an opportune moment, approaching a knot of three people about our parents' ages. Two were a straight married couple who had been here thirty years, and the third was a woman who had been here forty. Two English teachers and a sales specialist, they were very kind to us. We chatted about American politics (which they were worried about in an "over there" kind of way, having been separate from it for so long) and they had solid common-sense reasons for coming to the march. The couple were originally from Wisconsin, had met in college and moved here in their early 30s. By the time we'd been chatting for maybe 45 minutes, they very kindly invited us to a surprise party they were throwing for either their son or their daughter's boyfriend. Their home is outside Paris, but reachable by train. We accepted their invitation, and connected with them on facebook.
We left shortly after that, having made our presence count and also having had enough of the crowd. Our Metro stop was closed for protests/gatherings of a different kind, so we got off one stop early and walked from there. We visited a very fancy chocolatier that I'd read about - it turned out to be a bit too fancy for us at the moment, being a sit-down cafe, but it was well noted for future exploration. Instead, we picked up a couple of tarts (chocolate and lemon) at the supermarket to scratch the pastry itch and took them home to rest.
Later that evening, we decided to visit a FNAC, a store whose name I vaguely recalled from French classes. The nearest one was at Gare de l'Est, a short Metro ride away. I have been repeatedly impressed by how well graphic novels are integrated here as a legitimate form of literature, showing up in every book store and a lot of other places besides. We didn't find anything to buy at FNAC, but I was pretty hungry, so we left the train station and walked a few nearby streets, eventually coming upon a small pizza shop. The workers were very kind to us, and we enjoyed our meal. I was distracted by the TV showing a soccer game, even though I don't care at all about soccer and had no idea who the teams even were.
We found that we were close enough to home to want to walk it. Along the way, we saw some election signs that had been pasted over with alternate posters featuring cartoon characters referencing the various scandals of the presidential hopefuls. Cinderella was there, claiming that her expensive dresses were just gifts from a friend. Pinocchio explained that Jiminy Cricket was really a parliamentary aide. There's a great John Oliver bit about the French election that Beck had shown me the day before that helped me understand the context a little better. Our walk home was otherwise uneventful and pleasant, and we went to bed tired from the long day.
Got up with Beck to see him off to work, then got back into bed to read. I've picked up a book I last put down in like February called Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. I got immediately sucked back into it. When I was done with that for the moment, I did a few houseeworky things - tested out and used the vacuum, ran some laundry through (think I've got the hang of it now), and picked up some groceries. It was a lovely warm day out, and the French were absorbing all the sunshine they could get. Itt commonly turns sunny in the afternoon here, even if the morning was gray. I also read about a few places to check out on Eater, a food enthusiast website that I do not usually frequent but was curious about.
When Beck got home, he brought shoe polish. We both have weird picky feet, and his demand particular shoes that were designed for the French Foreign Legion. The pair he has were starting to look a little worn, so polish seemed like the logical protective step. It was fun watching him work. I even got to play foot dummy for a little while, with my foot in the shoe while he worked on it. The polish took nicely, a little darker than the original leather dye, but ending up a pretty chestnut color. (sidebar: I have seen but not yet purchased roasted chestnuts. I fucking love roasted chestnuts. But I never see them when I want them.)
Right around here is where my shame begins. We went out to find dinner. Beck suggested a ramen place he had seen not far from home, but the formulation of ingredients wasn't quite right for me. Then we wandered some, happening to be on a street that was more stores than cafes. (Usually when I am looking for a store, all I can find is cafes.) I had also waited too long to eat, and my decision-making powers dissipated as a result. We found a cafe with something we would both eat. The very nice waiter came. I ordered wine for me, and Beck asked for the coktail du jour - turned out to be a margarita (which I just could not understand out of the waiter's mouth). A few minutes after the drinks showed up, Beck asked when I thought we might be able to order food. And then I realized my mistake - I was on autopilot, and had totally forgotten (if I ever knew) that you order everything at once here. The waited naturally assumed we were just out for a drink, and would not come back to ask us if we wanted food. I wanted to cry. I hadn't realized how much Beck was counting on my ability to navigate this situation. We were both hungry. Worse, someone started smoking weed, or smelling like weed, very close to us, which is an instant serious headache for Beck.
I realize this probably sounds pretty minor, especially if you don't deal with anxiety. If we were home, I/we would probably have been able to manage the situation by moving, or by getting the waiter, or something. But in the moment it was just overwhelming. So we finished our drinks as quickly as possible, luckily caught a waiter without too much trouble, and beat tracks.
Then we went to a crepe stand for food. The man there was nice. Having had a drink on an empty stomach, I accidentally ordered the wrong thing, and subsequently corrected our order. The nice man then made us the first and second things I had asked for, and did not make the thing that Beck had asked for. We now had 1 crepe I would eat, 1 crepe neither of us would eat, and 0 crepes Beck would eat. This was again a case where in the US I would have fixed it easily, but just could not manage it here. I still feel a lot of shame about this as I write it four days later.
He got himself a correct crepe at another crepe stand near our house. Â This was not my most favorite day so far.
Today I was set to explore the 19th arrondissement. I slept in by accident until 11, though. I admit it's nice not being on a real schedule with consequences for oversleeping so that I can give my body what it needs when it needs it. I left the house a little after noon and took the metro to the Stalingrad stop - not the closest to my ultimate destination, but at the head of a canal I wanted to walk along. It was a sunny, but windy, walk along the canal, with a good amount of others out on their lunch breaks. There were some cafes lining the canal, then some dusty shaded park area took over. There, the cafes moved onto barges - clearly not going anywhere, but barges all the same. None of the ones I passed looked open, but I was at least a little enchanted by the idea. I do intend to take a bateau-mouche at some point, one of the Seine tour boats. But for now, I kept walking. The park provided ping-pong tables where some teenage boys were playing, and further along a couple of kids were practicing juggling - early stages, by the look of it.
A moment here to discuss street art: it is impossible for me to photograph or even take notes on all, or even a fraction, of the public art I see. Some is graffiti, some is clearly installed by the city, some I really can't tell. But it is everywhere, and it is largely high-quality. Paint, chalk, tile, posters, stickers, stencils, sharpie. Plenty of humor, and some thought-provoking questions ("What is your France?" lettered just outside our front door). But whenever you visualize me here, know that if I am outside in public space, I am greeted by new visual art every few steps. Â
Today's primary location, though, was more dedicated to the aural arts. The Paris Philharmonic is part of a big complex of performance spaces and exhibition halls in the 19th arrondissement. There is a museum of science and industry, the Paris orchestra hall, and some other venues. But the Philharmonic itself hosts the MusĂŠe de la Musique - the Museum of Music. I approached via a large, open court centered on a lovely yellow stone fountain, and followed the signs for the museum. The ticket line was clearly suited for concert ticket sales, and the museum entrance was tucked a little ways back and to the side - clearly not the main attraction in this building, but I found it didn't suffer for all that.
Once I bought my ticket (again something like $8 full price, I will never stop marveling at and highlighting how fucked up it is that museums/zoos in the US charge $25-50 because our government hates science/education/independent learning and won't subsidize them) and found the proper entrance, I was handed a headset with an attached device, about the size of a smartphone but twice as thick. This was my free audioguide. Both it and the woman who taught me to use it spoke English. Strangely, she admonished me to be certain to wear my messenger bag on my side? I was unlikely to bump anything with it unintentionally, but I acquiesced regardless.
The museum is divided roughly by century, starting with the 17th. It is laser-focused for the first three floors on France and its neighbors, then hastily includes the rest of the world close to the end. But for what it is, I was very impressed. The exhibits are primarily historical instruments accompanied by videos and audio clips produced by the museum. Each subsection of a floor is typically headed by an educational or informational audio clip about the instrument, opera, or concept at hand, followed by optional clips of some of the different instruments being played, and 1-3 videos of interviews with historians, the instrument's manufacturing process, or re-creation of an event. For example, the very first exhibit is about Orfeo (Orpheus) by Monteverdi, a very early opera that made a big step toward defining the genre. You are greeted by a layout of artifacts representing what the orchestra that played at Orfeo's premiere might have looked like. There is a small maquette or diorama of what the venue looked like, and a video you can sync up your audioguide with telling you some of the context leading up to that first performance. You can then listen to two or three of the displayed instruments played solo by some savant who knows how to play a clavichord or positive organ correctly. Then, you can hear clips of the opera fully orchestrated and sung, narrated with a summary of the opera's events. This is all contained in about fifteen square feet, with a dozen more lit cases of vain, lovingly-embellished instruments jostling to be the next to absorb your admiration.
There is even more than music and instruments - though these exhibits are arranged by people who REALLY KNOW INSTRUMENTS, and the ornamentation on almost everything has to be seen to be believed. I was delighted to see a few painted representations of Saint Cecilia, my birthday saint in the Catholic tradition (I am definitely not Catholic) and the patron saint of music. She looked holy and weird, as saints so often do, eyes staring into the distance or at the ceiling in a trance. I learned about the birth of musical notation and its transition over hundreds of years, starting with ninth-century monks' squiggles indicating "it goes up here" and "it gets a little wobbly at these words." I listened to every available audio clip and watched every video on the first floor, though not all the way through some of the solo performances. It took me over ninety minutes, and I was so very happy. I bathed myself in beautiful, unfamiliar sounds (because they will play you shit you will never ever hear of anywhere else but that really deserves to be heard). It felt like I was floating through a cave of treasures, each object longing to tell me its secrets. I immediately knew I had made the right decision about where to spend my day. I'm not a musician, nor am I particularly well-educated about music, classical or otherwise. But as a pleasure-seeker, this museum indulged my ears in a way that not many places can, or even try to. All this on the first floor.
I decided to restrict my explorations a little more and just listen to the the educational clips for the most part. The videos still captivated me, though. Fortunately, the museum was rather empty for most of my visit, so I seldom had to jockey for a good viewpoint. It also looked like it would be very accessible to people with restrictions on their physical mobility, except maybe the fourth floor (which was pretty boring anyway, 20th century). The second floor was the 18th century, filled with virginals, guitars, viols and their relations, horns, transverse flutes, tons of other woodwinds. There was a strange item known as a "regale" that sounded a lot like electronica. Later, country instruments came into vogue like the bagpipes, the hurdy-gurdy, and the tambourine. They had many examples of all of these, a line of harps six or seven deep. And again, nothing here was plain or industrial. Everything begs to be looked at. I saw a video of how horns are made by hand, I learned about the economic impact that the guitar's emergence had on some small towns in Germany.
At one point, I heard the blats of a trumpet cut through the sound coming out of my headphones. At the far end of the second-floor hall I was in, a woman was sitting on a small stage addressing an audience. I made my way slowly towards her, not skipping anything that interested me. I'd read that live performances happened in the museum from time to time - perhaps this was one? But no, she was really engaging in conversation and dialogue with the audience members. Sadly, it was all conducted in French, at native speaker speed, so I could only comprehend scraps of it. But I understood that she was comparing the bugle she had to the trumpet she also had. At one point she demonstrated the uses of all the different caps you might see on the bell of a trumpet. Another time, juxtaposing the differing tones of the instruments, she played one out of each side of her mouth. I think she probably sat there for two hours or more, explaining, answering questions, and tending to her audience like a professional performer. One of my fears did come to pass, in that she asked a question of several people around the room, including me; but I speak more than enough French to say that I don't speak French, and she treated me gracefully. And then she played a bit of Blue Moon, and I forgot all about it.
I moved on to the third floor, hearing some Debussy compositions I hadn't heard before, seeing a number of portraits and landscapes. I was getting a bit fatigued by this point, though still feeling in high spirits. There was a bit on Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring, and then later some very cool video footage of Stravinsky conducting The Firebird. As I proceeded into the 20th century, things started to get weird. They had things on display like theremins and an ondes Martenot. Further on there was a theremin that was there to be played by visitors, my first time using one. It's hard to play, like, Twinkle Twinkle on it, because there is no way to stop the tone from emitting. This floor also was a bit harder to navigate, the walkways became thinner and the displays less orderly. But that's thematically in line with what happened to formal music in the twentieth century, I think, and perhaps purposeful as far as the design went.
The fifth and final section was basically the "world music" section, which I found pretty disappointing. There was a selection of items from former French colonies in Africa, a set of large percussive instruments from Thailand, some string instruments from India. I don't have a quibble with the collection itself, but rather with the treatment of this area. There were not a lot of videos or descriptive audio clips explaining the history, evolution, or context of these instruments, likely because the academics at this museum do not study these objects with the same specialization and focus as they do European instruments. Why separate them out and put them at the end, when visitors are likely to be fatigued and walk right by them? Why not array them with other instruments like them, and let visitors compare their sounds again ones Europeans are likely already familiar with? I'm hardly surprised, but was bummed to see white supremacy and xenophobia turn up in an otherwise quality museum and kill a perfectly good enrichment opportunity.
Emerging back into the sunny day around 5pm, I checked in with Beck, who was planning to stay at work a little longer. So I headed for a park I had picked out. But truth be told, I think I'm going to be knocking parks off my to-do list for now. I usually get there and think, great, I'm here, now what. I seem to prefer places where there is more guided activity. I have also typically just taken a walk to get to the park, so it seems silly to then take a second walk in the designated walk location when I could instead spend that foot effort getting to something else of interest. This probably does not apply to things like the Jardin des Plantes or the Tuileries or the like, particularly beautiful gardens, but on my own, I probably won't visit many parks unless they contain something I'm excited about.
Eventually I turned around and headed home to make dinner with Beck - stir-fry and whatever grains I made yesterday. We put endives in it, which was slightly weird because of their bitterness, but it worked out in the end. We heard about the Champs-Elysees shooting late in the day, since we don't watch French news, and let our people know we were okay.
I sent Beck off to work in the morning, then got up myself and uploaded some pictures to Facebook. I was kind of at loose ends for this day, not having a target or a goal in mind. This is starting to happen a bit more, and represents a bit of an internal conflict - I don't want to exhaust myself trying to do too much every day, but I don't want to underutilize my time. Though now that I write it here, I realize that there is no way to avoid underutilizing my time - I will always have been theoretically able to optimize my days better - so better not to worry about it. While googling around about this arrondissement, I found that the oldest stone building in Paris still standing is maybe ten minutes' walk from here, and thought that would be worth visiting. It also happened to be close to the queer bar Lauren had told me about, so I figured that was worth checking out on the same trip.
The house is situated on rue de Montmorency, and it was finished in 1407 according to the still-legible inscription on the front of the house. The original owners of the house were Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel - yes, that Nicolas Flamel. Historically, there is no evidence to suggest that he was an alchemical enthusiast; rather, he was a scribe who married well and gave generously to his community and church. The facade of the house includes some carefully-carved stones on the first story, and although time has worn down the images, they are unmistakeably representing angels or other celestial figures. There were also some letters I can't make much sense of. Presently, the house is not a house but a restaurant with a very decent-looking menu. For my lunch, though, there was a bakery a little ways back down the block where I picked up a chicken sandwich.
I ate along the short walk (stopping to pick the tomatoes out from the bread, after gamely attempting to ignore them) to the bar, La Mutinerie. It wasn't yet open and I couldn't see in through the closed window shades or something, but I'm more likely to revisit places I've scoped out. There were posters in the windows for events, and it sits in between another queer-looking bar and a falafel stand. Ideal. I then remembered that I'd made a date to call my mom, so I headed back home. I love the feel of the narrowest Paris streets, the kindly, parental way the buildings loom over you and guide you.
I've been calling my parents on Skype, from my computer to their phone, and that's been working well but it does cost the thiniest bit of money. Hopefully sometime soon my folks will get Skype set up on one of their devices, and then we can even video call and they can see the apartment. After I talked with my mom (and I think briefly my dad?) I started cooking some miscellaneous grains I got at the corner store, with the plan of making stir-fry/fried "rice" the following day. I also watched some youtube videos (a habit I try to indulge as little as possible) and researched the 19th arrondissment, also for the following day. Beck came home but had run into some transit snags - Republique, our closest transit hub, had been closed with no obvious warning ahead of time. The first presidential vote was approaching, and there was a protest or other gathering at the large plaza just above the Metro station. But even at the next stop on the line, where Beck got off, there was a crowd that impeded his ability to reach our place. He made it home safe and sound, it wasn't dangerous, just frustrating and difficult to navigate.
I made some dinner, salad and asparagus plus the bread I think Beck had brought home. We also opened the cheese I'd bought a few days before, but that turned out to be way too stinky for me to even be in the same room with it once it was open. Cheese effort 1: failure. Beck brought it to work with him later to make sure someone would eat it, and although he learned that this cheese does in fact have a milder taste, I still don't think I could hang around long enough to eat it.
After dinner, we got ourselves together to go back to La Mutinerie and check out the vibe when it was open. I took Beck by the Flamels' house too, worth seeing while in the neighborhood. The bar was a totally different animal at night, with people spilling out the door holding wine glasses and cigarettes. Mostly these were people I perceived as women, which checked out with what Lauren had told me of its origins as a lesbian bar. Music was audible from the sidewalk as well, and I could already see occupants having to turn sideways and squeeze past all sorts of obstacles. We didn't fit too well with the aesthetic I saw - me in a red hoodie and some gray or black pants, and Beck in dark jeans and a preppy navy zip-up sweater. I felt it unlikely that we would be approached and welcomed, at least on this visit. Partying was pretty clearly on everyone's mind.
We went in. It was about twenty degrees warmer inside, and I quickly began to sweat. We made our way to the bar, where a beautiful older butch delivered two small beers in plastic cups. The crowd inside was much like the crowd outside - largely women, young and queer-hot. There was a pool table improbably taking up floor space in an already-not-large space. In my memory, the lighting is red-orange, though I can't say with certainty. It was bright enough, though, for me to spot a vacant table in a far corner. We edged by a birthday celebration being installed, and several stoic couples sitting at the tables by the large front windows. The decor was like TGI Friday gone rogue - sheet metal signs advertising who knows what hung askew above the bar, and the I can't even recall specifics about the rest of the clutter. It made for a cozy atmosphere, less club than clubhouse. I wish the music had been quieter, but that is a constant complaint of mine. Despite the distant locale, the behavior of the young queers draped on every surface and each other brought me straight back to the now-departed lesbian bar in Philadelphia, Sisters. See and be seen was the order of the day. The little bit of open space between the pool table and the crowd was constantly surfacing new faces and outfits as the tide circulated.
I finished by beer with an un-French speed, even trying to take it slow. Beck was better at this game. But soon we got curious about the tattooing ($50) and piercing ($10) we knew was happening at the other end of the bar - they have a calendar I'd checked the day before. So we edged back out froom our corner, past a pole and down a step, around the pool table, and into a back section where a bored man in a striped hat sat at a table. He greeted us in French and gestured at a flash book on the table. We flipped through a few times, and I saw someone further back lying face-down and shirtless getting tattooed on their arm. On our third trip through the book, a woman came forward and apologetically informed us that there were no more tattoos to be had that evening. Having seen what we'd come to see, we left. I will return, but earlier in the day.
This was another writing-intensive morning. I did some Internetting as well, looking up local food markets by arrondissement. Ours is le MarchĂŠ des Enfants Rouges - established in 1628, it is the oldest covered market in Paris. Beck and I have been speculating about what the "Enfants Rouges" ("red children") are that are so venerated in this area of the city - apparently there was at one point a local orphanage whose residents wore red. I didn't go straight to the market, as web resources indicated it was more of a food hall than a grocery market at this point. (Never trust the internet, kids.)
Instead, I walked to the MusĂŠe des Arts et MĂŠtiers just over half a mile away from home. Â The replica Statue of Liberty out front had caught my eye a couple of days before, as had the stained glass of the round stone structure looming over the small courtyard entryway. "MĂŠtiers" is a word with a lot of meanings - one primary meaning is "business," but here I think it takes on more the meaning of "crafts" or "trades." This is very much more a museum of function rather than beauty, though there is tremendous aesthetic pleasure to be found herein as well.
The lobby was welcoming, and its warmth was a nice reprieve for my chilly hands and earlobes. I am re-learning how to dress for different seasons - a hoodie just won't cut it here year-round. There were no temporary exhibits, so the only decision I had to make at the desk was whether to get an audioguide. I opted not to, which I soon regretted. The ticket was 8 euros, criminally cheap (as are most museums I have experienced in Europe), and the audioguide was another 5. I assumed there would be more than enough to occupy me without it, and I was right; but I feel certain that I would have gotten so much more context and explanation from the audioguide than from the small plaques written in a language I don't comprehend all that well. Lesson learned: always rent the audioguide.
Here, I must use my photo record as guidance. This museum contains thousands of fascinating objects from the last millenium of human ingenuity. It has three floors, split into seven collections: Communications, Energy, Mechanics, Construction, Transport, Scientific Instruments, and Materials. There is something for everyone here. The museum has good accessibility for those with mobility impairments, as far as I saw, there are no stairs between rooms and there is an elevator for access as well. There's plenty of seating for breaks, too, which I certainly appreciated. I started in Communications, where cases lined the walls and marched down the center of long halls with tall windows to let in the gray light. Inside the cases were everything from satellites to radios, typewriters, telephones, printing presses of several styles and scales, cameras, pens, even a German ENIGMA code machine from WWII. I learned the principle of how televisions work. And I especially loved the type cases, the trays with many compartments for storing all the movable type that a typesetter would need when laying out a page. It was clear that everything on display here was selected with care, for beauty, importance, or both.
Energy I think I skipped over a bit - I was most interested in getting to the third floor, where Scientific Instruments lives - but the Mechanics hall slowed me down a bit. There were so many unusual gears and fully mechanical objects. I couldn't tell what most of them were for - this is one of the places where I really wanted the audioguide - but there were plenty of video screens showing how the machines would behave if booted up. A small room off to the side was populated by automata, music boxes, even paintings that incorporated mechanized movement. A lot of them were creepy.I think I skipped right through Construction as well, I saw many scale models of how large structures were built throughout the ages, though none of them were structures I recognized. There was a topographical map of Paris I wanted to inspect, but there was a very intent man inspecting it closely so I moved on.
The third floor awaited, and it surpassed expectations for me. Gleaming instruments greeted me from both sides of a long room with an angled ceiling, eager to recount their roles in weighing, counting, measuring, or ordering the world as I know it. Many of the objects were those used in daily life, as well - uniform weights with built-in carrying handles for merchants selling or buying wholesale in a time before standardized measurement. They had items from around the world, like 18th-century rice measures and abaci from China. (In the markets and museums I've been to so far, century is always denoted using Roman numerals.) I was happy to immerse myself fully in that long room, and many other museum-goers passed me by there. Pascal's hand-built adding machine (1642) was a particular favorite of mine - only eight are still extant, and this museum holds four of them. There were slide rules and several sets of a multiplication aid I'd never seen before known as Napier's Bones. Later I found an interactive exhibit where you could learn to use them, but I couldn't make sense of it. Further on, there were a huge number of clocks, microscopes, and some early metric standards - a platinum meter, kilogram, and liter. Well, the liter was glass with a platinum accent on the neck, but close.
Materials had information about the processing and use of glass, metal, ceramics, textiles, cardboard, and the like, as well as some lovely examples of each. I was pretty tuckered out at this point, and I blasted right through Transport, though a display of old bicycles made me stop for a bit and look at the wooden and metal wheels they used to ride on. I don't think I've ever been that close to a real penny-farthing before. There were carriages and models of trains...this isn't really my area of enthusiasm, sorry gearheads. At the end, I followed the signs to Foucault's Pendulum that had been taunting me thus far. This took me back around to the entrance; from there I could walk into the adjacent Priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, where a few larger pieces (mostly cars and transit) are kept. The space itself is magnificent, with the original construction dating from the 13th century. It also contains a working model of Foucault's Pendulum, and one of his original pendulums along with many pieces of his personal equipment.
I found this to be an excellent choice for kicking off my museum tours of Paris. I think it's a great stop for just about anyone and would strongly recommend it if (when) you get tired of paintings. It was peaceful and not at all crowded, the staff were friendly. There was a very accessible reading room I didn't stop to look at, and I think there is a cafe inside as well.
Speaking of food, I emerged to find that the rain had stopped and that there was a bakery across the street whose window said "1er Prix au Concours de la Meillure Boulangerie d'Ile de France 2015" which translates roughly to "Nathan hurry up and eat something in here." So I got the best brioche I could ever hope to eat. I admit that I spent a non-negligible amount of time in bed last night wondering how I was ever going to go back to eating US bread, and how we could possibly be getting it so very wrong. That said, the brioche was small, and I was still hungry. So when I happened upon a bagel store, it seemed like a match made in Brooklyn. Thing is, I'm pretty sure these were Montreal bagels, a totally different ball game. I'd never had one before. But I got a plain bagel with mozzarella and some veg on it in good faith, and then I took it to the park by home to inspect and consume it. It came wrapped in paper printed with fake New York Times articles on it. It was delicious. I'm so relieved to live somewhere I can get a decent bagel again, and an alert bird ate everything that fell out of the sandwich.
I went home to wait for Beck, who is still trying to figure out the norms of working hours in his office. When he got home, we went to check out the MarchĂŠ des Enfants Rouges and grab a little dinner. A few places were still open, but it looked like it had more to offer a little earlier in the day. I got a couscous plate with chicken, and Beck got a very nice combo plate with quiche, salad, lentils, and something else I didn't recognize. We had a bit of an awkward interaction where I asked the quiche guy to make it to go ("emporter") but he brought it on a plate anyway, then came over to gently scold me for eating my food from another restaurant at his table. In the end it worked out fine and he was very nice, but this is the kind of thing that fuels my anxiety about messing up. And we called it a night, even though I (gasp) had no plan for my time the following day.
I think this day was actually even more of a holiday than Easter Sunday proper. Beck and I were both up early, I said goodbye to him (he decided to still go into work) and spent the morning writing and continuing to wrestle with the laundry machine. This was the day I figured it out, or at least enough to do a simple wash and dry cycle. Thing is, it can wash a lot more volume than it can dry. I've never totally understood how Europeans manage drying their laundry, or at least those who don't live in a super-sunny region like Croatia. They hang it up inside maybe? There's not a lot of space, though, and our place doesnât have a drying rack (unless itâs the mysterious ladder on the wall of the bathroom?). My solution has been to just do smaller loads, which means doing laundry every couple of days. That's how it was in my house growing up, anyway, so it feels familiar.
I took a walk into the 4th arrondissement, towards the gay neighborhood of the Marais. It feels small, certainly miniscule compared to what I knew in the Bay Area, but even compared to Philadelphia's gayborhood it isn't a lot of space on the map. It feels like there are just one or two intersections where I see rainbows. There are like three bars and a couple restaurants and clothing stores. I accidentally found the Pompidou Center when I happened to glance down an alleyway and see its unmistakable exterior. I hadn't realized it was so close, but I didn't really stop to examine it. Another day, maybe.
On the way home, I stopped to do a little grocery/supply shopping, though I neglected to grab a basket up front and my irrational fears of being accused of shoplifting kept me from returning to get one. I got a medium-sized sharp kitchen knife and a couple other necessities that weren't provided in the apartment, plus some cookies and a cheese I selected at random from the cooler aisle. I am way too scared to talk to the cheese counter people, I rarely do that even at home. I will fight this fear, because the cooler selection is limited.
The light rain made it pleasant to sit in the apartment and write more. I had a microwaveable ramen soup we'd bought at Picard, the frozen food store, and while it was not really like fresh ramen, it was miles better than instant ramen, and the broth was actually a pretty good shoyu facsimile. Beck got home, we had some dinner, probably salad and ??? (I didn't write this down) and finished our Scrabble game (which I won in an unusual departure from the norm). At some point, we received texts from Linda that we'd gotten the apartment we were so excited about! This was a joy and a relief - we'd taken a break from househunting while we waited to hear back from her, but I really was not looking forward to the prospect of lengthening our search. She said she would contact us again soon with the list of documents needed. Anthony, Beck's sponsor here, had offered to be our garant (like a co-signer almost, someone who is responsible for your debts if you renege) and she would need his info too.
Short post, writing took up a big chunk of my time this day. I'm trying to figure out the balance of getting across all the detail I want to share while not turning this into a chore. I'll do my best!!
Today was Easter. Beck slept in, as he likes to do on Sundays, and I again spent the morning writing. The bananas I'd gotten from Monoprix yesterday were not as perfect and spotless as I'm used to, only about half to two-thirds of the meat was unbruised, so I ate them both for breakfast. We went out hoping for bread - it is truly irresistible - but found a convenience store, where we got some juice, garlic and onion, things like that. Across the street from the convenience store was a curious place - a store called Picard, populated entirely by freezers. (Sorry I haven't watched enough TNG to know if there's a good Picard/freezer reference to make, please email me if you can enlighten me on this matter.) Their stock was 95% frozen food and 5% cookies/crackers. The variety was impressive (obviously we went in), to the point where they have a catalog you can take home (obviously we took one). We also bought a few backup meals in case we wound up in another "everything is closed" situation.
Not everything was closed. But the French take days off very seriously, in that nearly every worker expects to work no more than six days per week. I get the sense that part-time jobs here are a lot more stable than back home - you won't work TThFSu one week and MTWF the next week, you have a regular schedule. Even the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. So many things close on Sundays, and they especially aren't open at 9:45am on Easter Sunday. When I went back out much later, I would see that more things were open. In the morning, though, we walked a long way and didn't find an open bakery We occasionally spotted a person holding a baguette and peer down the tiny alley whence they came, trying to see where the Precious came from.
When we got home, the next item to tackle was the laundry machine. The night before, it had just run and run and run, with wet clothes coming out at the end. We downloaded an English manual for a similar model and pored over its pages, trying to interpret the unfamiliar symbols. We began an experiment with it under controlled conditions. I told my parents via email that I would call them at 4pm my time, since I hadn't spoken with them since we arrived.
And then my friend Lauren, who is living in Paris this month with her dog and her fiance, asked if I wanted to join her at Les Puces de Saint-Ouen. Les puces means flea market, and knowing nothing more than that I heartily assented. Beck was welcome, but decided to stay home and enjoy some quiet time. We arranged to meet just outside the nearest Metro station, the terminus of the 4 line - all the exits are helpfully labeled and named, so you can say exit #2 and everyone will be able to find it. So I got my shit together, including a bag for any potential purchases. I was thinking maybe a straight-edged knife and a wooden spoon, both of which I wanted for the kitchen and were things I would easily be able to find at the flea markets I've been to in my life.
I met Lauren exactly as promised, outside a store called La Corner de la Recyclerie. I was buoyed by seeing her and by having a new adventure companion - not that I'd been down, or that Beck is anything less than sterling. But adventures take on a different tone, depending who's in the adventuring party, and I'm always interested in sampling new methods. For instance, Lauren might feel confident visiting a place where I might otherwise be afraid to go. She may pause to look at objects I would have passed by. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The region between the Metro and Les Puces is presently occupied by a lot of construction work, followed by a huge sprawl of people selling newly-manufactured junk. Clothes and purses knocked off from recognized brands, bongs, wall hangings, caps. Men stood stationary in the passing crowd beneath a wide highway, wearing garlands of sunglasses and pushing cell phone cases under strangers' noses. I can't imagine that's a very successful business model, but they're still there so it must be working on someone. It took us some time to penetrate this outer layer, and I admit I began to feel disappointment when I thought that this might be what we had come to see. But Lauren's sense of adventure (and direction) led us onwards, past more and more rickety stalls, until we started to see more permanent structures clustering around the small streets.
These were the wonderlands. We wandered squat alleys lined with plate glass and open doorways, turning sideways to pass mannequins loaded with antique hats, brooches, pins, scarves, vests, bags. Card tables covered in wooden boxes of beads or chandelier crystals, postcards, comic books. It reminded me of the Portobello Road scene from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. (Dang, Disney has Youtube locked down so hard that I can't find a link to the original version.) I cannot overstate the quantity, and for the most part, quality of the things we found there. We spent hours visiting stores, and must have walked right by hundreds barely able to glance at their contents. Toys, books, art, records, furniture (oh God the furniture), tools, lace...everything. I abandoned the hunt for a knife and a wooden spoon as soon as I realized what we had really found, and devoted myself to looking at (and touching, when appropriate) all of the beautiful things rescued from history. I saw surprisingly few items that made me cringe at their racism, and no weapons or war memorabilia apart from some pins.
Lauren was fascinated by the many chandeliers we saw, and I enjoyed her enthusiasm. I bought two pins for myself, one of Link in the style of the old NES game manuals, and a bottlecap pin I thought was cool. I also bought one for Lauren, a tiny lipstick. All of the shopkeepers were very kind, and are clearly used to tourists, though we did both practice some of our French. Lauren and her fiance are doing an intensive French class while they're here, which I think is so wonderful. It's a little out of my price range while I'm not working, but I can't remember the last time I was so interested in the idea of a class. Espcecially since there's very little homework.
One place I especially want to mention is a huge vintage/antique clothing store on the second floor of one of the indoor-ish markets. It was staffed by a man in a Napoleonic-era soldier's uniform and a statuesque woman dressed like an Art Deco Vogue cover illustration. You weren't allowed to touch much, but they had tons of undergarments from a variety of eras - corsets, bustiers, girdles - that I know would give some of my friends fits to see. There were beautiful jackets over on the men's side, and so much more that I was honestly too intimidated to approach.
(Remember when I told my parents I would call them at 4? Haha neither did I until about 2. I texted Beck to see if he would be willing to proxy for me, and he did. He spoke with them for 17 minutes, where my later phone call with them was more like six. Ah well, good that they like him!)
After a couple hours of enchanted browsing, we found me a kebab sandwich and we were able to catch up with a little more focus. Conversations inside the markets were frequently interrupted by "oh, look over there" and "pardonnez-moi," making it difficult to hold onto threads. Lauren had some local queer info to share with me, and we talked about a lot of things. I was very grateful that she had invited me out, and I felt revitalized (if footsore) by the time we wandered out of the market's limits. In fact, we wandered outside the city limits. Les Puces are juuuust at the border of Paris, and walking just a few blocks had taken us into the suburbs. We sat in a park and discussed the future, and how to share happiness and excitement without guilt when the world is in such a dark place. And then we found our way back to the Metro - fortunately, Lauren is a better navigator than I am. And before parting ways, we agreed to plan another meeting with our partners in tow. What a pleasurable outing this was!
Pictures, I hear you demanding. Photos! Well, I didn't take any pictures of anything. Not one single picture all day. Many places had signs precluding photography, and I didn't feel up to asking for permission in the others. So I just tucked the memories away for myself. Sorry, you'll just have to visit! Or maybe next time I will feel emboldened - because I absolutely must visit this place again with Beck. He will like it as much as I do, if not more.
When I got home, I took a short walk with Beck, after which he rubbed my tired feet. I called my parents (who are enjoying the weather down the shore). We played a new Alice-themed card game called Parade. I trounced him in the first round, and he won the next two. He made some potatoes for dinner to go with the leftover lentils, and I threw a simple salad together. We started a game of Scrabble over the meal, but grew tired before we could finish. It felt nice to be able to leave the game unfinished overnight.
We had several appointments already scheduled for this day, which dawned drizzly and cold. The very first was with some caracal kittens at the nearby zoo in the Jardin des Plantes. A caracal is a medium wild cat, whose shoulder height measures to about an average human knee. They're reddish tan, with lighter bellies and tall black tufts on their ears. We heard about them pretty much the day we arrived, plus one of the folks at the lab lent Beck her museum card (which all employees receive free and gives them access to all the amenities of the Natural History Museum complex). It would be our second visit to the zoo - we went the last time we were in Paris a few years ago. A selection of animals we saw: red pandas, a yak family, a bunch of different vultures (which are magnificent in person), several kinds of goats, gray cranes, a rhinoceros hornbill, cockatoos (very needy), ostriches, owls, martens, and whatever this important little fellow is.
They have a raccoon enclosure, but there were no "washing-rats" (as translated by yours truly) to be seen in the thin, gray daylight. The primates were diverting, as ever, with orangutans performing some NSFW athletics. And of course, the kittens were marvelously cute, feeding and then rearranging themselves into a sleeping pile. Fortunately, the rain was very light, barely noticeable, so we had no discomfort making our way around the uncrowded zoo. We did have a time limit on our wandering though, and we snagged crepes from a zoo stand on the way out.
Next up was moving to our new place. We'd packed everything up pretty well before we left for the zoo, and after finishing touches, we brought our luggage downstairs to the front hall of the building. I then set off for Gare d'Austerlitz, the nearest train station and taxi source. I hustled to the taxi stand (a 7-10 minute walk) and told the driver in my nervously practiced French: "Hello! I am sorry, I speak French like a cow. I would like to go to rue Buffon, my friend is there with our bags. After, we go to somewhere near Bastille." That got us most of the way there - in the end, the final address was somewhere near the Republique metro instead, but they aren't far apart. Taxis are a whole different ball game in Paris, or at least that's the impression I got from this one. Signs indicating smartphone chargers were available, magazines to read - I think it's more like what Uber's dreams are made of. I believe I even spied bottled water. The car was incredibly clean, the driver was nicely dressed, and even the taxi UI was elegantly integrated into its hardware.
We arrived in a small street, rue Dupetit-Thouars, looking for a door with our number on it. There were a few cafes on the block, and a teensy, triangular open plaza with seating and a ring of flowering trees. Rounding the corner with our bags, a young man on his cellphone waved at us. We introduced ourselves to Jordan, who had been expecting us. He kindly offered to take a bag from me, but I think began to regret the offer around the top of the second flight of stairs. Because this is a classic Paris building with a classic Paris stairwell: cramped, uneven, spiraling stairs with no alternative means of ascent. And we were headed for the fifth floor. I think Beck counted something like 85 stairs from the front door to our door. But there was light at the end of the tunnel, literally - a skylight beckoned us up the final flight, to a short landing with two doors.
Ours was on the left, painted a medium green with a doorbell that didn't work. Jordan opened the door and revealed our new home. The floor was the same hexagon tile as the landings, but in here it was covered in red paint and slanted downward toward the external wall. A small, well-used wooden desk was planted against one white wall, a bricked-off fireplace stood against another, and most of the rest of the walls were punctuated by thrown-open windows. The bedroom featured another window and some built-in cabinets for storage - no space for any furniture other than the bed and a tiny stool/table. The kitchen had a stainless steel countertop, a diminutive refrigerator, and a few cabinets. A tacky fabric printed with images and names of Paris landmarks hung in swathes from ceiling rails all over the place. I made sure the taps worked, and Jordan tried to help us figure out the laundry machine.
Not a washer or dryer, but a washer AND dryer in one. (I'm writing this a full 48 hours later and only now have we begun to understand this mysterious creature.) Laundry was one of the first tasks we undertook after signing papers and saying our farewell to Jordan - it was comforting to know we would be able to wash clothes on our own schedule again. I began to organize the kitchen to my liking and take a tool inventory, while Beck made the bed and unpacked his things. He found that the bottom desk drawer swings out and contains slots for files, which happen to perfectly fit all the board games we brought. The shower is very small, and the bathroom also contains an enigmatic device that may be a heater, or possibly a towel rack? We decided to just pretend it didn't exist rather than risk burning down the building.
After putting together an initial shopping list and taking a moment to revel in our new independence, we set out for the day's next appointment: going to visit the apartment we hoped to move to in nid-May. I'd been corresponding with a Frenchwoman named Linda. We walked there, about 25 minutes' walk, planning to take the Metro back, and arrived about 15 minutes early after stopping for a snack along the way. Beck had the best quiche he'd ever eaten, and I had a ham & cheese croissant. The ham and croissant parts were good, but there was a very soft, almost liquidy cheese hiding inside that I wasn't expecting, which wasn't quite to my taste. Â We also picked up a baguette for later.
This building was also very much of a style with what you imagine a residential Parisian building to look like - pastel yellow, tall windows, steep-pitched slate roof with a flat top, 4 or 5 stories tall. It was just a block or two from the Seine on the Left Bank. Linda was there with her boyfriend, cleaning after the previous tenant had left, and let us in through a foyer, up a mercifully short flight of stairs. I knew I was going to like this apartment from the pictures, but in person I absolutely fell in love with it. Airy, clean, spacious, and it had an oven! There was even a bathtub. Linda was totally charming, and Beck and I were falling over ourselves to compliment the place. She said she had others coming to look at it, but she would try to make a decision by the end of the long weekend. (I still haven't heard anything, so answers hopefully to come soon! We are definitely still obssessed with that place.)
We took the Metro home, and stepped into a protest at our stop. I couldn't tell what the aim or purpose was, but I did see some Palestinian flags, and signs calling for justice for someone, not sure who. We hadn't used this Metro before, so it took some time to find our way to our new home, but our other task was grocery shopping anyway so we found somewhere to do that. Monoprix is sort of like a small-scale Target, with heavier emphasis on fresh foods and less on appliances and electronics. This was the Saturday before Easter, and the store was completely packed - not exactly Food Shopping for Dummies, but we got a few essentials to tide us over. It's incredible how overwhelming a shop full of 95% unfamiliar items can be, and we were lucky to have gone grocery shopping in Croatia so many times before since that at least got us knowledge of what lactose-free milk might look like. Walking out with TP, cheese, milk, a couple of veggies, and a couple of snacks felt like a victory.
When we got home, Beck took another look at the still-running laundry machine and made some lentils and green beans for dinner. This place only has two hobs and a microwave, so we're going to do our best as far as cooking. It came out really good. And Beck also gave his folks a call on Skype so they could see the place (I have never managed to get my parents set up with Skype, alas - maybe someone local can help them). It was nice to hear from them (and I'm not just saying that because I know they read this blog).
Sorry for the super long post, but I do have one other thing to mention - I have had a hard time figuring out how to balance the joy and excitement I'm feeling about this adventure with the mountain of awful things happening in and performed by the USA and its military. It feels so tasteless, tone-deaf, to be publicly exuberant about choosing to live overseas when Syrians and Afghanis are living in fear, unable to escape violence done in my name. I am actively looking for ways to be supportive of radical and progressive causes and actions back home while I'm abroad, so if anyone reading this has ideas, please do share them. Anyway, if I seem to be holding back pictures and facebook posts, this is why. I know it's important to also celebrate the good things in life and share our joyful moments, but at the moment it can feel inappropriate. What can help me with this is having direct requests made - for example, a friend who lives in Japan posted on my wall demanding pictures, and that was the push I needed to make my first uploads. I hope everyone back home is staying safe and taking steps appropriate to their own lives to join the struggle against utter bullshit.
I took it pretty easy this day to prepare for planned social time later that night with our hosts and some of Beck's other coworkers(/labmates?). I've been waking up pretty early, 7 or 8 most days, so I spent the morning internetting, uploading photos, and writing. I spent a little time researching where in Germany my mom's family had come from before the war, a town called Marburg. It has a castle, a university and a lot of preserved historical locations - Wikipedia says it was isolated between about 1600 and 1850. It was a bit of a surprise when Google popped up a travel time - 5 hours and 31 minutes. It's not far, though it is snowing there as I write this.
I met Beck for lunch again and took a walk with him while he ate. As the day proceeded, we both began to get antsy about our Airbnb request, as yet unanswered. We prepared to contact a couple other Airbnb hosts Beck found as soon as our first request expired around 4:15. The next person we reached out to was out of town (like about 75% of the others we contacted) and had forgotten to take down his listing. He was and older queer man, and very sweet about it. Pity, I think we would have enjoyed meeting him. Also, that space was beautiful and huge. I had been adamant about refusing studios up until now, but time was starting to feel short and I was about to start bending rules. Beck, prince that he is, talked me out of that. Finally, the third request we made was accepted, a small one-bedroom on the fifth floor of an older building in the Marais.
We set a time to meet the guy (a rep of a property management company) the following day with relief. We would rent the place for a month until our dream apartment opened up. Or, if we didn't get THAT apartment, at least we had bought ourselves some time to keep looking. It wasn't going to be perfect, but it was ours.
I went to meet Beck around 6 at the lab, and met one of the other folks who works there. Her introductory sentence, "I am Ameline, and I like cats," was accompanied by a gesture at a small shelf of cat-shaped objects. After a pause, she added, "And food," which solidified her spot as my second-favorite lab resident. She, Anthony, Anne-Claire, Beck, and I left the lab around 6:30 to head to a cafe around the corner, where these Parisians are known quantities. We had a couple of beers, and another member of the lab named Maxim showed up. Maxim had come with Anthony once before to do fieldwork with Beck in Croatia, and though I'd never met him, Beck said he was good people. Confirmed.
Cafes had intimidated me and my aversion to wrong behavior. I very much have a sense that there are right ways to do things in France, as there are in the US, but I'm not familiar enough to even know what they are, let alone how and when it is appropriate to bend them. I know I'm really a tourist, and I've already benefited from a lot of forgiveness due to that, but I still like to gather expertise in local customs as quickly as possible. So I'd avoided cafes until I could go with some French folks and pay attention to how it was supposed to work. One wonderful thing about scientists is that they will gladly explain anything to you in as much detail as you like, so I didn't feel shy showing my ignorance.
The bulk of the conversation was about media - some Netflix shows, some films, some graphic novels. We talked a little about Cuvier, and a little about sexual harassment in academia. Overall, I enjoyed myself. We spent a couple of hours hanging out, and then went separate ways for dinner as Beck and I were pretty tired and just wanted something fast. We walked up to rue Monge, a street with plenty of food and beverage establishments, and found a shoebox-sized Vietnamese restaurant with a couple of vegetarian options. The woman inside was kind and spoke English to us. When we gave her a 50-euro bill, which few shops are willing to break, she just grinned and said, "No problem, I'm rich!" She clarified that she meant rich in money AND rich in love, and that they were equally important. I loved her, and her food was excellent when we got it home to eat. My chicken and rice bowl had boiled peanuts in it.
One last thing I learned this day, courtesy my friend Abby W., is that you can download a big chunk of Google Maps to your phone, and then use it offline without taking up any data. Helpful!
This was Beck's first day of working at the lab, so I walked over with him and one of our hosts, Anne-Claire, around 8 or so. He's working for now in the Comparative Anatomy building, and as we approached, Anne-Claire pointed out the bust of Georges Cuvier in the entryway, and the first-floor office that belonged to him. Cuvier is known to modern scientists as the father of paleontology, and spent a lot of time in that office pioneering the science of comparative anatomy. (Wikipedia link here for the curious, he was an interesting guy.)
The building itself is an old one, a squared-off stone pile set a couple minutes' walk past a guarded gate and a little clump of frog-filled forest. At first I just assumed the building's exterior was made of the regular gray stone you see in East Coast collegiate Gothic buildings, but I was later surprised to find that it was a porous, pockmarked, igneous rock that didn't call to be touched the way smoother stone does. Inside, the wood floors and high ceilings brought me straight back to the castle-like dormitories of my alma mater, The combined scents of dust, books, and wood polish immediately made it my favorite olfactory landscape yet encountered. Anne-Claire pointed out the water cooler and instructed Beck to only take drinking water from it, as the building's lead pipes render the tap water unsafe. I loved every inch of this building, if you couldn't tell.
After Beck was ensconced in his new setting (with a super nice desk and a computer with windows XP), I headed back to the house to do some writing and put myself together for later adventures. I later met Beck for a quick brunch (a superior croissant for me, an apple pastry for him) and a walk around the block, I headed off towards the 20th arrondissement. Paris is broken into 20 of these districts; as I will be here for 20 weeks, I thought it would be nice to make sure I visited them all. I'll aim for one every week, though other travel may interfere and I'll adjust.
The 20th is one of the larger districts of Paris, but it is relatively far from the center. Far, in this case, meant about 20-30 minutes by Metro to reach a stop on one of the centerward edges of the region. Its most famous feature is PĂŠre Lachaise cemetery, the final resting place of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and many other luminaries (most of whom are actually French). But I did not originally plan to visit PĂŠre Lachaise on this day, intending rather to wait for Beck and explore it together. In the end, I did wind up in the graveyard; but as I discovered, there is quite a lot of it to explore, so a return trip is likely in the cards.
Initially, I debarked as near as I could to the Parc de Belleville, which is reputed for its elevated views of the city. I got slightly lost on my way there due to following the wrong large street when I emerged from the metro, but it wasn't a problem, and I entered through an overgrown fence. There was a distinct urban park feel to the way the world of cars and buildings disappeared behind me, reminding me of certain Philadelphian parks I have loved. I explored without thinking too much about any direction other than upward. I saw a man in a suit drinking beer on a bench and enjoying the sunshine. There were patches of young adults spread over a short wall, just like on the cover of my high school French textbook. The paths cornered around the face of the small hill with regularity, so I could never quite see where they led, but I was in no hurry. Eventually I reached a set of stairs leading up to a cement structure with a military shape to it - almost every human-made structure here was once used for a different purpose - and from that perch, I looked out over the park.
A very healthy-looking cat crossed a path below at an angle, on the hunt. It was the first cat I had seen so far, and the second came soon after. The view honestly wasn't much to write home about otherwise. Perhaps I've been spoiled in the endemically hilly Bay Area, but I think Paris is just too damn big to be well-captured in one view. Or maybe it was just kind of a hazy day. At any rate, I left the park a different way than I came in, realizing I had a lot of day left to pass. There were a lot of shops and markets along the Boulevard de Belleville where I was walking, many of whose awnings proudly declared a nation of origin other than France. I noted this in service to future specific food needs, but I had nowhere to store any new purchases at the moment as we were still crashing on a couch. I decided to scope out PĂŠre Lachaise, thinking it was unlikely that I'd see the whole thing in one visit anyway.
I walked the three-quarter mile distance to the cemetery - it was a pleasant day, and it was a straight shot. I entered at the unassuming northwestern entrance, befuddled for a moment by the woman with the folding table and whether she was charging an entrance fee. No, it was just for a map or a postcard - I didn't think I needed either. But as soon as I climbed the stairs I began to regret my decision. Turns out the property is 110 acres, about the size of Vatican City. There was a very detailed map on a sign (the only one of its kind I saw) right at the entrance, offering coordinates of various luminaries' gravesites. I decided to head for Edith Piaf's memorial at the opposite corner, hoping to take in some nice sights along the way and enjoy the weather.
It was a really long walk on cobblestones and I got lost to the point where I downloaded a map on my phone. I had thought that all I would have to do would be to follow the borders, but that wound up being impossible. In the end, I saw several wonderful and unexpected things, including a very striking monument to the dead, a grave topped with a life-size bronze sculpture of a broken cello, and a whole lot of ominous-looking mausoleums. I found Edith Piaf's grave almost by pure luck. I sat down on a bench to give my feet a break, thinking I had a small ways more to go, when a very small crowd caught my attention. I re-referenced my map and realized that they were visiting the chanteuse. When they dissipated a little, I stopped by for some pictures and some thoughts for my maternal grandmother, who was a fan of Piaf's.
I was tired and hungry by then, and couldn't muster the energy to negotiate any complex interactions like buying food from someone who didn't already know I spoke toddler-level French. So I took the Metro homeward (again, got only slightly confused navigationally) and got a bread-sausage-cheese loaf to tide me over until Beck was done working. I settled into a bench in the Jardin des Fleurs and read for an hour or so, which was a pure pleasure.
I met Beck back at the front door of the house, and we went to pick up a few groceries for dinner - the plan waas to grab whatever looked good. In the end we wound up with a nice little meal of a baguette, some hummus, cucumber, and lemonade. Continuing our walk, we found another nearby Metro station that was on a different line. We sat by the Seine for a while near a boat-shuttle stand, the kind of thing where you pay $60 for an all-you-can-ride boat ticket. Neither boats nor hopeful passengers came or went. Finally we returned home, walking through the park again on the way. Anne-Claire had mentioned with some distaste that parrots had become a common sight in Paris, a result of the pet trade and irresponsible owners. This evening, we spotted some of the invaders for the first time. They were perched in a tree that was blooming purple, and they were snipping the flowers off the stems without a care in the world. We stood there for a few minutes, tsking for the tree's health and watching the intact flowerheads fall to the ground.
Sometime after dinner, we got confirmation that the apartment we really wanted wasn't going to be available until May 15. This pushed us to put in a request for an Airbnb, which we had been treating as an emergency option in case we needed more time. Anthony and Anne-Claire were more than happy to have us stay as long as we needed, but as small as Paris apartments are, I expect they were looking forward to having their living room back.
We woke up around 3am and struggled to get back to sleep. That's jet lag for you. We stopped by the nearby bakery again to pick up some breakfast, then set out to complete our two most important unfinished tasks - acquiring Merto passes and French SIM cards.
The day before, we'd asked some questions to the man in the Metro booth about how to get monthly passes, but my comprehension failed me. The main question was whether we needed a long-term Paris address, which we didn't yet have, and the answer seemed to be yes. We went away stymied, but then that night decided we would just use our present hosts' address and go from there. So this morning, we returned to the window, where a different (and very handsome) man helped us get things in order. We gave him passport-style pictures that we took just beforehand at a little photo booth in the station. Oddly, he didn't ask us for an address, so I think the deal is that if we lose them, they're gone forever. So far, I'm not too concerned about that eventuality - if my wallet gets stolen, I have a lot more to worry about than my metro card. I'm just glad not to have to worry about tickets any more, transit can get pricey quickly. Before I knew about this pass, I was expecting to spend about $100/month or more on transit, but the monthly pass is actually only ~$75 per person. It's a great deal, and it includes basically all of the Metro and RER systems, including Versailles and Disneyland Paris.
Heading the opposite direction on the 5 line, we took ourselves to the Bastille stop, emerging into daylight with the huge obelisk to greet us. We didn't know where the Orange store was, but we just decided to wander around a little bit before resorting to Google. Happily, we found it down the first side street we tried, past a collection of middling-fancy clothing and furniture stores. Nike was the only store I recognized, though there were some Levi's and Carhartt (?) signs in boutique windows.
One of the Orange sales associates spoke some English, and knew immediately what plan would be right for us. Initially I thought we were getting ten gigs of data per month, but it turned out to be a bundle deal, good for six months with ten gigs total. Not bad for 40 euros. As a side note, Beck got an alert about the state of the Euro compared to the dollar, and they are nearly equivalent (~1.06 Euros to 1 dollar), so we are in pretty good shape as far as conversion rates at the moment. Anyway, my phone eventually consented to work after I found the unlock code, but Beck's was more recalcitrant, and the service went a little downhill after that. The man at the store started basically blaming Beck's phone for having a problem, which we later found not to be the case. In the end we took it away non-functional, and Beck fixed it all himself with a little bit of Googling. I was surprised - the guy didn't do any research or ask anyone else in the store for help - but I think this is just one of those cultural service differences.
On the way out, we took a bit of a detour to use one of the very nice public toilets (which happen to be provided by the same company as those in San Francisco, JC Decaux) and found that there was a Saturday craft/art market on the boulevard where we were standing. I'm definitely intrigued by that, I haven't happened upon any open-air markets yet on this trip, but once we get more settled I'll be sure to sniff out whatever is happening in our neighborhood.
When we returned home, I think we sat for a little while to recuperate and rest our still-tired feet, and then decided to have crepes for dinner from the stand next door. In the process, we learned that a savory crepe is called a galette, and that they are delicious no matter what you call them. We still have a ways to go in terms of understanding the normal flow of transactions here, and how to behave according to expectation, but we have largely been lucky to encounter very forgiving workers everywhere we go. Also to not have many complex needs so far. But while we waited for our galettes (ham and cheese for me, mushroom and cheese for Beck) I overhead two nearby young people speaking American-accented Engligh. When I heard them mention Middlebury, I took the opportunity to barge into their conversation. We chatted for a while; they had been in Paris since August, and the woman emailed me a list of things to check out. I tried to connect over the fact that they were poli-sci majors, but they kind of just shrugged it off - having been in Paris since before the election, and maybe being young, they didnât seem as scared as I have been feeling about the state of the USA.
We passed out pretty early again, though we were up long enough to hear our hosts' pet snake whistle around its dinner. It stays light until eight-thirty at night here, and in the summer it will be light until ten. That is taking some getting used to, especially as someone who strongly prefers complete darkness when i'm sleeping. Hopefully our more permanent home will have good curtains.
Heck yeah we got a direct flight. At over 10 hours long, this Air Tahiti Nui run was the longest flight Iâve ever taken. Even though Beck and I booked it in maybe October, I waited until the night before we left to look up reviews. They were predictably bad, given that I found them on the Internet, but ultimately I had nothing to worry about. Staff were nice, the food was decent, the seats were even pretty okay. I watched Arrival and The Martian, neither of which quite met my expectations but definitely helped the time pass. At the end of the flight, an attendant came to us, confirmed that we were Americans, and then handed us a satisfaction survey to fill out - Iâm still not sure why we got singled out. Most of the other passengers were French, from what I could hear.
Landing at CDG on Tuesday morning was smooth, customs was basically non-existent, and we sailed right through to where our bags had presented themselves, perfectly timed, on the conveyor belt. Until that moment, I had stubbornly avoided thinking about the logistics of transporting all the luggage at once with just the two of us. It wasnât THAT much, but...it was heavy. And bulky. And a pretty long walk through a crowded airport. We got everything to a bench in the train hub, and Beck sat with the luggage while I waited in the line for tickets and uncrunched my spine.
With some guidance from a staff member, we took the train to Gare dâAusterlitz, the station nearest to our temporary Parisian home. As the train crossed the Seine on a brick-and-iron bridge, I could see the towers and steeple of Notre Dame peeking at me over rooftops. By the time we staggered under load to the doorstep of the apartment building, I felt very tired, but also optimistic - enough so that when we couldnât reach our hosts to give us access to the apartment, I was able to constrain my complaints to the topic of my feet being dead forever. Beck valiantly rallied, and headed off in search of our hosts in their lab. I think he had been there all of twice, three years ago. And while he typically has a trustworthy sense of direction, his first effort on this day took him into the elementary school around the corner. Whoops.
Eventually he found the right educational institution, and some very kind graduate student (or possibly gardener) lent Beck their phone. The ever-pleasant Anne-Claire, one of our hosts, put her hyena dissection on pause to let us into the building and get us set up with keys. She did invite us to check out the hyena, and believe me when I say we were interested, but our bodies needed a bit of a break and then some fuel. It was probably about noon by the time we gathered the strength to go back out into the world? I actually have no sense of time from this first day's events. We remembered an excellent boulangerie around the corner, picked up some gloriously simple baguette sandwiches (jambon fromage for me, legumes for Beck) and ate them in the nearby Jardin des Plantes.
Paris welcomed us with a pear-crisp spring day, plenty of sun but just enough breeze to make it chilly in the shade. Tulips and poppies exploded red and yellow in bright stripes alongside us as we walked the garden, and the bees were much too busy and contented to want to swarm anyone. There were schoolchildren on field trips visiting the greenhouses or the skeletons, and there were elderly folk photographing some trees sinking under huge masses of their own pink petals. My sense of well-being and optimism grew despite my body's complaints, and when we finished our sandwiches we held hands.
Next up: phones, which was Beck's domain as I am an idiot about phone plans even in the US. He'd picked out a plan with a company called Orange that offers service in most/all of Europe, so we went to the nearest Orange store in a mall at Place d'Italie a couple Metro stops away. The woman there was kind to us when she let us down. Sadly, we were insufficiently informed about the different types of cell phone stores - we had chosen a boutique store, and it seems one does not buy SIM cards in a boutique. Fortunately I was able to discern the other locations she suggested we try from her rapid French. (I speak basic French well enough to say some easy sentences, but I am not even close to understanding Parisians at speed.) We gave up on phones for the day and walked around the (very nice) mall for a little while, gathering our wits and refocusing on our next task: apartment viewing.
I had booked an appointment to see a potential place for 5pm on the day we arrived, thinking that it would be good to keep us awake and goal-oriented. I never want to be a burden when it comes to housing. I've expressed to Beck that we will not be sleeping on our hosts' sofa bed for any longer than a week, and even less by preference. We'll get an Airbnb if we must to bridge any gaps. Apartment hunting has been rather hit-or-miss, a couple that looked promising have turned out to be scams. But we do have another appointment this Saturday with what I hope will be a good fit. The Tuesday viewing was...just okay. It would work, though the kitchen was really lacking, and eating out here is really expensive. But I wanted to see at least one more place before we made a decision, so we'll see how this turns out.
On our way back home, (oh also we forgot to get the front door code from our hosts so we were kind of waiting to hear back from them) Beck started to apologize for not having known about the phone nonsense, and I discovered a phrase that I'm going to keep in my pocket on this trip: no moment in Paris is wasted. We didn't achieve our stated goal, but we did find a department store where we can get essentials. We did see a bicyclist and a taxi driver in a good-natured argument ("tu m'insultes!" cried the driver). We got better at the Metro system. We spent time together. I am constantly making errors that cause me to backtrack or otherwise use my time in a non-optimized way, and I often feel bad or stupid about those errors. Not while I'm here. There is too much to learn about to ever be disappointed by a wrong turn. Hopefully by the time I leave I can have that outlook internalized so I can treat the rest of my life with the same spirit.
We returned to the apartment and chatted with Anthony and Anne-Claire while they had dinner, then presented them with gifts of chocolate, beef jerky, and collapsible fishing poles (for catching lizards with, obviously). And then we passed the hell out.
(sorry for lack of pics, i was not great about doing that the first couple days)
So after leaving Lastovo really really early in the morning, we headed back to Split on the mainland. Itâs a resort town and a major port for Croatia, weâd been there last time I visited for a week or so to catch a ton of lizards. This time, we only had three nights because we only had to catch 22. And we did it in two days. It went incredibly smoothly, the weather cooperated, and the females were not as scarce as usual. So Beck and I stayed the extra day, since weâd already paid for lodging for the full time, and our final Croatian assistant went home early to get stuff done before going back to school. The place we were staying was too cute, Airbnb is really the way to go. It was a very slender three-story stone building that opened onto a courtyard that was so medieval it hurt. Except for the satellite dishes jammed on every house and the garden gnome supporting a potted plant, itâs probably remained relatively unchanged since about 650CE when the city first became a settlement, not just a palace. Someone was growing grapes across from our door, you could hear screaming children and arguments from every house facing the little square. There was laundry hanging out over the crowded, bumpy stone walls of every residence. There were CASEMENTS. With SHUTTERS. It was lovely.Â
Beck and I slept on the third floor and blasted the air conditioning, it was like 80 degrees most of the time we were there, which also happened to coincide with St. Dujeâs Festival in Split. St. Duje is the patron saint of the city, and Wikipedia really didnât have much to say about him, but part of the festivalâs tradition is to buy new wooden spoons, and they were readily available. Some were shorter than my hand, some were taller than me and ripe to be weaponized. There were lots of other wooden goods for sale as well, mostly fully shaped but without finish or paint. Plenty of toys, furniture, baskets, weird things we didnât recognize (we later found out one of them was like...a slab-of-meat holder? They really like meat in the Balkans.), plus all the usual Croatian paraphernelia like lavender-scented and -flavored things, the little heart cookies you canât eat. But one nice thing is that itâs such a small, short, localized festival that it mostly winds up being locals, or at least mostly Croatians. Itâs not very touristy. We missed a lot of the performances because we were working, but I still got to see plenty. Beck had told me about it from previous visits, so it was nice to be able to see for myself what heâd talked about. We did see fireworks from our window that night.
On our bonus day, we kind of just wandered around. It was nice to just have the two of us to manage, not worry about who else was hungry or tired or needed a smoke. With just us, itâs a lot easier to just say and not leave any guessing in the equation. Heâs good to travel with, I feel very lucky to have found someone who fits with me in that way. We went through a part of Diocletianâs Palace that we hadnât before, not just walking through on our way to somewhere else but actually paid the two-dollar ticket fee and walked through the underground rooms. There was a flower show happening and it was WEIRD. I donât know what else to say about that. We did peek into some closed-off rooms and spot an ancient oil-pressing setup, plus a couple millstones just lying around. It was also nice and cool down there, and there was a white cat sleeping peacefully in one of the outdoor flower displays. I love seeing someone whoâs found their right place in the world.Â
After Split, we bussed it back to Zagreb. No trouble with the bus driver this time, and when we debarked we got the full and confusing story of why the last guy had been a dick about the liquid nitrogen - something involving academic treachery, a rare disease, and an anonymous phone call to the cops. Not our problem, thank goodness. We dropped everything at the lab and went to our new temporary home, on the top floor of a building right in the center of town. âCharmingâ doesnât begin to describe it. The headline on Airbnb was âBohemian atticâ and thatâs exactly what we got. It wasnât the Ritz - there was no sink in the bathroom, but there WAS a beam in the perfect place to smack your head when you stood up from the toilet - but it was quiet, clean, private, and in one of the best possible spots you could find an apartment, Oh, and CHEAP. For $24/night, Iâd sleep in a lot worse. Our renter was a darling, with the unlikely and Tolkienesque name Tihomir, he stayed and chatted lizards with us for a while, and we promised that the next time we planned to stay in Zagreb weâd get directly in touch with him. All-around cool dude.
Things didnât go quite so smoothly in Zagreb. If you recall, our first day way back at the beginning of the trip, we got straight off the plane and caught 8 lizards. We only managed to catch 11 of the 14 more we wanted. But Beck feels fine about it, we have the most important stuff, and our travel plans were set anyway. Everything managed to get packed up for the nonce, weâll repack it all again before we go home, and all the samples made it to their appropriate storage places without incident.Â
We left Zagreb this morning (Wednesday) at 6am. Before that, though, we managed to lock ourself out of our charming attic apartment but inside the building. Certain we were going to miss our bus, we were shoving the door, trying to slip the bolt with a credit card, and generally panicking when someone (who turned out to be our hostâs sister) woke up and let us out. We were very, very grateful. We woke up a taxi driver who got us to the bus station with time to spare for a quick pastry. The bus ride was largely uneventful, it took us through Slovenia where we got stamps in our passports with a car instead of a plane! That was exciting. I dozed through most of it, though the landscape I saw was beautiful. I hesitate to use the word alpine, because I donât think we were that high up, but there were tall, orderly pines and the air smelled like my summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The rest stop had no taxidermy, but a decent little pretzel roll. The bus was pretty empty, so we got to spread out a little bit and both have window seats. I woke up at one point, saw it was raining, quietly muttered âshitâ and went back to sleep.Â
Fortunately, when the bus arrived, Vienna greeted us in fine fettle. The temperature was perfect, the u-bahn easily navigated as promised by several friends and as clean a transit system as ever Iâve seen. Iâd polled Facebook for people who knew things about Vienna, and there were A LOT. We got a ton of useful information, including neighborhoods we might want to stay in, and it really cemented our decision to go to Vienna. At present, Iâm really glad we did. Itâs magnificent even in our mostly residential neighborhood, and jesus christ everyone is SO NICE. Weâre not even in the touristy part of town, 9 of the 10 people weâve talked to spoke perfect English, and our apartment is great. Itâs a studio on the top floor of an apartment building and it has. A bathtub. If youâve never been to Europe, you donât know what a small shower is, or suffered quite as limited a hot-water heater. To take a bath was a great relief, both in cleanliness and comfort. My back appreciated it as well. We had fantastic Japanese food for lunch, and great Indian for dinner back at our apartment. The owner of the place where we got dinner told us that thereâs a holiday tomorrow, Ascension Day, and that a lot of stuff would be closed. Weâre planning on going to the SchĂśnbrunn Palace tomorrow, it looks like theyâre open but if not, weâll still have fun. Weâre not scheduling too hard, thereâs a lot to see and thereâs just no way to squeeze it all in and no point in stressing out over it. Must-sees for us are the palace (look that shit up, itâs the Versailles of the Austrian Empire) and the Hotel Sacher for Sachertortes, because cake. Everything else is gravy.Â
And now itâs time to sleep. Today was a big day, I want to be in good shape tomorrow to see where Maria Theresia hung out!
So the party waaaaaaaaas not so much a party. We didnât work that day, the weather was bad (bad meaning slightly windy) and so we lounged, napped, cooked food. We headed over to the hotel right before 8, and already there were warning signs - nobody was really going into the hotel or anything. We headed up to their huge patio full of empty tables and couches, and there were a bunch of middle-aged and elderly folks eating dinner inside. We kind of confusedly sat outside for a while trying to figure out what to do, and then we saw eight guys in suit-ish apparel line up inside and start singing. We waited until a break in the music and then asked a server if there was anywhere we could sit and have a drink. I get the impression that the dinners there are mostly prix fixe, but not in a fancy way, more like itâs attached to your hotel bill and you just eat whateverâs on the menu for the night. There is literally nowhere else to eat for three kilometers, so I hope their kitchen is good. Anyway, they stuck us in a little arched-off portion and we ordered drinks.Â
Now, Iâve heard some Croatian folk singing before. Last time we were in Split, there was a group (who had clearly spent some time figuring out ideal acoustic locations) singing under a big stone archway, not unlike what my a capella group did in college. Traditional folk music here in Dalmatia (the southern coastal region, yes like Dalmatians) is somewhere between barbershop and church choral music. Hereâs an example that I havenât listened to because youtube takes forever to load here:Â
So thatâs what these guys were wearing too. They were pretty good, clearly they put a lot of practice in. Two of our regular boat drivers were in the group; one of them was the leader (and the youngest by like twenty years). Between sets, they came over to say hi, which was a little awkward because of the language barrier, but we still congratulated them and stayed for three sets. At the end of one, clearly a crowd favorite, one woman right in front of us joined in FULL VOLUME and OFF-KEY. And that was pretty much it. âPartyâ may not mean the same thing here as it does elsewhere.
Afterwards, we went to a little cafe nearby - drinks, no food except ice cream sometimes, and good tunes - and had another beer. Then back home, earlier than expected. No grappa, no raucous island teenagers. Ah, well.Â
I think it was the next day that I woke up with some pain in my lower back, very stiff and not moving easily. Iâm really fine (mom and dad donât worry, really really), I think I just pulled something sitting weird on the bumpy boat or whatever, but Iâve been out of commission for a couple days. I havenât gone to the islands to work, which I feel dumb and guilty about, but itâs been fine for the work since Beck has two other assistants. I donât have a whole lot otherwise to say - Beck made biscuits and churros and really good lentil soup, we have one more day left here on Lastovo. We started the behavioral/cognitive experiments - sticking little discs on the end of a pole with either eyes, random pen marks, or nothing drawn on them, and moving them closer to the lizards, recording how close we got the discs before the lizards ran away. Itâs basically testing whether they can distinguish threat levels, and how well. This isnât part of the main work, we got all the dissections done before we started with this, but itâs cheap and easy to do, and can lead to other work in the future. Marija is making pudding for us now. Iâve spent my sick days reading on the internet, cleaning, doing laundry, that kind of thing, and resting my back. Itâs getting better, but probably not good enough for the bumpy boat again.
We also decided on our vacation plans. I was starting to stress about it - not even not having a plan, I feel like I can manage being pretty flexible about scheduling in cases like this - but just making the big decision of where we should go. I was changing my mind every thirty seconds: Venice, obviously, who can turn down a chance to go to Venice? But itâs so expensive, Austria would be cheaper and just as pretty. Oh, but the food, Italian food is so superior! But probably much less accessible for vegetarians. What about Trieste, thatâs still Italy and closer and cheaper! But super boring and small, probably. Arrrrrrrgh. Beck finally said letâs go to Austria, and he was very right to do that. Italy is by all accounts magnificent and totally worthwhile, but Austria is the right choice for us in this moment. He was made extra correct when I took what I thought was a long shot, asking Facebook if anybody knew anything about Vienna, and then like twenty people came out of the woodwork to say it was one of their favorite places and to give an unexpected avalanche of recommendations. Iâm extra excited now - Sachertortes at the Hotel Sacher, an aquarium in a tower, boat tours, opera houses, libraries, parks. I think weâre doing the right thing.
Goddamned weather. So after our one day on Pod MrÄaru, we had like three or four days when we couldnât go out to the islands at all. Every day, Beck woke up at 6 or 6:30 to call the park service guys to see if we could go, but no. So we slept in, recovered from jetlag, and just kind of puttered. I made a big pot of delicious beans, Beck made pancakes with raisins, cookies, biscuits, greens, and fried rice. The days are kind of blended together now. We took walks and made cat friends, went to the only open restaurant on the island. Itâs a pizza place, and it happens to be tremendously good. We hunted for wild asparagus, after our landlady told us it grows everywhere. We didnât find any and were very confused, like we donât know what asparagus looks like? Apparently we donât. We did find lots and lots of wild fennel, but itâs a huge pain to dig up with just a stick or whatever and that made me really glad Iâm not a pre-tool human. Beck tried to catch a snake (or legless lizard, they are different) he saw but no.
Also, our other Croatian assistant arrived on Sunday. Martina is a little older than the others, sheâs done with school (which for all our assistants has meant a five-year bachelors-masters program, standard in the Balkans I think) and has a job doing forensics. The job sounds cool but she says itâs all lab work, which still sounds cool to me. She was with us last time and is really great at everything, Iâm so glad sheâs here again.
On Tuesday we went to the town (village?) of Lastovo on the other side of the island (also called Lastovo, remember). In the past you got on kind of a small bus/van hybrid, but theyâve upgraded to a 15-year-old decommissioned Zagreb city bus that has about the same number of seats. Itâs kind of unbelievable watching the bus navigate these  small, twisty roads up and down the mountains that fill the interior of the island. It takes the coastal road (of the two roads) so itâs like those archetypically terrifying Italian drives, rock wall on one side, a long drop into the ocean on the other. The guy who drives it looks like he spends every moment off-shift drinking beer out of a two-liter plastic bottle outside the gas station. But he is very nice and you could not pay me enough money to do his job, which I couldnât do anyway because I canât bend space like he can in order to make a city bus do a cramped u-turn without falling into the sea.
ANYWAY Lastovo the town is a strange and beautiful place. Itâs built into a natural amphitheater, so the buildings cascade down a steep slope before puttering to a halt along the flat bottom. I hadnât been all the way down before, we had always had quick errands to do in the past, but this day we had plenty of time. We had plenty of time because the only other restaurant we know of on the island (another pizza place, far inferior to our local one) was closed and so the hours we would have spent drinking beer on their patio had to be put to other productive uses. Beck had spotted a cemetery at the bottom of the hill, and we set that as our goal. If youâre imagining long, steep, straight staircases, you are imagining wrong. The place is a complete warren, full of wrong turns, dead ends, stairways to peopleâs gardens or to nowhere. Itâs an old village, and the residents match it, for the most part. The bus drops you off on the main drag, about 300 feet of road with a bank, a grocery store, two bars and the closed pizza place, and a souvenir shop that is never, ever open. Turn right at the end and take these stairs to warm up your quads and warn your knees that theyâre in for a rough day.
This village is old, and the stairs are also old. No concrete, no cement. Hand-cut stones from island quarries, hand-laid steps that are unbelievably uneven and busted as hell. Itâs magnificent, donât get me wrong, Iâve never been anywhere quite like it, but donât bother if you have any mobility problems. The place has a weird abandoned feel to it. In Ubli and Pasadur, where we spend the most time, there arenât a lot of people, but homes and buildings arenât densely packed, so it feels natural. Lastovo is like walking through an abandoned medieval market town. The buildings are all crammed together, you canât see anything more than the walls around you and the hills opposite the village, and you really have no idea where youâre going. Other than up-ish or down-ish, that is. Sometimes you climb a flight of stairs only to find another set leading down the other side.
Right at the bottom of the above-pictured staircase, we picked up an addition to out traveling party: a ginger-colored dog with blond eyelashes and big amber eyes, who invited himself to accompany us as a tour guide. He was dubbed Dandelion and he was overjoyed to show us his home. We made our way all the way down, with only a few âwrongâ turns. The graveyardâs gate was shimmed closed with a hunk of wood, and we managed to squeeze through without letting Dandelion in - we didnât want him peeing on peopleâs graves or whatever - but he just jumped the low stone wall. It was a small place, made even smaller by the fact that the majority of the graves were basically embellished king-size beds made out of stone. Not California king, these are a modest people, just standard king. They were made for two or more people to be interred there, and some headstones had engraved portraits of the dead. Some of the oldest people buried there were born in something like 1803. There was a small chapel in the cemetery, I assume for funereal services. We peeked in the keyhole (it was the peeking sort of keyhole) but all I could see was a gigantic crucifix and something large and covered in lace. Lastovo has 38 churches, though theyâre not all functional, including one built to repel an outbreak of plague. I donât know the date on that, but the necessity of plague repulsion is a pretty good context clue here.
There was also a well in this cemetery (because who wouldnât want to drink that groundwater) and the dog had been trying to drink from the vases of flowers on some of the graves. So after rescuing a very cold lizard from the bottom of the bucket, I pulled my first water from a well. It was cool and kind of difficult, Marija had to show me how to swing the bucket so it catches the water and doesnât just float on top. After that, we wended our way back up to the top, dog in tow but frequently distracted by cats, and did some food shopping at the Lastovo market, which is larger than our local shop but still is about half of a 7-Eleven. Not a standalone one either, one of the city ones thatâs kind of squished longways. We waited another 45 minutes for the next bus, which Dandelion tried to get onto with us. He didnât have the 17 kunas to pay the fare, though, and made big puppy eyes at us as we left. Weâre planning to go back to visit.
That was our big adventure, really. Eventually the weather improved, we got back to work. The sea has been pretty rough a couple times, but the park service guys (yes, all men, Balkan gender roles are a whole nother post) know their shit and get us safely where we need to go. Pod KopiĹĄte lizards are still kind of jerks. We finished our last dissection today (Friday) and now we just have some behavioral experiments Beck wants to try out. Thereâs a lovely British scientist whoâs a specialist in behavior and cognition, heâs talked to her some about doing preliminary checks on P siculaâs cognition that could lead to future work with them. The weather looks like itâll be no good tomorrow, but the good news is that the tourist season is open, so there might be a couple more things to do to pass the time. Thereâs a party tomorrow night at the hotel across the channel from our apartment, there will be traditional Croatian folk singers (including some of the park rangers) and a lot of Slovenian tourists. Obviously, weâre going. Iâll try not to get drunk on homemade herbal grappa or whatever they insist on giving us (that already happened once at the pizza place). It should be a real good time.
Itâs not even 10pm and exhaustion has set in. We woke up around 7 today in order to get on a Park Service boat raft dinghy that would take us to Pod Mrcaru, the smaller island of the two that our work focuses on. Itâs about a ten-minute ride if the sea is agreeable, or a forty-minute extremely bumpy ride if not. Today it was about fifteen. First, the vessel. Imagine one of those inflatable lawn pools that one of your cool friends had, maybe 4â˛x8â˛. Stick an outboard motor on the back, a steering wheel in the middle, and a rope strung around the outside edge and youâre picturing this boat. We sit on the inflated rubber sides, which is more generally perilous seating, but less certainly ass-threatening than the hard plastic seats squeezed right above the motor. If you get a good spot on the rim, you can hold onto one of the metal poles attached at random to the center console. Otherwise, youâre clinging to a splintery nylon rope that, again, is strung on the OUTSIDE of the thing, behind you. I donât know how the fuck thatâs supposed to help you not bounce out. So far nobodyâs gone overboard, and may that string of unlikely good luck continue.
Pod MrÄaru (pahd mur-CHAH-roo) is nearer to Lastovo, and easy to disembark onto. It has a little cement pier/quay where the boat can be moored temporarily, probably because thereâs a light or radio tower on it that probably needs maintenance from time to time. So we start there, both to get our sea butts and because the lizards there are plentiful, concentrated, and stupidly easy to catch, which is great for our confidence. We arrived at the island about 8:30, which is before the lizards wake up and start moving around, the lazy little things. The sun soon cooperated, clearing itself from a hazy clump of clouds to spread some warmth to the scattered rock platforms around the island and turn them into lizard heating pads. Then it was just a matter of patience and steady hands. I again caught the first lizard of the day, and I did very respectably in terms of collecting overall. In fact, we had collected more than we had planned on after just an hour. So we sat, took pictures, ate oranges and smoked cigarettes. Then we replaced all the lizards we had caught, plus a couple more. I think we ended up with 14. See, we want to have the freshest lizards because they taste the best we want to know what their gut activity is like in the wild, on a regular day. In fact, we dissect them ASAP on trays full of ice so that the conditions of the gut stays as close as possible to what it was like when it was still inside the lizard.
Even after cycling through to all new lizards, we still had 45 minutes to blow on the island. We walked a bit, stared at the horizon, watched a guy pee off his boat. There was about fifty seagulls just floating on the wind the whole time we were there, circling, diving, and rising up again. They were pretty uninterested in us. and our prey. The last time I was on Pod MrÄaru, there were no birds. There were also no flowers, but this time it was covered in yellow and purple blooms. That made it harder to spot and catch the lizards, but a) I am much more experienced now and b) that moved the difficulty factor from .5 to .75 on a scale of 1 to really not that hard at all. Theyâre absolutely everywhere, and theyâre brazen little fuckers. Nobody ever comes to the island, except sometimes a goat, so theyâre not really scared of people other than the usual âyou are much bigger than I amâ panic. Itâs tempting to say that the sicula arenât very bright - one more or less ran straight into my noose today -  but they have a surprising curiosity about them. Theyâll experimentally bite the noose to see if itâs tasty, theyâll chase it just to see what happens. Late tonight we got an email from a British behavioralist we met when we were last here, with some basic cognitive experiments to try with the sicula. Iâm interested to see where that goes.
The boat came back to pick us up at noon. Usually they send two rangers to get us, since it takes more than one person to manage docking or landing the boat and none of us know shit about that. But today we got one ranger and one visiting scientist. Beck said he could tell right away that the guy was an ornithologist - binoculars, camo pants, and beard being some of the signifying plumage - and he was very nice. He told us about some of the falcons, which I later read were bred here during the Renaissance to sell to aristocrats. He asked about our work as well. It was pleasant to see another scientist working out of Lastovo, he was very charming and low-key. Plus itâs nice to know that weâre not the only ones using the park service as our personal seafaring shuttle bus.
Back at the apartment, we did the fairly well-oiled ballet of laying out the dissection stations at our kitchen table. Marija has an apartment to herself for a week before another Croatian assistant comes to share it, and Beck and I share the one next door. The apartments are lovely and well-appointed. Airy and light, with sizable balconies overlooking a small channel between two islands, theyâre perfect for our needs. I didnât do much dissecting today, as there are tasks to be done between each dissection and we werenât quite prepared for those today. There are toe tags to make for each lizard, the tools and trays have to be sterilized with ethanol between lizards, and Beck and Marija are just a lot faster at dissection than I am. But I am helpful in lots of ways, I feel good about my presence here. The dissections took about three hours, then Beck took a nap while I noodled around on the internet.
At 5, we had a date with our landlady Anita and her husband Josip (YO-sip). She always invites Beck and his entourage up to their apartment for cake and wine, but today she outdid herself. It was more like a family dinner than anything else. Croatians largely arenât experienced with the care and feeding of vegetarians - Anita told Beck that when her son didnât want to eat meat as a child, she took him to a shrink - but she managed quite well after triple-checking that he didnât eat fish. There was some kind of phyllo-swiss chard thing, beautiful bread, wild asparagus that grows on Lastovo, hard-boiled eggs with paprika (fetishizing paprika is the national pastime of Croatia), and then a tuna patĂŠ thing for the meat-eaters. Oh, and some kind of sweet-spicy Italian liqueur to start. THEN the surprise second course - a beautifully creamy cabbage and potato thing for Beck, and the best tuna steak Iâve ever had in my life. Tuna, of course, are fished in the Adriatic, so this is eating about as locally as it gets. This was covered in capers and black olives (I donât even like olives), folded into an aluminum foil packet, and baked. I had two at Josipâs urging. He is slightly taciturn and works as a police officer, but he took a liking to me and Beck for no reason we can discern. There was wine with this, and Anita divulged the provenance of everything on the table. Her English is limited but adorable, and I most certainly appreciate the effort she goes to in order to make us understand her. Marija, whose English is perfect, is very generous about translating when needed.
Then, dessert. These are always a little touch-and-go, because I am American and used to such things being saturated with sugar, and theyâre a light touch with the stuff around here. But this cake was a triumph in white. Imagine a jelly-roll cake, except with vanilla pudding and orange marmalade instead of whatever shit strawberry jelly youâre thinking of. It was a creamsicle made solid at room temperature. There was another leftover cake and some cookies that went completely untouched and is now in our refrigerator. Also in the fridge: dead lizards, to be put in formaldehyde; spring onions I cut from some of the plants on Pod MrÄaru; four boxes of lactose-free milk; and about a pound of butter in a Ziploc that got mushed while traveling yesterday.
After dinner, we walked about a kilometer from Pasadur, where the apartment is, to Ubli, where the ferry lands and where youâll find the only store within eleven kilometers. The other one is on the other side of the island, and you have to take a taxi to get there. (Thereâs only one taxi.) Weâd stopped by the store, called Studenac (STU-deh-nahtch), on the way back from Pod MrÄaru earlier, but they close from noon to 5. Not a lot of people live here, and lunch breaks are really long. We picked up some basics that we hadnât brought from the mainland, though the selection is pretty grim. When they run out of fresh loaves for the day, thatâs it, thereâs no more bread. We walked back as dusk began to settle, beginning to feel the weight of the dayâs work. I traded foot rubs with Beck, who is currently sleeping soundly beside me. Another early day tomorrow, but weâll have more free time after the work is done. Iâm going to try to do a photo dump to facebook tomorrow as well.
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