Futility Now

Here are some photos presented in a less verbose context.

Hazel and I took a day trip to Arles, which is a pretty cool town. Here is a picture of a cat who hangs out at a cafe in Arles.

Here is a forlorn-looking infants shoe stuck on a tree in the square of Saint Chinian.

Here are some prawns we ate on our last night in Saint Chinian

Here are Hazel and Zia in Beziers, where Hazel and I caught the train back to Paris.

Here is a rather handsome metal door in Beziers.

Last Beziers photo: For various reasons that we don’t really need to go into detail about, Hazel and I were sort of exhausted by the time my mom drove on with Zia. Rather than wait in the train station, we went to a rawther rustic bar and drank Ricard.

Then we went back to Paris, where we belong. Here is the sky from our hotel window.

Here is Hazel drinking wine by the Canal Saint-Martin while we wait for pizza from Pink Flamingo.

Here are the pizzas for which we waited. The one on the left is called L’Obama, and it’s ham and pineapple chutney. Verdict: amazing!

Here is some rubble we saw after eating pizza and before we got on the metro for further adventures.

Last stop in Toulouse? Coffee drinks with Nutella!

We met up with Kate and Zia in Beziers and headed to St. Chinian in a gigantic fancy midnight blue Citroen. Kate is an. . . exciting driver. Whew!

We could see why Kate felt guilty with just the two of them at the house initially.  It is four stories tall.

J and I stayed on the fourth floor, where everything was butter yellows and smooth terrazzo tiles and gigantic bathtub. Ooh la la.

I haven’t done nearly as much traveling as J, and I’m sure it’s come up somewhere already that this is my first time abroad. What I will say is that the few times I have traveled have been longer trips that have allowed me to do things like grocery shop and cook and get a general sense of what daily life is like. It was great fun, then, to go to the supermarche and pick up some cured meats and pasta and veg, and then (over a gas stove, le sigh) throw something together with the sound of cicadas and the long sharp shadows of early evening in the background.

Rather unfairly, the next morning J had to report to work; Kate and Zia and I went off into the mountains, more specifically to St. Pons and Fraisse-sur-Agout.

It was very pretty, and hot. We wandered down to the source of the Jaur, under a rocky outcropping. The air was positively chilling, it was so strange compared to the direct environs. I find nature totally bewildering, in this case it was in a nice way.

On Monday we started out by heading back to Gare de Lyone to book our tickets back to Paris from Bezier. Despite getting there fairly early, there was an incredibly long line, something that is basically the most consistent aspect of our trip. Luckily things were fairly brisk, and we were able to obtain the things that we needed. On our way out I took this picture of Gare de Lyon’s tower.

After that, we went to the universe-famous Louvre, where the fact that we had bought museum passes payed off in spades, because there were about a bajillion people waiting around in the already-90-plus-degree heat to get in, and we got to waltz down and alternate route and the whole thing took us about 10 minutes rather than the hour and a half or so the line would have demanded.

The only thing that I find genuinely moving in The Louvre is The Raft of the Medusa (with its keen observations about man’s inhumanity to man), but there’s plenty that’s at least worth a look. On our way up the stairs to look at The Winged Victory of Samothrace (a silent, eternal treatise on man’s inhumanity to man) we noticed an area under construction to our right. It was pretty cool.

Here is a hilarious but symbolically-rich (on the topic of Hazel’s anxieties and man’s inhumanity to man) picture of Hazel next to a horse’s head.

Here, as a parting shot from The Louvre, is a baby wrestling a goose. Like all great art, it speaks to man’s inhumanity to man. Once again, the mysteries of the universe are illuminated in timeless marble.

After The Fleas we went to Montmartre.

Sacre Couer was, as you might expect of a Sunday, incredibly crowded. At first we opted to avoid going into the church itself and just hit up the dome and crypt. While we were in the crypt, singing began in the main level and echoed down the sealed off staircases. The effect was appropriately otherworldly and very beautiful. Hazel warily sampled the red velvet prayer kneeler and one of the old confessionals (sadly, there were no takers for her sound advice).

Ascending the spiral stairs to the dome was, actually, a religious experience. By the way.

(not pictured: Stunt flyers from the Paris Air Show that we saw drawing the French flag in colored smoke.)

On the way down from the dome we realized that we’d stumbled into the middle of a whole-nine-yards type Catholic service, complete with smoking censer, dudes in funny hats and dresses, and a massive singing procession. In addition to the fact that the singing was quite beautiful, the commotion allowed us to sneak into the interior of the church without waiting in line in the blazing sun. We didn’t stay long, but we were pleased to have gotten the opportunity.

We were tempted to check out Montmartre a bit more, but even away from Sacre Couer the whole thing was, shall we say, frantic. As this was not in keeping with our romantic notions, we demurred. Instead, we got a flight to Toulouse via the internet to make up for the fact that we couldn’t get a train to Beziers. I guess that wasn’t terribly romantic either, but there are far worse problems a person could have, mais oui?

The afternoon interlude involved finding another hotel for our newly-extended stay. Luckily our neighborhood was full of the quirky (hommes sleeping on a mattress behind the front counter) places where a room can be had for 50 euros a night, if only you can figure out the strange policies through French conversation. As in, of course you can stay here, but you can’t reserve now, and I won’t take your money for some inexplicable reason, but just come back on the day you need a room, at 2:00. It was difficult not to feel like maybe we were being a little tricked, but mais non. C’est ne pas de probleme.

Then we had tapas, which was notable for the pitcher of sangria. Maybe you know this already, but cold and drink are not by rule a happy couple in France, especially as regards water. The chilly sangria, on the other hand, was basically nectar from the gods. We also ended up going to a couple of bars, one of which was run by a woman who must have been in her late 70s and early 80s. The place (and the madame) were run down. There was a wonderful cat.

There were pictures of the bar from earlier in her career as its proprietor (she’d owned it for 35 years) and it had been quite beautiful. I wasn’t sure if it was magnificent that she was carrying on, or sort of sad to think about how different it had once been. As is invariably the case in such circumstances the right answer probably involves a mix of each, although the exact proportions of important things are always difficult to gauge.

Naturellement.

(For various reasons too boring to recount, you can only name one author per post, but we both worked on this.)

On Sunday we gave up on improving our transit situation and went to Marché aux Puces, which are these massive flea markets up in the north of Paris. To start out we had terrible coffee in the bar across the street from out hotel, which looks like this from said bar.

When you get to the markets you start by pushing through a ring of stalls that sell shoes and mobile phones, just like any street market in the world. Eventually you get to these sort of arecade-y (in the old sense, not the video game sense) buildings and everything gets Franch Franch Franch (“and Peru!”)

Then we ate delicious quiche because we’d been wandering around for hours and were well on our way to being tres fatigue.