Beth Arnold

Jours of Our Lives: 4) Settling In

 

Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

Part of an ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

I'D READ IT, heard it countless times before, but I didn't get it. Everyone talked about how great the Marais was, and I thought what's the big deal? But now that we've been here two weeks, I'm in the know. We love the Marais! We love our Perche apartment and the building it's in--even though it took us a week to figure out how to turn on the lights in the hall at night whenever we needed to go downstairs. A neighbor finally showed us.

Perche

Letter From Paris Presents...Paris Fashion Report

Image via Wikipedia

By Contributing Editor Philippe Perisse de Montchenu, Fashion Reporter and Consultant

 

TIPS FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE

 

FOR CHRISTMAS, I was in a little and charming village near Bordeaux on le Bassin d’Arcachon called Ares. And while there is Area 51 in the USA, in Ares there has been an Ovniport (a UFO port) since 1976.  Seriously!

A very imaginative administration decided to construct the most surprising airstrip ever designed.  It is made for unidentified flying objects!  An electrical technician of the village thought that if we couldn’t see UFOs, "it was simply because we hadn’t done much to welcome them."  So they simply built it! 

Today, it faces the shore, in front of the pier, and a stone is engraved with:  "OVNIPORT ARES : August,15th 1976, this site has been reserved by a decision of the Mayor Christian Raymond, approved by the City Council to host on our planet Travelers of the Universe.. QUE VOS ATENDEM TOTJORN (we will always wait for you)." 

Simply a joke? or a real leap of faith?

Proud of its unique site, the City Council ordered a local artist to deliver an actual flying saucer this spring--the first ever really to land in ARES’s OVNIPORT!  And this summer, it proudly took place in a big celebration directed by the Mayor.

 

Letter From Paris presents...A Very Joyeux Noel

Christmas Eve is finally here, and what have my three wise bloggers and I brought to you from Paris?

I come bearing the star of our brilliant tree Bébé-Marie, the Christmas Monkey.

Photo by Beth Arnold

Every year Bébé-Marie crawls out of your liquor cabinet and swings through your trees to shake things up.  She likes toe-tapping jazz and Cajun music not to mention a good party, and, oh, how she loves to dance!  Bébé-Marie crowns our tree resplendently, overseeing her subjects that include Mexican tin Day of the Dead decorations, sparkly balls, golden bows, and our newest acqusitions, brightly colored (and wiggly) fishing lures.  They take on a special glow beneath her skirt.

Jours of Our Lives: 3)Technology May Kill Us

 

Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

Part of an ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

 

JIM'S LAPTOP JUST quit working. A blank screen was staring at us no matter what he did, and he simmered up a minor meltdown himself, though not as bad as it could've been--and not to the extent that I probably would've lost it with our technological setbacks and the stress that has generated. Our wits aren't wired industrially. Oh, maybe if we really tried they could be, but that would be excruciating too. The point is that attempting to get our European "theater of operations" up and working has eaten us alive.

The lone Parisian activity we've had any time for are long walks down the boulevards and rues, exploring our neighborhood while looking for just the right dinner setting. This is one of the great joys of Paris. We walked in Little Rock for fitness, not to travel from one place to another or as a pursuit in itself to enjoy, not to find another architectural beauty or scene we hadn't laid eyes on before--not to savor the city's life. We could have strolled and appreciated our own surroundings, even if they weren't Paris, but didn't. That was a decision we made in how we lived our lives. Growing up, our daughters wouldn't have considered walking four or five blocks to the video store. "I'd be embarrassed to be seen walking," our younger daughter once said. We do not see what we have. We're too busy driving by it.

Letter From Paris: Designing Students

Kind David IV of Georgia, Image via Wikipedia

On our recent visit to the Republic of Georgia and its second ever Fashion Week, the Lone Wolf and I were also introduced to Georgian art. There is nothing I like better than to experience the culture of a new territory by looking through the eyes of its artists, and Georgia was no exception.

We were delighted with an exhibition of Georgian Cinema and Theatre costumes at the Vato Kakhidze Art Center, and the interior of the building itself was an extraordinary example of Art Nouveau. At the Georgia State Museum of Fine Art, the icons we viewed were absolutely stunning (Wouldn't I be in heaven to own one!) even if the matrons who ran the tours seemed a bit old-style U.S.S.R. Communism, which Georgia is trying to eradicate from its national consciousness. The jewelry that had been saved and protected since antiquity was purely exquisite.

 

Vato Kakhidze Art Center

Letter From Paris: Christmas on Paris Streets

 

Visions of Christmas I found on Paris streets...

 

Santa was already in town!  He'd tiptoed into the BHV.

 

Jours of Our Lives: 2) Nomads With Luggage

Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

Part of an ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

The next morning we talked to Claire at French Home Rentals, who called someone named Ruben, who was to meet us at the apartment, 14 rue du Perche, just around the corner from the Picasso Museum. She also arranged a taxi that could carry all Our Stuff. I didn't remember so many Paris cabs being mini-vans, but there are quite a few--and so convenient! Claire's assistance was angelic, since we were half brain-dead and still recovering from the shock of what we'd done, although the humor didn't miss us. The snarly man was at the hotel desk when we left. I again was wearing Mother's mink coat and feeling grand to be leaving, much like the Queen of Sheba, while he would have to stay in the drab little place he called a hotel.

 

Queen of Sheba" by Edmund Dulac

We are nomads in this new life of ours, which implies we shouldn't be carrying so many bags, unless we had a caravan. We don't have a fleet of camels or even a tiny car. Therein lies a basic conflict.

Letter From Paris presents...The Sound Hunter

Image via Wikipedia

 

MARCHE DE NOEL EN LA DEFENSE

 

By Contributing Editor Des Coulam. Recording the street sounds of Paris, attempting to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed

 

LA DEFENSE, IN the far west of Paris, is a high-rise business ghetto and home to many French and multi-national companies.  It is quite unlike any other area of Paris.

 

Letter from Paris presents... Paris EyePhone

 

MONDAY  MORNING COFFEE IN THE SENTIER, PARIS' GARMENT DISTRICT

By Contributing Editor Mario C. Servin, iPhone Photographer and Traveling Economist

 

THE SENTIER IS also home to several Paris-based start-ups in technology and design and the round angles in this courtyard evoke the well-known contours of Apple's I-Phone and I-Pad  perfectly!

 

iPhone photos by Mario C. Servin.

Jours of Our Lives: 1) The Bumpy Landing

Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

Part of an ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.

IT STARTED WHEN we checked into the wrong hotel. We walked up the cobblestone street with our five huge pieces of luggage, me wearing my mother's luscious mink coat and feeling very grand. We stepped into what we thought was going to be a creamy lobby, a charming and beautiful hotel. Instead it was small, worn, and drab. The floor was being mopped, and it felt like with my hair. With our carry-ons, we barely fit into the elevator. On the second floor, we were shown to a tiny room with the walls the color of Arkansas pond scum and the wooden trim an enamel Kelly green. We thought we might have to sleep on our luggage piled on our beds as "The Princess and The Prince and The Very Uncomfortable Pea." I wanted to say, "Quel dommage!", although I'm not sure what it means. We ran out of time for our French lessons as we were sweating over all the details to leave. It has the right sound anyway.

 

Victoria Hotel, above and below