The Pride of Paris will rise again

July 9, 2018 -- "Once it was the pride of Paris," begins the story in The Guardian.  The apt headline tells the story in a nutshell:  "Wheels come off Paris bike-share scheme after high tech upgrade."

The Statue of Liberty as seen from the Grenelle bridge over
the Seine, with the Front de Seine towers in the background.

Tom and I have been noticing that there are no or almost no bicycles in any of the Velib docking stations that exist on what seems like every third block in the city.  Parisians had become so accustomed to relying on Velib that this current failure is a possible political disaster for the mayor, Anne Hildago.

The contractor that ran Velib for its first decade, the advertising billboard company JCDecaux, either decided not to re-up the contract or the City of Paris made that decision for them, I'm not sure.  At any rate, the contract was put up for bid last year and the new operator is now Smovengo.

Empty Velib docking station near the Grenelle bridge.

Smovengo promised to provide high-tech, internet-connected bikes.  Many of them are supposed to be electric.  Smovengo was also supposed to provide new docking stations.  But in spite of all the promises made, Smovengo has had a lot of technological trouble, and is way behind schedule.  Meanwhile, Velib barely exists.

Sign on the Velib docking station's terminal tells the
tale:  "This station is under construction.  Here you can't
take or return a Velib."

And along have come a couple of competitors who are providing rental bikes that are lighter weight need no docking stations.  The good part about not having docking stations is that you can ride the bike right to where you are going, dismount, engage the kickstand, and leave the bike right there, wherever.

So we see these bikes, standing solo, in some of the strangest places.

These competitors' bikes have chips in them, and I guess you use your smartphone to scan the code on the bike and then use your credit card info to pay for the rental.

One of the problems Velib has had (in addition to a lot of vandalism) will also be experienced by the competitors:  Parisians like to ride downhill only.  So many of them start their daily commute in the upper reaches of the city -- which are also atop hills -- on a Velib (or competitor) bicycle, leave the bike downtown where many work, on either side of the Seine, and then they take the metro home because they don't want to pedal uphill.

Each afternoon, there is a glut of bicycles left in the lower parts of the city, which must be moved by truck back to the hills in the northern part of the city before the next morning's rush hour begins.

In another scenario, one might ride a Velib or competitor bike to shop at a place like the Beaugrenelle Mall (yes, that was once a swamp).  If one is successful in making many purchases, one certainly isn't going to ride a bike back home.  One will take the metro or even a taxi.

This bike belongs to a competitor to Velib called Mobike, whose web site
calls itself "the world's first & largest smart bike share."  It has been left in the middle
of a busy sidewalk.

How can you rely on the competitors' bicycles if there are no docking stations?  How do you know where the nearest available bike is?  I guess there is an app for that.

One of the competitors is called Gobee.bike.  Unlike Velib, which is free for the first 30 minutes, Gobee.bike charges 50 centimes for a half hour.  Gobee.bike came to Paris last October, I think, but it already existed elsewhere, like Hong Kong.

But there aren't enough Gobee.bikes to go around, and I've seen a few that have been vandalized already.  The City of Paris is under great pressure to resurrect Velib.

The Beaugrenelle has a new slogan, curiously in English.  The tiny print
at the bottom gives the French translation, which literally says "The place
where one feels well."

The day after we arrived in Paris this summer, Mayor Anne Hildago called for an investigation or audit of Smovengo's Velib deficiencies and failures.  I bet she'll find human error, not just technology glitches.

She also recently "signed the death certificate" (lefigaro.fr) for Autolib, the almost free electric car rental (or "car-sharing") system in Paris.  Autolib had racked up a 230-million-euro deficit.

Technology has advanced to the point where an auto sharing system could be set up without terminals (just as bike sharing can happen without docking stations).  The mayor has asked for information from service providers who could propose an auto sharing service without terminals (called "bornes" in French).

So it seems that bike and auto sharing services aren't dead in Paris; they are just being re-invented and are both in a sorry state of dysfunction at the moment.  I have faith, however, that Paris can pull this off.  Stay tuned.

Nicely landscaped promenade on the 15th
arrondissement's side of the Seine, with towers nearby.

My thing is walking, not riding.  This morning I challenged myself to a long, uphill walk to the far side of the 16th arrondissement.  At the top of the hill on the rue Boulainvilliers, I turned around and crossed back over to the 15th to walk the full length of the Tuesday street market on the rue St. Charles.

When I was home, Maria delivered the mail, which included a slip from UPS saying that my small package containing a USB3-Ethernet adaptor had been left at a UPS "Access Point," a realtor's office on the rue de Laos.  I knew this was going to happen, but I thought the Access Point would be closer.  So I took an additional short hike, bringing my total up to 6 miles already today.  And there is yet more walking to do before the day is over.

Last night, we walked down to the end of Avenue Felix Faure to dine at La Table d'Hubert.  This was a merely good dinner, and a great value.  My calamari was decidedly un-French -- in a heavy tomato and curry sauce on risotto.  It could have been an Indian dish if it had rice in place of the risotto.  The chef is from Bangladesh, I think.  Tom's large shrimp were overcooked, but the dish came with a nice salad and salsa.  At least my calamari was tender (and not like tough rubber bands).

Hubert was a bit down in the dumps, but he did greet us nicely and was kind to us.  I hope he cheers up.  The restaurant business is so tough.

Today's adventures will include a big trip to the sparkling, big FranPrix to get us stocked and ready for the visit from Dan, my stepson.  He's travelling all the way from Louisville, and will arrive this evening for a few days' stay in Paris.  We're looking forward to this!

A bright and shining morning in Paris

The Petit Palais is not petite; it is spacious.  People call it petit because it is smaller than the Grand Palais, a huge exhibition hall across the street.  Since the Petit Palais is one of my favorite museums, I decided that I should know how long it takes to walk there from this apartment.  My guess was 30 minutes. 

Looking down at the boats on the right bank, from the Pont Alexandre III.

Early this morning, I walked the most direct route to the Petit Palais, at a fairly good clip.  Thirty-six minutes it was.  Of course, the museum isn't open that early, so I sat on a park bench behind the imposing statue of Winston Churchill, near the entrance to the Petit Palais.  After just a few minutes rest, I was ready to turn back toward home.

The back of the Winston Churchill statue by the Petit Palais.

Tom doesn't particularly care for the grand, open spaces like the Esplanade des Invalides.  But I do love those places, as well as the narrow remnants of medieval streets and everything in between.  I just love Paris.

Flowers and free bicycle on the Esplanade des Invalides.

Gliding through that open field, with the sun in my face and a cool morning breeze whipping around me, how could I not be joyful?  I see golden statues above the Pont Alexandre III against a deep, French blue sky.  This is a good, shiny way to start the day.

Golden statue on the Pont Alexandre III.

Past the Esplanade and back on the streets, I see and hear cafés and brasseries opening, with servers setting up chairs and tables along the sidewalk.  People scurry into bakeries to buy breakfast on the run.  I make a plan to stop at the little FranPrix near the Boulevard de Grenelle so that I can have milk with my morning coffee.  The plan then expands to include a stop at Au Pain Naturel, a bakery, to buy brown bread.

Looking toward the Eiffel Tower from the Pont Alexandre III.

The walk home takes me past La Gauloise, where Tom and I had a delicious dinner last night.  That restaurant is among the few that serve a good steak in Paris.  Tom appreciates it, as well as the crispy fries that accompany. 

Filet mignon with crispy fries and pepper sauce at La Gauloise.

The chef also does escargots well, so we shared six of those.  Each snail came in its own little ceramic pot with melted butter and herbs!

Individually potted escargots at La Gauloise.

My bass and vegetables came with a little pot of tangy yet smooth beurre blanc.  Slivers of roasted eggplant were especially yummy with that sauce.

Bass filet with roasted vegetables and beurre blanc at La Gauloise.

Although we'd talked about dessert (La Gauloise serves a heavenly soufflé au grand marnier), neither of us wanted any by the time we'd finished the main courses.  We walked up to the Champ de Mars after dinner, then sauntered home in the gently warm evening air.

Champ de Mars and Eiffel Tower in the evening.

During the day, Tom and I both read dozens of college student essays, as part of the job of making a new edition of Back to the Lake (one of Tom's textbooks with W. W. Norton & Co.).  By 3PM, we couldn't take it anymore, so we turned into Zombies watching the day's stage of the Tour de France on TV.  This is the most television watching we do all year.  As soon as the Tour is over in late July, the TV goes pretty much silent and dark until our friends, the apartment owners, return in September.

Now it is time to go back to work!

Retail madness

July 6, 2018 -- Last summer, Tom did not have to do much work on his textbooks while we were in Paris.  This year, he has plenty of work to do on the new edition of Back to the Lake, one of the top-selling composition textbooks (college-level, freshman English) at his publisher, W. W. Norton.  Now his textbooks are being marketed to college-prep high schools as well as colleges, so this is serious business.

I saw many lovely flowers on this morning's walk in the Champ de Mars.

So, while we explored every arrondissement of Paris last year, going to parks, museums, and other places all over the city, this year's blog is going to be more reflective of what people who really live here do every day.

Yesterday:  after working at the computers, we went to the store to buy a computer mouse, and to another store to buy groceries.  But we also went to the Thomas fromagerie, a quintessentially charming Parisian cheese shop.

Let me begin by saying that buying a computer mouse in Paris is not like buying one in Fort Myers, Florida.  To have a decent selection of mice to choose from, we needed to go to a bigger store, like Darty or Boulanger.  This is comparable in size to Best Buy in Fort Myers.  But Best Buy just doesn't have the French bureaucratic process built into the procedures employed at the cash register.  (However, the Geek Squad, with its paperwork and perpetual line of waiting is probably modeled on the French system.)

Boulanger, a chain store that sells appliances and electronics.  The
banner with international flags are decorations for the World Cup
Soccer tournament.  They are strewn all over Paris.

Darty is just as bad as Boulanger when it comes to slow, lousy, inefficient customer service at the cash registers.  But at Boulanger, a salesperson actually came up to us to offer help and guidance as we stared at the available mice.  That does not happen at Darty, in our experience.  Salespeople, if they do indeed exist, do not offer help at Darty.  If you find one and ask a question, their reply is likely to be "Je n'ai aucune idée" (I have no idea) or some such.

Also, if you are looking to buy a digital camera, at least Boulanger keeps them out, although tethered, mounted on little posts so that you can examine their features.  Darty keeps all digital cameras in a locked, glass case, so if you are looking to see which ones have optical viewfinders, you're out of luck because you cannot see the backs of the cameras.  And if you can find someone to help show you some of the cameras in the case, it would be a miracle.  Does Darty care?  Doubtful.

How can these stores sell anything?  How do they survive?  It is a mystery.  I'd rather buy online.  (So I bought a USB3-to-Ethernet adapter on Amazon.com, having it shipped here by Monday.  The price is $12 less than at Boulanger.)

The same kind of needless bureaucracy exits at the SNCF boutiques where Parisians go to buy train tickets for their summer vacations.  I've been amazed at the lines of people waiting out on the sidewalk in front of the SNCF shop, waiting to plead their cases at the desk of an SNCF minion inside . . . .

Hours of operation at our shiny, local FranPrix grocery store.

After selecting Boulanger's cheapest wireless mouse for Tom, we ventured over to the cash registers.  There were two cashiers working, and there was a line of people waiting.  Each person's transaction seemed to involve problems, consternation, paperwork, consulting of supervisors, etc.  This process took a long time.  Eventually, we made it to the counter and it took us only about two minutes to buy the mouse.  Why were all the other people's transactions so complicated?  We aren't sure, but we think part of the problem was Boulanger advertising deals for items not in stock.

Just about every store in the city (except grocery stores) is stuffy and poorly air-conditioned.  So the longer you stand in line, the more uncomfortable you are.

After all that, I'm happy to say that Tom is pleased with his cheap wireless mouse.  He says he will take it with him everywhere.  (He's kidding.)

On the way home, we stopped at the Thomas fromagerie to buy brie, Salers cheese, rosé wine, and really good French butter.  The cheese-monger was someone new, and he was very pleasant.  He asked questions about where we are from, etc.  Nice guy, in a cute, super-clean, well-run cheese shop.  I can see this cheese shop from our balcony, so it is easy to look and know when the place is open for business.

La Tour Eiffel in the evening.

When mouse and cheese were safely stashed away in the apartment, we went out again to FranPrix, the grocery.  When we first saw this store years ago, it was frumpy and tired.  Then about three years ago, it underwent a complete renovation.  Now it sparkles.  It has a deli counter in the middle.  And it offers really good coffee. 

We left with two heavy, full (re-usable) bags, having spent about 70 euros.  The prices are good.  We were buying some relatively expensive items, but still the total wasn't so bad.  By the time we were shopping there, dinnertime approached.  We decided to buy things for dinner at the apartment.

So there are no photos of restaurant food today.  Instead, last night we filled the dining room table with a little of this, a little of that, mostly from FranPrix and the Thomas fromagerie.  We nibbled on roasted chicken legs with steamed potatoes, brie, Roquefort, Salers cheese, cherries, strawberries, paté, country ham, country bread -- this was a kind of indoor picnic, with the summer breeze flowing through the apartment.

Now excuse me while I go make a spinach and lettuce salad with Roquefort, roasted almonds, slivered red onion, and my own vinaigrette for lunch.  Cheers!

The calm of mid-August

August 15, 2016 -- Not long ago, my friend Jean-Paul and I talked about how we like to just walk along through the market under the tracks at the Boulevard de Grenelle.  We usually don’t buy anything; we just walk along and look at all the goods, and all the people.  We’ve never done this together, of course, but separately.  Yet we know we’ve had the same experience, at the same market.

This Wednesday- and Sunday-morning market is one of many scattered throughout Paris, each with its own designated days of the week.  Most are just two days a week, in the morning, until 1PM.  A few are allowed to be open three days per week. Most of the booths sell food – produce, meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, foie gras, etc. – but many sell flowers, watches, shoes, clothing, costume jewelry, and more.

Evening on the balcony.

Tom is usually working on his textbook projects in the morning, but yesterday he opted to join me on my morning market walk.

There were plenty of people there, but not quite the crowds we’ve seen in the past.  And of course some of the market booth spaces were empty; that happens in August, when many vendors take their vacations.

Some of the empty spaces were taken over by oriental rug and furniture vendors.  The finer oriental rugs are like magnets to us, and we resist the urge to look closer.  In recent years, the U.S. has had an embargo against the import of Iranian rugs, and of course, those are often the finest ones on display.  The embargo was lifted this past January or February, as a small part of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

So now we COULD buy Iranian rugs, but we just aren’t in acquisitive mode.  As soon as Persian rug dealers notice what our eyes are drawn to, and then when they speak with us and discover that we know many of the names of various designs or the tribes who made them, they zero in on us.  It is hard to extricate oneself from the figurative grip of a good rug salesperson who knows just how addictive the love of Persian rugs can be.

Langoustine starter course at Axuria, on the Avenue Felix Faure.

We did well, taking in the sights yet avoiding the grip yesterday.  When we’d completed our tour of the colorful market, we veered off to the northeast to wander through the peaceful Place Dupleix.  We were surprised to armed soldiers patrolling the far edge of the Place, and we initially assumed that this was because that spot is near the Cuban embassy. 

We entered the middle of the little park and cut through to the other side, directly in front of the Saint Léon church.  Then we saw armed soldiers at the other end of the Place.  Church services were under way.  We concluded that the soldiers were guarding someone or some people in the church, not the Cuban embassy.

Today I see on the Saint Léon web site a notice in bright red, on the home page.  Here’s a translation:

SAFETY AWARENESS!
During the state of emergency, the doors of the main entrance of the church on the Place Dupleix will be closed during the Sunday services.

The Saint Léon church construction began in 1924, and in 1926, it became a parish independent of Saint John the Baptist of Grenelle (the church that is closest to our apartment).  Much of the beautiful Art Deco mosaic tile decoration of the Saint Léon church appears to be from the 1930s. 

We walked back to the apartment to have lunch, a simple salad.  In the evening, I donned a dress, and Tom put on his blazer, then we went for a circuitous hour-long walk that closely matched our wandering through the 15^th arrondissement on our first day in Paris together, back in 1998.

We discovered a FranPrix grocery store that was actually open until 10PM on this holiday weekend Sunday night!  It is at 143 Rue de Lourmel, at the intersection with the rues des Cevennes and Tisserand.  We stopped in to buy two boxes of zippered food storage bags, which we use as our own surreptitious doggy bags.  Tom usually has one in his jacket pocket when we go out in the evening.

Escargots prepared the traditional way, at Axuria.

On that first stroll in 1998, we got lost, but ended up at La Tour Eiffel brasserie in front of the St. John the Baptist church, where we found that we were no longer lost.  This time, we stopped to dine at Axuria, on the avenue Félix Faure, where I’d reserved a table about a week ago.  We could not get lost in the 15^th if we tried now, we know it so well.

I thought that the restaurant might be crowded since there are not many fine restos open in Paris on this mid-August holiday weekend.  (Today is the Catholic Church’s Feast of the Assumption – commemorating the day at the end of her earthly life when the Virgin Mary is taken up into heaven, body and soul.) 

As it turned out, only five tables were occupied as we completed our dinner – two singles, and three couples, including us.

People don’t know what they were missing.  Dinner was delicious, and the service was friendly and professional.  We were seated at a table in the window, right on the sidewalk.  We felt blessed.

Colorful leg of lamb for Sunday dinner at Axuria.

We began with a langoustine starter course.  Three of these tiny lobster tails were wrapped in a fine layer of crispy pastry, and served with a savory aspic topped with caviar.  Tom also ordered nine escargots, served in the traditional butter-parsley-garlic way.

As we enjoyed this beginning, a man in colorful Muslim attire walked past on the sidewalk, wishing us a “bon appetit.”  Tom responded, “merci, monsieur.”

Each of us ordered the tender leg of lamb for the main course, and of course Tom had to have the restaurant’s signature soufflé Grand Marnier for dessert. 

The incomparable soufflé Grand Marnier at Axuria.

That was a wonderful dinner, worthy of the Feast of the Assumption.  Tonight we’ll be dining at a slightly less formal place, Le Cap.  But I’m fairly certain that the food there will be wonderful in Le Cap’s own way.