Bondoufle

We claim our ground in Bondoufle, with Andrew's aunt and uncle in Bondoufle, about 40 minutes from Paris by train.  Our base camp for a month of explorations.

An assortment of granddaughters are staying with them at any given time.  The language barrier is not an issue with Estelle who mostly spends a lot of time screaming because she is sick.  Adeline understands most of what we say to her, but she repsonds in long stretches of French.  She chatters so earnestly, slapping her leg for emphasis.  And then it happens - she will say something and then look at me, clearly expecting an agreement or some kind of intelligent response.

"I have no idea what you are saying.  Can you say it in English?" I plead.
"Oui," she says, very matter-of-factly and then says...nothing else.

But then Helene (Andrew's cousin) tells me that no one can understand - Adeline is speaking fluent nonsense.
Garance and Constance both understand and speak more English, but it takes almost a whole weekend for them to overcome their shyness to try.

We spend a lot of downtime with the kids - dressing up dolls, kicking the soccer ball, playing tag, riding scooters, dancing to kiddie songs, playing the Game of Life (we were so rich!), chalking the parking lot.

Andrew dancing with Estelle

Playing dolls with Garance
and Adeline

Chalk

Andrew, Constance, and Garance help me
celebrate my 25th birthday!

Andrew challenges Garance to a soccer shoot-out

In Bondoufle, there is wine with every meal.  Always a cheese platter that goes around.  Yogurt or fruit for dessert.  By the time we've left, I continue to stuff myself with the first round of food, still unused to this system of courses.  Meal time is also conversation time, and we have long discussions -  about French politics and healthcare, comparing American and European education systems and simply sharing personal stories.  Aunt Henrie shines in her role of culture tour guide; and we are eager learners.  Uncle Denis tells fascinating stories of his childhood and of his hiking adventures.

We wander around the town, visiting the church for Mass in French, observing the ballot counting after the elections, trying to talk to Uncle Denis and Aunt Henrie's neighbors and shopping at the local grocery store.  Andrew walks into a small specialty store hoping to find some local honey, but his French fails him while talking to the shop keeper.  Struggling to remember the word for honey, Andrew resorts to sign language and sound effects - "buzz buzz buzz."  "Ah, miel!" the shopkeeper says, "No, not here."

Outside tourist towns, it is much harder to find people who speak English.  At the parish festival the first weekend, parishioners approach us to welcome us as new members.  They explode into the usual "welcome-and-tell-us-about-yourself" spiel as we stand there speechless, listening to the barrage of French with a polite yet bewildered expression.  At the first pause, we tentatively interject - "English?"

But it is refreshing to be surrounded by the French language.  It is almost like a language immersion experience, and by the end of the visit, Andrew and I are able to at least grasp the gist of the conversation and to distinguish words as opposed to just hearing a long, continuous string of sounds.

Normandy

Action.

We are going camping in Normandy.  Our grand scheme is to start in Etretat, about 3 hours northwest of Bondoufle.  Then we will drive through Honfluer down to Bayeux and find a campground around there.  Tomorrow we will explore the D-Day Beaches and Mont St. Michel, camp again and then spend the final morning in St. Malo before heading back to Bondoufle.  The car is loaded with gear and food.  As the GPS guides us through the traffic circles and onto the highway, raindrops begin to slap the windshield and slide down to the car hood.  Not a promising start.  Helene had told us before we left that we should take a raincheck on the camping and stay in Paris.

Pringles duck face

Excited for our European roadtrip

But, just as we arrive in Etretat, the blue sky peeks through the clouds and the sun begins to gleam, burning the greyness away.  We spend a couple hours exploring the coastline of the old fishing village - the tops of the white chalk cliffs, the stoney beach, and the cavern coves.

Andrew on top of the cliffs

Double arches

Chalk cliffs

Etretat

Then we hit the road again and enjoy a beautiful sunset as we drive south to Bayeux, skipping over Honfluer because it is already so late.

It is amazing how many times a sunset
changes in a single hour

I don't know why we are surprised when we arrive at the campground after midnight and it is closed.  Eventually we end up parking in a hotel parking lot and spending the night in the car.  Half-way through the night, we wake up long enough to pull the sleeping bags out because it is so cold.  By morning, the windows are completely misted over by our sleeping breaths.  And so our first night of camping is a failure.

Campout in the car

An Aside - Growing up, my family used to sleep in the car in hotel parking lots all the time! My parents would drive until they got tired and then start looking for hotels.  If we couldn't find anything available, then we just parked and slept.  Usually, my brother and I would already be asleep at this point, so we wouldn't know until morning.  So, I thought it was funny that Andrew was a little paranoid about the whole thing until I mentioned that I had done it before.  I think he was afraid we would get caught.  But, what is the worst that could happen?  They could ask us to leave, I suppose, but then we could just drive to another parking lot...

We spend the day walking around the D-Day landing beaches - Arromanches, Omaha Beach, and Pont du Hoc.  The weather is beautiful today.  At Omaha Beach, we ponder the memorial museum and then climb down to the shoreline.  It is a huge beach and I am struck with how daunting it must have been to land there and have to cross such a stretch of exposed sand, fully knowing that you might not reach the other side and watching your comrades falling dead around.  There is no place to hide.

Bunkers and poppies near Arromanches

Some of the original artillery was still intact

Omaha Beach
The landing infantry men had to
cross 200 yards or more of open
beach; over 3000 casualities
by day's end

Pont du Hoc
The 100 foot cliffs were scaled by Rangers
of whom more than half were killed
or seriously injured

Flowers growing among the twisted rebar
of the destroyed bunkers at Pont du Hoc

The American cemetery above the beach is also awe-inspiring.  So many people are burried there, but not over the years and centuries.  Instead, it was mostly filled in just a couple weeks.

A flower honoring a dead soldier

The nameless dead

A token of honor and remembrance

Keeping in mind last night's poor timing, we leave for Mont St. Michel with plenty of time to find a campsite.  As we approach the castle on the rock in the middle of the water, the rain returns and the crisp outlines in the distance are quickly concealed.

Hoping to beat any oncoming downpour, we unpack our camping gear quickly, only to discover that Andrew has packed the wrong tent...and only half of it - the poles and ropes are missing.  We don't relish the idea of another night in the car, so we drive the 4 hours back to Bondoufle - rain pattering the glass, oncomiong headlights sparkling in the water droplets and music directing us through the night.

Cut.

Impressions of Paris

It is hard to believe that I have been to Europe five times before and never been to Paris.  We emerge from the metro station, craning our necks, trying to glance a peek of its famous tower.  We are, I think, expecting something much taller.  And then, after hurrying in anticipation, it is there - above the trees - a cloudy day surrounding it.  Arching, intricate, soaring and yet precisely engineered.

Eiffel Tower (detail)

Andrew and I on
the Champs de Mars

I love the Eiffel Tower.  There is something about its aura and color (not quite grey, and more a faded brown than anything) that makes it seem like I'm looking at an old sepia-toned photograph.  There is a hint of surrealism around seeing it from far away.  In fact, I find the sights of Paris to be more beautiful when glimpsed from a distance: seeing the Arc de Triomphe from the opposite end of the Champs-Elysees, happening to glimpse the Sacre Coeur between boulevards of buildings.

We spend three and a half days wandering through Paris - Cathédrale Notre Dame, Basilique du Sacre Coeur, the Rodin Gardens, Musee d'Orsay, and Place de la Concorde.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Interior of the gothic cathedral

Chandelier

Carving on the Notre Dame:
the headless one is St. Denis, one of Paris's
patron saints; legend says that he walked
away from the place where he was martyred
holding his head and preaching a sermon

Demon on the cathedral's facade

Dome Church (where Napolean
is buried) and lamps on
Pont Alexander III

The Eiffel Tower from
the Alexander III bridge

Spiral staircase in the Church of
Saint-Étienne-du-Mont

Rodin's "The Thinker" (detail)

One of Rodin's sculptures
clowning for the camera

Basilique du Sacre Coeur

Lovers' locks framing the
Concierge (where victims of
the French Revolution were
held prisoner until their
appointment with the guillotine)

Bicycle tour

Place de la Concorde:
the guillotine stood here
during the French Revolution;
now it has a random obelisk
(gift from Egypt) on which are
carved hieroglyphics and
diagrams showing how they
put the thing up

Detail of a fountain in
Place de la Concorde 

The Musee d'Orsay was once a train station;
now it is full of painting by the likes of Monet,
Renoir, Monet and other impressionists

Andrew's cousin Laure has lent us her apartment for as many nights as we want. Laure and her sister Helene take us to a delightful French restaurant one night where we all order something different and then share. Our favorites were: nettle cappuccino, a brie creme brulee, duck with chocolate sauce, duck foie gras with apricot chutney, apple tart tatine with caramel and butter ice cream...and the potatoes au gratin simply melted in our mouths.

* * * * *

Before catching the train back to Boundoufle, we picnic in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower - bread, cheese, wine and a rotisserie chicken.

Our view during the picnic

Sunset at the Eiffel Tower

A part of me wants Paris to still be in the Jazz Era - the Paris of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Picasso and Dali.  I think that I have that image of Paris in my head and it is there that I want to visit.  But I also enjoy Paris as it is - busy and sprawling, ridiculously ornate, hardly charming - often overwhelming in its total lack of city blocks and yet more beautiful because of its twisting and curving and forking streets.  I feel like it is a city filled with the held breath of expectation.  I am excited to go around each corner, wondering what I discover next.  I can't wait to explore it more - by the darkness of night and in the early morning light, when the crowd of visitors is not streaming through the streets and gardens.

PS: Did I mention that I love the Eiffel Tower?

Morges, Switzerland

We are spending three days with Felix and Madeline, friends of Andrew's mother from when she lived in Geneva during high school.  Our first stop is the site where they are building a new house.  Madeline compares the process to putting together a Lego kit.  They have designed the house and it has been shipped from Germany in pieces (blocks and slabs of concrete).  Since the pieces are cast off-site, everything (electrical, piping, ventilation, etc.) is already in the walls.  So the workers just have to connect everything together.  The "building" process takes all of three days!!!  But it will take a couple of months for the freshly poured concrete used to "glue" everything together to set and dry.

Right now, though, Felix and Madeline live in a beautiful, vintage flat in Morges right on Lake Geneva.  Boats fill the harbour and the Alps fill the horizon.  Mont Blanc shines white during the day, orange at sunrise and sunset, and glimmers faintly in the distance at night.  The wooden floors of the apartment are creaky, the ceilings high, and each floor has a terrace with a fabulous view.

Sailboats at Morges

Mont Blanc

Rainbow over the lake

View from the harbour at night

Night at Morges harbour

We go to Lausanne with Felix the second day.  While he is at a meeting, we explore an art brut museum (works by artists, often mentally-ill patients or criminals, who are outside the mainstream/accepted art world and also who are self-taught).  Many of the drawings have a child-like quality to them.  Also included in the collection are carvings, sculptures, embroidery, and sea shell shadow box scenes.  Afterwards, Felix walks us around the city, explaining its history and showing us areas of importance: the cathedral, the best street to find dance clubs, the upscale shopping areas, and a public restroom with clear walls that apparently become dark and opaque when the WC is in use.  Then, after a coffee, he takes us driving through the vineyards behind Lausanne and Morges with a brief stop at a small chocolate shop.  I have never been to a place where you could actually smell the chocolatey aromas as soon as you walk through the door.  Yum!!!

On our third day, Felix and Madeline drive us three hours to their mountain flat in the Alps.  We stop briefly in Montreux to see a small chateau on the water there.  Once again, Felix is full of information, providing us with a steady stream of historical and cultural commentary during the drive.  They own a flat in Finhaut, a village on the mountainside.  The school, Felix says, will stay open as long as there are seven students attending.  Across the valley, there is an even smaller town - four buildings and no permanent residents.  Several of the surrounding mountains are capped with glaciers.  After lunch, Felix takes Andrew to see the mountain power station reservoirs, and I go hiking with Madeline.

Andrew and I in Montreux

Finhaut from the hiking trail

My view while hiking

The view from the mountain flat

Andrew enjoys tea on the balcony

A mountain stream and wildflowers

A chalet along the hiking trail

Retrospection of the hiking path

The trip ends with a short drive into France to get a nice view of Mont Blanc.

A lenticular cloud over Mont Blanc