Goodbye, Paris!

When we began discussing our journey, Shawn and I agreed that we didn’t want to rush around to see all the sights.  Our thought was to linger in each place, enjoying the food and the wine and the people.  We’ve done that well, and also, we’ve been able to see some of the noted places in Paris.

Today is our last day. After a good night’s sleep, we head out to find beignets and croissants.  Our daughter in law, Nereyda, has fallen in love with the beignets from Disneyland and made me promise to send her a picture of us eating one in France.  Unfortunately, we aren’t out early enough so the beignets at any given bakery are gone for the day.  We do, however, enjoy very light and flaky, delicious croissants.  We walk for an hour before we decide to summon an Uber.  After 30,000 steps yesterday, my feet are beginning to hurt earlier than usual.

Our destination is in a downtown area where we will hop on a tour bus that will take us an hour and 15 minutes outside of Paris to the region of Normandy. Today we are visiting Le Jardin de Monet.  The bus takes us through the rolling hills of Paris, peppered with corn fields.  The old, beautiful homes and buildings are mixed with the new, fresh and colorful. Our tour guide tells us that a 14^th century church that we are passing by was purchased and renovated into a private residence.  The gardens surrounding it are beautiful and I try to envision what it must be like inside this magnificent building.  I would love to see how they transformed it from place of worship to a warm, inviting home.

When we arrive to Monet’s Gardens, I am delighted to hear we will also be able to tour his home.  We walk 10 minutes from the parking area to the grounds.  We first explore his home.  The sun is bright today and it’s very warm.  There are fans blowing in several of the rooms which gives some relief, as there was of course, no air conditioning in the days of Monet.  It is two-story, with rooms smaller than one might expect, but in line with that period of time.  Each is decorated with different colors and inviting furniture.  In my mind, I hear his daughters telling him excitedly what colors they’d like their rooms to be when they are first moving into this home.  We see rooms with pink, yellow, blue and lavender, each with its own personality.  There are lovely views from every window of the lush gardens which are currently in full bloom.

Downstairs, I notice a large table with low seated chairs for 10 people, 2 at each end of the table and 4 along each side.  The whole room is painted a bright, sunny yellow, including the table and chairs, the two dining room hutches, and the walls.  I couldn’t help but smile at the loveliness of all this yellow!  The flooring is squares of brown and beige, and the décor is filled with many ceramic pieces of blue and white, including the framing around the fireplace.

Adjacent to the dining area, there is a lovely, airy kitchen with a large, country style sink, a wall with copper pots and pans hanging all the way across, a modest table and chair set in the middle of the room, and a large stove top and oven.  All the way around it is decorated with blue and white tiles, and the furniture in the room is painted blue and white. 

When we step out into the gardens, I first notice two massive, contained areas of red and pink geraniums.  I feel warm inside as I remember my grandmother’s geraniums.  I now grow them at our home in Southern California. Throughout the garden, the colors are vibrant and varied, with all hues of pink, purple, yellow, orange, red, blue and green.  There is a shady bridge covered with wisteria and there are still a few blossoms there to welcome us.  There are lily ponds and brooks flowing around the gardens.  We note two little wooden boats, likely painted in more than one of Monet’s pictures.  We round one corner to find a little, shady nook with a fence between the gardens and a neighboring chicken coop.  Six beautiful hens come out to greet us.  They have a lovely yard to roam and a huge, old fig tree is there to give the yard relief from the bright sun.

After our visit, the bus takes us back to Paris.  We are relaxed and I feel fulfilled.  The gardens were heavenly, truly dreamy.  I have so many ideas about how to expand my own little garden areas at home.   Certainly, such art takes so many years to culminate to such beauty.

We have dinner at a little Italian restaurant and share dishes of four cheese linguini and pizza with artichokes, arugula, tomatoes, black olives and ham.  We decide to Uber back to our hotel as the walk would be one hour forty minutes. Tonight we pack up as tomorrow we take a train to Barcelona.

For the first time since I have been using the service of Uber, our driver is a woman.  Interesting, right, that I have only experienced men Uber (and Lyft) drivers? Her name is Farah; she tells us in her thick, French accent, like Farrah Fawcett! Her parents are from Algeria but she was born and raised here in Paris.  She is lively and animated and may I add, a very aggressive driver! 

We get back to our hotel for the last time, pack and get ready for bed.  I reflect over this week and how grateful I feel for this experience with Shawn.  There are some things I want to remember; some details that made the travel pleasurable and gave me flexibility.

1.  I love that we budgeted ahead of time for clothes appropriate for European travel.  Honestly, after being here, anything goes, but I do enjoy clothing and had fun shopping with my sister before the trip for light and airy, feminine summer clothes.  I read up on ideas and guidance for how to dress in Europe.  They directed the reader toward “business casual” and stated that athletic wear was considered underdressed by most locals.  I delighted in how many people, both locals and visitors, enjoyed dressing up.  I’m sure, also, that those people who prefer a more casual way are also equally comfortable.
2. I brought an old-fashioned handheld fan. Many places don’t have air conditioning and this time of year, even planes and trains can get uncomfortably warm. I’ve used mine several times already.
3. If I were to pack today, I would make sure all my clothes were loose fitting…we have been eating delicious food.  We share meals and eat small but frequent.  There are no scales available…so loose clothes are desirable!
4. Eat and enjoy.  It’s part of the experience.  This is the time to linger over long afternoon lunches and take in the people and sights.  We’ve done this well.
5. I brought two black and and two cream colored, large, light summery scarves to cover my shoulders in case of visiting churches and also for warmth.  I rolled one up and carried it in my bag every day.  Only one of the days did it cool off enough, due to the rain, for a very light windbreaker.
6. I found amazing sandals and bought them in black, tan and white.  I can walk all day in these shoes, even with the challenges I’ve had with leftovers of sciatica in my right leg and plantar fasciitis in my left foot.  The brand is Viakix and I found them on Amazon.  Love them. I did bring one pair of Sketchers but would have preferred my Nike Airs for walking in the rain.  I wore out my Nikes before the trip and have get a replacement.
7. Rest.  One of our goals in not rushing around to see everything is that we wanted to avoid the stress and fatigue that comes with that.  We slept later than we do at home every morning.  I’m sure that because of the nine-hour time difference, and also our given ages, it may have been our way to adjust to the time change.  We gave up morning exercise for the extra rest.  It turns out, we walked thousands and thousands of steps this week instead.  This was a very good decision for us.  There is not time for everything.

A story I must share…

On the day of our arrival, there were single packs of coffee and an electric pot for hot water in our room.  After the first day, the coffee was never restocked so we learned to ask for the packets each night at the front desk when we came in for the evening.  One such evening, the gentleman at the front desk was enjoying an Olympic game on TV.  When I asked for some coffee packets, instead of walking over to the bar area as on previous evenings, he told me to go over to the bar to get it. 

I had walked to the bar before coming to the front desk and knew that nobody was over there.  I smiled to myself, thinking how different things are here as walked behind the counter at the bar, hoping the packets would quickly make themselves visible…but they did not.  I found myself opening every cupboard door, as well as the doors of the three refrigerators under the counter.  I was a bit uncomfortable, but felt I was following instructions.  After several minutes, a gentleman appeared and asked if he could help me.  (Thankfully, he didn’t ask me to pour him a drink!)  I then realized that he had been seated in the adjacent lounge, also watching the Olympics on TV.  I was so embarrassed and tried to explain that I had been directed to come to the bar to get my coffee.  It was then that I realized that the front desk manager did not realize the bartender was not visible to me.  I was fortunate that tonight’s bartender found the humor in my mistake!  The next night, when we arrived to the same bar in hopes of enjoying a glass of wine, I promised him to stay out of his kitchen.  He laughed.

Thankfully, many of the people who helped us spoke English, but usually it was not their first language and was often limited.  We quickly learned that misinterpretations and misunderstandings are frequent, and that information and directions are not completely reliable.  For us, allowing extra time for anything where time is important (tours, trains, etc.) helps to avoid any stress and therefore makes us more relaxed in our dispositions.  Being relaxed and keeping a genuine smile on our faces has invited those who are helping us to continue offering their help.  Also, it’s humbling to make mistakes so being able to laugh at ourselves, even when other people can see that we didn’t know what to do or how to maneuver in a given situation, is very important and can keep the mood light. 

When the moments present themselves, we try to get to know people. We ask people their names, where they are from and how long they have lived here. It seems that opening up conversation and being truly interested in others has invited storytelling and meaningful connections. This has added a great amount of joy to our experience.

And so, farewell to Paris for now.  People from all over the world have come together this week, many to enjoy the Olympics.  We are fortunate that so many have learned English and were so patient with us.  We leave here with a new understanding and appreciation for world history that we have previously experienced via textbooks and occasional documentaries.  The art, the food and drink, the fashion, the transportation and the French culture have been such a delightful experience. Thank you, Paris, for showing us all your wonder and for all the people you introduced us to this first week of our travel.  It has been lovely, even beyond lovely.