As I dug a little deeper, it turns out the Bruno Lassato (born 25 November 1932 and died on 30 September 2009), the previous resident of this apartment, was a famous French computer scientist specializing in organizations and a teacher. According to Wikipedia he was a lover of art and classical music and devoted his life to form his students through artistic encounters, and had a particular fondness for exceptional “characters” such as notable military, big bosses, nobility and heirs. He wrote prolifically on his passions of illuminations, classical music, calligraphy and photographic montage.

Maury and I literally fell into this place just as it was put on the market for rental. So we are the first recipients of this newly painted, cleaned up space. But not quite … Bruno is still here and there! What was left was a huge bound guest book signed by all of the people who came to exchange wits with him; a box of his famous collection of calligraphy pens; many of his art books and art collection. This was a typical literary salon here in Paris! How lucky we are to be in such an inspirational space, especially his office that Maury has made his own.

We’ve started our French classes in another uniquely Parisian space. The Atelier (Salon) 9 is located in the 9^th eme, is in a converted apartment with four rooms serving as a classroom and one larger meeting space. There are six others in the class from America, Italy and Australia. Four hours a day is intense, but gratifying at the end of the day to see how much we’ve learned. It’s amazing how much French we can understand after just a few days of class. Today I composed for the class a personal essay about myself. The teacher was stumped for a few minutes on how to say environmental educator in French, and everyone in the class immediately hid their plastic bottles from me, but it was a good moment of fun. Downstairs from the school is a really exotic looking Thai massage “palace” with these two sweet little Pekinese dogs named Pinot and Hugo lounging around.

The particular district where the school is located with a really interesting combination of live theaters (kind of like Soho), a plethora of synagogues (9 on my map), Jewish shops and a lot of Asian influence. Lots of kosher sushi on the menus posted outside! It seems that every meal we have is prepared with the absolute freshest ingredients. Then you walk down any block and it feels like every other store is either a bread shop, pastry shop, chocolate shop or cheese shop --- even if not to buy, incredibly beautiful just to look at. The only place I’m not so excited about is the meat shops, with these huge sides of beef hung up on the ceilings by the hoof of the animal --- what a bizarre twist for me as a lover of outdoor trails and tracking. On the trail, it’s great fun to try to identify the animal hoof or paw print you see on the trail. Here at the butcher shop or in restaurants its full leg is staring at you right in the face with the fur still attached!

We’ve enjoyed spending time in the Latin District in the evenings. The bistros there are small, intimate and each decorated with a unique décor of old posters, paintings, flyers, etc. How wild it is to be sitting at one of the small tables, listening to French swirling around us, always in view of a small bar, not much bigger than what we see in most people’s homes in Agoura. The soup, the fish and the salads that come out of these tiny kitchens is just amazing. The other evening I had a gazpacho served with a scoop of tomato basil sorbet that was absolutely out of this world. Another bistro that bills itself as the “last” Cabaret in Paris, had this lovely classical singer singing selections of Les Miserable and Porky and Bess. Then we walked down a steep set of stairs of another restaurant close by that used to be an actual stone dungeon complete with instruments of torture, a guillotine and underground passages, with musicians playing pop rock music. Tonight we are going to enjoy a classical concert in one of the many magnificent churches in the city called Eglise de la Madeleine. The last one we went to the acoustics were unbelievable. There’s such beautiful music in the background everywhere you go here. What a lovely way to be distracted!

To be continued.