As Maury and I were roaming the Champs Elysees today doing our “errands,” it is really quite astounding to us how much we feel a real part of the neighborhood. The end of this week brought several milestones --- the end of the first month of instruction in French (Stop one: the bookstore to pick up our first books in French to practice reading); having a comfort level in communicating with sales people in French (Stop 2: pods for the Nespresso machine); preparing to move on to the next class in French (Stop 3: Israeli salads for the school “pic-nik” tomorrow to celebrate the end of the month); knowing how to order food in French and actually get what you ordered (Stop 4: a delicious juice, coffee and dessert break in a lovely space just a few minutes from where we live) and now home to arrange renting a car and planning out a nice trip outside of Paris for the weekend.

We had a blast last weekend visiting Honfleur in Normandie. Its 8, 000 inhabitants are called Honfleurais. The town is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, and houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur (Honfleur school), part of the Impressionist movement. Sainte-Catherin Church in the center of the town has the largest church made out of wood in France. It’s amazing to think that the town was actually established in around 1000; more amazing still that the population has remained the SAME for many of the years following until today, and the port is still a functioning one.

So there were lots of tourists, but we didn’t feel so. We were welcomed at the Hotel L’Ecrine by John Claude, a dapper old gent waiting to welcome us in the parking lot as we pulled in. The hotel was a house, fully decorated in the French antique style, absolutely lovely with a beautiful garden to match. The dinner we had of turbot, vegetables, wine and cheese sitting watching the sun go down, was beautiful enough to make you cry. No wonder the Impressionists found Normandie to be place of such beauty.

We also attended the past week Zorro “le musical” at the Folies Bergere, which was established in established in 1869 in Paris, France, and is a music hall which was at the height of its fame and popularity from the 1890s through the 1920s. It’s still in business, with the décor unchanged. We had so much fun watching the singing and dancing going on onstage! When we stepped outside onto Rue Bergere for the intermission at around 10pm, it was still light, but with the most magnificent light on the buildings --- they looked a whole different color than when we see them during the day, attending school close by. It was the most Parisian scene, with people sitting outdoors at cafes on all corners surrounded by the same buildings that stood at the time that the Folies were established. I’ve noticed from the reading that I am doing by authors who wrote about Paris, everything is contextualized by the street of where it is happening. I literally read with a map of Paris nearby, since the street names have never changed and all still exist. The Rue Bergere is a street that has been named in countless stories of Paris.

We both agree how much less stressful it is in one’s life to have public transportation --- we hopped on the Metro and were home within 15 minutes. You do need good walking shoes and knees to go up and down lots and lots of stairs, but it is a great way to get around.

Another terrific experience is the walking tours that we are taking --- so far to the Marais, the Latin Quarter and yesterday to Notre Dame and the Saint Chapelle and Conciergerie. We certainly have come away with a deeper understanding of the meaning of “revolution” and the deep instinctual need for men to feel their individual freedom. One day a palace for the royalty and their religious cohorts; the next day, (1793-4 to be exact), the site of the revolutionary tribunal, that changed the palace to a prison and proceeded in one year to behead 2700 people of royalty and connection to royalty or religion presumed to be an enemy of the revolution. We were really surprised to hear that the guillotine was actually used in France until September 10, 1977 to execute the torture-murderer Hamida Djandoubi. It was still then considered to be the most humane way to put someone to death!

It’s only by luck that 1/3 of the churches built in France before that time still remain,

including Notre Dame with its magnificent structure and stained glass windows, which was seriously proposed to demolish and use for other building projects.

Aside from the actual walking tour, Maury is getting a real kick out of our guide, Antoine, who is a very clever and bright young guy. Amongst other things Antoine likes to order for lunch is, blood sausage (boudin noir in French) made with pig’s blood, fat and onions. Evidently, sausage making tradition in France has lasted well over 2000 years. I’m telling you, what goes on in the menus here in France puts our simple Mediterranean / kosher style diet to shame! Just to see what is coming out of the kitchen of your typical bistro or brassiere is a real experience.

Then you have your simple pubs, like the one we stopped in to see the world cup game, when the owner and single bartender is so busy making a sandwich for himself, that he forgets about the customers! So we sat in this open air restaurant, a bookcase here filled with books for the patrons to read, a pool table there, a small piano here and felt like at home, watching the game with a group of kids from a Latin country, I think. So the drinks took a few minutes, but really the bartender expected people to come and sit for hours, which they usually do with never any pressure to leave. It is a well known tradition here that the restaurant doesn’t close until the last person leaves and there is never any pressure to.

We continue to see what an extraordinary difference it makes when people live together in close quarters and politeness is a part of the culture. For us, it’s the “simple” things that happen daily that continuously define France for us --- you never walk into a store or restaurant without someone addressing you with a bonjour madame, monsieur; you never leave without a merci, au revoir. People are patient to wait in line here even if it takes a few extra minutes for an elderly person while the merchant walks around the counter to place their purchases in their cart for them; on the subway, no matter how crowded, people never push and manage not to touch each other and speak in whispers so not to disturb; the guide we meet weekly to take walking tours around the city, will sit and have a drink with us at the end and spend an extra hour, just so that he can walk us to the subway or train door to make sure we don’t get lost going home; on the subway, everybody is either reading the paper or a book (not magazines for some reason I don’t yet understand); boys and men of all ages (including the coolest looking teens you’ve ever seen ---all thin-tight jeaned-tight tee-shirted-perfectly styled hair carrying their skateboards) hold open the door for me and let me go before them.

So, so far, so good. To be continued.