Magical tour to Mont St Michel

This was like a holiday within a holiday, in some ways. Not that I'm tired of Paris, not at all! But it felt like an escape, an extra little fling inside this amazing vacation of mine.

It was a chapter of happy accidents. I had checked the train timetable, and the buses between Rennes and MsM and thought they both ran frequently, thus had thought I would just go when I felt like it and get there when I got there. As it happened, I awoke early, so I decided to catch the 9:15 train from Paris to Rennes. The first happy accident was that, in fact, there are only three "real" buses between MsM and Rennes, one in the morning, and two in the afternoon, and if I had caught a later train I would have missed the bus I caught, which connected with that train. Then I would have been stuck in Rennes until the mid afternoon.

( The story continues, with requisite picspam )

A Journey Around my Father

*And yes I know the title is not original

It's no secret that I didn't like my father very much. His death, in 1986, was, to be honest, something of a relief to me and I think secretly to my mother as well. I spent my childhood avoiding his terrible temper and his "moods" and have spent my adulthood recovering from the insecurity and self-esteem issues caused by his inimitable blend of abuse and over-protectiveness. And yet.

And yet.

He was my father, and in some ways I loved him. Everything I did for years was an effort to please him and make him proud.

This trip has been for me in part a way to lay some ghosts, to put aside enmities, and to come to terms with the part of me that is my father. To explore the part of the world that my family came from, and places my father has been. To revisit a scene from my childhood for which my only memories are happy (that day, anyway - the rest of the holiday was a blend of excitement and nightmare as so many times with my father were). For me this trip is some means to lay my father to rest, just as I did for my mother in my trip to England last year.

I have a photograph of me at age 4 standing against a backdrop of Mont St Michel, taken on the drive down to a farmhouse in Brittany that my parents had rented with my aunt and uncle. It represents so many things. That long ago holiday, four out of seven of the participants of which are now dead. The fact that my father was a great and adventurous driver - we had our car with us on this trip, and this drive was only one of hundreds of memorable "road trips" that we took as a family. I think I get my wanderlust and adventurous spirit from him, though it's ironic that he'd be turning in his grave at the thought of me, alone in Paris, even now, when I'm older than he was when that picture was taken and have had in many ways more life experience than he.

A little while ago, sleeping in my Paris apartment, I dreamed that I had an argument with my father. I wanted to spend all my coins because I knew that coins couldn't be changed back to Canadian money. He insisted that I was wrong, and looked at me with that classic patronizing, pitying expression that he did so well. I argued that I knew I was right, and in any case I had just been on a trip, more recently than he, so I knew what I was talking about. He just looked at me pityingly, and I woke up feeling frustrated and angry as I did so often when my father was alive.

And yet. Here in France, I have seen where my father got his dark skin and whipcord thinness. I've seen his eyes, and my own, looking back at me - bright blue and slightly pouchy, rimmed with dark lashes - on the streets and in the Metro.

My father came to Paris just after the War (WWII for those who need to make that distinction). It was somewhere he had been and neither my mother nor I had, somewhere exotic and romantic and wonderful. My uncle David, in whose shadow my father and uncle (my father's twin brother) grew up, came here in the 1930's and it's my bet that there was something of walking in Uncle David's footsteps for my father, just as there is something of walking in my father's footsteps for me now. But I'm not stepping in them; I'm making my own journey and my own memories and my own peace with my childhood and the shadow of my father.

So that's why I came to Paris, and why I went to Mont St Michel.

A Stage Set for Buffy

Kisses for Oscar Wilde
Originally uploaded by Debbie G.

So on Thursday afternoon, on my return from Mont St Michel, the sun was for once shining in Paris, so I took myself off to La Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, burial place of the famous, the infamous and the just plain ordinary.

I procured a map from a jolly stall holder by the gates. It was a good thing I did, because I think I would have become hopelessly lost and not seen the graves that I wanted to. It is a beautiful spot, criss-crossed with tree lined avenues, quiet and relatively peaceful (apart from the tourists tromping through). It did strike me several times as being a perfect setting for the opening scene of any Buffy episode - I half expected Spike to pop out from behind one of the monuments (too bad he didn't lol). My map came in handy, too, for others, as I was frequently stopped and asked for directions in several different languages: "Je cherche Edith Piaf" was a middle-aged French woman. Nous trouvons Edith Piaf - the woman and her husband went and got themselves a map and we ended up at Piaf's grave at the same time.

I, in the meantime, wended my way past Proust to the monument to Oscar Wilde (thinking of you, superfoo! As you see from the picture, it was covered with graffiti!! Thence to Gertrude Stein, but though I looked I couldn't find Alice B, who was supposed to be next to her. Then Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhart, Chopin and finally Eloise and Abelard, whose monument was covered in scaffolding and being restored. Oh, and Simone Signoret and Yves Montand were in there somewhere. And no, I didn't bother with Jim Morrison - there were plenty of young Americans going in his direction so I didn't think he needed my respects as well.

Beating the Heat, and even the Lonely Planet Gets it Wrong Sometimes

Friday was another sunny day, but very humid, so rather warm. I was tired and feeling slightly "coldy" when I woke up, so I thought I'd have a fairly quietish day. I decided to take myself off to the Canal St Martin area, which the Lonely Planet mini-guide that my friend Jen lent me describes as having "shady tree-lined paths" where you can "stroll" along the canal and which is supposedly filled with trendy boutiques and cafes. Oh and they also said that it was particularly fun at night.

Well. First of all, they list three metro stops to access the area, roughly in a line from south to north. So I thought I would go to the southernmost one and work my way up, particularly as they showed a shopping area and a cafe of interest at the half-way point. I discovered, 4k of walking later, that the only even vaguely interesting part was around the northernmost stop and actually seemed to stretch north from that, not really even the St Martin part of the canals at all. Not only that, but the area around the southernmost stop was sketchy to the extreme. The pathway isn't accessible all the way up - you have to keep either crossing back and forth over the canal or going over onto streetways, mostly to avoid the block long "tent cities" set up on clear patches. This was the first time I have felt even slightly nervous in Paris, but I did feel quite uncomfortable despite a fairly heavy police presence up and down. Walking through that neighbourhood at night would be foolhardy.

And maybe it's gone severely downhill since that guidebook was written, but if you're looking for Paris' version of the Camden Lock, you'll be seriously disappointed. There was one trendy store - a bigger Antoine et Lili than the one in Montmartre - and one cafe on the way up that looked quite nice. At the top, there were two American style cafes that serviced a big cinema complex and were obviously popular with teenagers, but effectively that was it, unless I was looking in quite the wrong place. Oh well! I had a good walk, and saw the canals and something of how reality bites Paris as well. And I bought a little present for someone at the Antoine et Lili, so that was good.

As I wasn't going to linger there, I took the metro from the northernmost stop (Leningrad) down to the Sorbonne district and from there over to the Luxembourg gardens, which were big, formal, and crowded with people eating icecream and sitting in the shade. The best part was that there was an exhibit of contemporary art celebrating "women" on at the Orangery there, which was free, so I went a checked it out, and in its honor there were artistic installations throughout the gardens. All the statues of women had some kind of decoration - I was particularly taken with one that had a huge spiderweb attached from it to two nearby trees. Another was buried up to her neck in leaves. Another was wearing a huge cape decorated with tarot cards.

So, after hanging out in the gardens, looking at some nifty artwork and generally trying and failing to keep cool, I headed homeward to my blessedly cool apartment. Later in the evening a huge thunderstorm erupted, with an accompanying downpour of rain.

This morning bids fair again, but I think I shall have (again) a fairly quiet day. My only plan is to hit Place Vendome and the Place Madeleine for some shopping. Much is likely to be closed tomorrow - which will be my last day :( - so any last minute shopping needs to be done today. I still haven't bought my quintessential Paris shoes, so I'm on a quest today.