paris-dispatches

[paris-dispatches]

GoBee or not GoBee

I’m going with NOT.

This is a frequent scene here in Paris.

A new bike sharing system has hit the streets - literally, as the stock image above illustrates. This is the obvious downside of GoBee, a dockless system that relies on riders being responsible. Unfortunately, more than enough people choose to be irresponsible. After renting the bikes, too many people leave them blocking sidewalks and in the streets. 

With Velib, the 10-year-old bike sharing system, at least riders are required to return them to docks to lock them up and end the rental period. This also makes it less convenient for riders, but being responsible sometimes comes with a measure of inconvenience. 

With GoBee, you just park and lock it wherever you like, which people do despite the company’s encouragement to park them near other bikes and out of the way. But since the company is not here - it is based in Hong Kong - it is not actively taking responsibility for making sure people do this.

On my first rental to run an errand, it took 10 minutes and three tries to find a bike that would unlock using the company’s app. Everything else worked fine on that first ride, although with just one gear going up hills was more of a challenge than on the 3-speed Velib bikes. They are lighter and easier to maneuver than the bulky Velibs, but there was some drag when I coasted so I had to pedal going downhill just to avoid slowing down when I coasted. Not sure if that is the design or if my bike had a problem.

When I rode back from my errand, I used the same bike but when I reached my final destination the app showed my trip continuing even after I parked and locked the bike (which comes equipped with one of those large caliper locks that run between the spokes of the rear wheel similar to Dutch city bikes). The timer still ran on the app on my smartphone, no matter how many times I pushed “end ride.” After 5-6 minutes trying to end the ride, I decided to delete the app from my phone in effort to stop the ride somehow.

When I got home later and checked  with GoBee, I saw the ride had officially ended about 10 minutes after I locked the bike. I guess deleting the app did what I had intended. By then, I had realized that I didn’t really want to be part of something that was cluttering the narrow sidewalks and streets of Paris. As much as I love cycling and that so many other people are embracing it, I don’t want to be part of something that creates more ill will than good will.

[paris-dispatches]

Friends

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is not an image of Paris. It’s not even an image from this century. But this photo - and everything about it - are what’s occupying my mind tonight in the City of Light. 

Friends. And family, of course. This is what we miss most about being so far away. 

I took this photo in 1996 on a trip to Yosemite with my dear friend Bruce Meeks. We were both single at the time and - unbeknownst to either of us - about to embark on enduring relationships with amazingly forgiving people we would eventually marry, respectively. 

Bruce and I stayed in one of those tent cabins in what was then called Curry Village on the valley floor. Must have been one of the last places Bruce has stayed that was less than 3 or 4-stars :). A flood had recently swept through the camp, and during the day we had to vacate the space so staff could set up blowers to help dry the flooring. Not that we were hanging out there during the day anyway.

We hiked all over the park for the two to three days we were there. We even rented bikes one day, I seem to recall. On one hike we ran into another friend from Atascadero - the younger sister of another high school friend. What are the odds, eh?

I found this photograph as we were packing stuff last winter for our move to Paris. No way could I part with it. I found it again this week as I was tidying up some papers. And now you are seeing it.

What good’s a photograph if it isn’t shared?

We’ve lived three time zones away from our families and oldest friends for almost a decade when we were in New York City. Now we’re six more time zones further around the globe. 

Sometimes it seems like we’re another planet away. 

When it feels like that, I think of Bruce. I think of our daughter in Oxford, England. My sister and her family in Atascadero and Wisconsin. Other old friends, like Vince in Oakland and his sisters and mother in the Bay Area, Jeff in Stateline, Robert in Chicago, Bob in San Carlos, Tom in Camarillo, Sheri in Harlem, Greg in Bishop, Tom in the Bronx, Bob in Santa Cruz, and others, way too many to fit here. 

And then it doesn’t feel that way any more.

I can reconnect again - as if being plugged into an energy source - with that better side of myself that can only be attributed to the relationships with people I’ve met along the way. 

Seeing Bruce in this 21-year-old photo transports me back to the company of my friends and family and reminds me who I am and aspire to be. 

The great and wise Mark Twain was right. “No man is a failure who has friends.”

[paris-dispatches]

Cobble cobble

Apparently, I am attracted to the shop front of shoe makers and shoe menders. The other day it was a set of clowns in a cobbler’s shop that caught my eye on a night time walk. Last night it was just the odd shape of the shop and cool font used in the sign - and the woman standing outside who could have been from a century or two ago.

The shop is wedged in between some older stone buildings in what would have once been a gate or just an entry to the building in the background. The shop goes back only about 4-5 meters (we’re on the metric system over here, remember) and is about the same width, perhaps even narrower. 

Just realized that is about the size of our apartment that Mary and I and the two cats occupy in Paris. That’s about 28 square meters, or about 300 square feet. Most of the time, it seems big enough for all of us.

[paris-dispatches]

No telling where you’ll find It

Paris is a great walking city, particularly at night. 

We strolled around our neighborhood last night after dinner and stumbled upon a shoe-repair shop we had never seen before. Apparently, the cobbler is a collector of clown dolls. Creepy cute?

[paris-dispatches]

Serendipity Doo Dah

Paris is a sleepy city on weekend mornings, so I like to get up early and ride my bike through mostly deserted streets. I always see something I like

This morning I rode out to Bois de Boulogne, a huge park on the west side of the city, actually just outside the proper boundary of the city. On the return trip I rolled past the Trocadero and le Tour Eiffel. Most mornings there are professional photographers taking shots of wedding couples with the tower as a backdrop. 

This morning there was a ballet dancer doing some leaps for a photographer. I had to stop and see this. 

Then I saw the Olympic rings - commemorating the recent announcement that Paris will host the 2024 Games - then I realized this dancer was quite good. I pulled my iPhone off my bike - I use it for a cycling computer, because it’s easier to read - and took a few photos.

Here I just thought I was going for a ride this morning. 

[paris-dispatches]

Lumiere Rouge

I don’t have a photograph of this street that we stumbled upon the other day, as we were concerned about our safety if we had pulled out our iPhones.

Mary and I were on our way to the cinema to see what turned out to be a truly awful movie - “Mother” - in a theatre a couple of kilometers from our home. About half way there, we decided to take a side street we had not walked along before. One of the joys of Paris is making new discoveries and seeing parts of the city we’ve not seen before.

Well, we had certainly never seen this here before. It was a one-block strip of houses of ill repute, a red-light district, a... you get the point. It took us just a few steps to realize what we had stumbled into, but it was more Fellini than Larry Flynt. Our momentum had carried us too far to turn back now.

Women in their 50s and 60s perched against stoops and doorways of buildings, dressed in sheer blouses and mini-skirts - the dress code was oddly almost uniform, as if they had coordinated it together. They were chatting and laughing with each other but with alert eyes, not the casual way of someone meeting a friend on the street by chance. These women were clearly waiting. 

We were not, however, and kept moving swiftly - we were on our way to a movie, remember. Little did we know that this would be the most interesting scene we would encounter that afternoon. The movie was far less entertaining than that one short block. 

[paris-dispatches]

Modern Art?

I was walking by the Pompidou Center the other day - I still get a kick out of saying something casual like that about living in Paris - and I spied this surreal image (or is it post-modern?). Standing near one of the most famous modern art museums were two street characters deep in conversation. Living canvasses facing off.

One dude in full camouflage gear and hoodie with a walking stick and the other in a colorful jersey, stalking cap and red clown nose. 

What were they talking about? I bet it wasn’t the weather. I’m going with something about philosophy or art. This is France, remember. 

[paris-dispatches]

First tour in person

I first watching the Tour de France on television in America in the mid-1980s, when American great Greg Lemond shocked the world by becoming the first American to make the podium and then win three of his own tours (one after being shot in a hunting accident - no, it was not Dick Cheney who shot him). Today I was able to witness my first Tour in person, on the final stage in Paris. We arrived just an hour before the riders did, which was fine. We found a decent vantage point from the Jardin de Tuileries overlooking the Place de la Concorde, where the route turns onto the Champs Elysees.

The woman in front of us - who had arrived a few hours ahead of us - kept standing up when the riders came by (each of the eight times). So, this is the best shot I could salvage. You can see the yellow jersey toward the front.

What an amazing experience, seeing this for the first time. You’ll notice that even in the photo at a significant distance that the riders are blurred from going so fast. We also met another American couple who just moved here from San Francisco. We exchanged emails and will likely meet up with them soon.

I took a few shots on my own ride this morning in the countryside south and west of Paris. 

I was unable to find a group slow enough for me to keep up, so I formed my own on Meetup. More than 75 people have joined the group and typically 4-6 people join for a ride, which is a good number. Today’s ride included two regulars - Frenchman Olivier and Gabriel, an architect from Mexico - and newcomer Sam from Ireland.

On the way back, Olivier suggested a slight detour to snap a group photo in front of the palace of Versailles. Nice detour, eh?

[paris-dispatches]

Adventures in the French health care system

Note the term adventures. Very deliberately not misadventures.

This is how healthcare is in much of the industrialized world outside of the U.S. Not every modern nation may provide home visits by doctors - and not even in all of France is it available. The rural areas are still not covered with what is called SOS Medecins here.

Here’s how it went down for me when I hurt my back early Sunday morning. I hurt my back the first time as a 16-year-old, playing basketball one weekend day on the blacktop at Santa Rosa Road Elementary School in Atascadero, California. I slipped a disk in my lower back and was also diagnosed with scoliosis. My “athletic career” was nearly over before my senior year in high school.

Over the years I have re-injured my back many times. Last summer, I did so three times in single month, when I was traveling back and forth from New York to California to help care for my dying father. Typically, these occurrences also happened on the weekend. As it is typically difficult to get steroids prescribed at these urgent care clinics, I would usually have to wait until I could get my neurologist in NYC on the phone, so it was common to wait 36 hours after the injury before I could get any meds and begin my recovery.

Here’s how it went down differently in Paris. To cut to the chase, I was able to achieve the smile on my face in the photo below taken just 30 hours after the injury. And I can’t attribute this smile to the effects of the pain meds either, as I was already off of them by the time this photo was taken.

That’s because about an hour after I hurt my back - which happened just leaning over the sink (it’s always something that simple) - I was on the phone to SOS Medicins and within 30 minutes I was getting an injection of prednisol and something for the pain from a doctor who came to our apartment. An hour after that I was already on the mend and had the prescription pills in hand (thanks to Mary picking them up at 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday at a 24-hour pharmacy a couple blocks away). 

In the time it usually takes to even get the medicine in NYC - which I though was fairly quick at the time - I was already out enjoying our daughter Rachel’s birthday and riding on a Ferris wheel, no less. Another day later and I am almost entirely pain free. In previous injuries - and this one was worse than the ones last summer - it took nearly a week to get to where I am now just 60 hours afterward. 

Oh, and the cost? €95 euros. My insurance will probably reimburse 80+% of that, too. Once we’re on the French medical plan within the next month or so, we’ll be able to drastically reduce our insurance coverage, which now costs the two of us €900 a month (barely half of what we paid in NYC). Soon we should be cutting our monthly insurance bill by more than half.

So, yes, an adventure it was, in the best sense of the term.

[paris-dispatches]

A little bit of Kansas in Paris

It’s amazing how much a whiff of something, a fleeting mental image, or even a single word can send me. As in, “Darling, you-ou-ou-ou send me.”

Perhaps even more amazing is the realization that we ourselves are the source of this launching. A word or a smell is, after all, just that. 

We bring the meaning, beyond the dictionary definition. We assign our own value.

I was sent - or sent myself, to be accurate - on a little mind trip this morning while walking in the Montparnasse district near the Luxembourg Gardens. An Irish fellow walking past me said something about a single word: gingerbread.

A simple enough word, right? Maybe you’re reacting to the word yourself somehow right now. Whatever thoughts you have likely have little in common with the ones I had.

The wave of thinking began with noticing a little saliva flowing in my mouth. Mmm-mmm, gingerbread.

Then it moved to a lump in my throat. The mental images then began pounding my own private beachhead.

First, of my mother showing a six-year-old me how to make gingerbread men for the first time. Fast forward to coming home for Christmas during college to make them myself, under her watchful eye, of course. Even faster forward to visions of my mother showing my niece, Sonia, and later our daughter, Rachel, how to make gingerbread men.

Mom undoubtedly first learned her baking skills growing up on the farm in Kansas, where she was the youngest of four sisters and also had four brothers. Mom was 12 when she lost her own mother, who died a painful death months after a tragic car accident. She took command of caring of her mother in her last months. I have a vision of the grandmother I never met passing along as many lessons as possible, before it was too late, to her youngest girl.

I was lucky enough to make it to middle age before my mother passed away from liver cancer in 2005. I know mom took many lessons with her after her mother’s death. I take many more from my mother than just how to make gingerbread men, of course.

Today, however, this is the one on my mind.

[paris-dispatches]

Art is all around in Paris

In Paris, it’s not possible to walk outside to take out the trash without having an encounter with art.

This is just a few blocks away, but is representative of most blocks in Paris. A mosaic on the right and a Mona Lisa inspired image on the left. No idea who puts these up, but there they are. 

This is sort of living art, an advertisement a few folks seem to be auditioning for, a little late, mind you.

Today there was a photo exhibit one block away on the wall around Square du Temple, images taken in the 1950s by a Le Monde photographer.

And the of course there is the city itself, Paris as a canvas. This is taken from Square Louise Michel, the hillside park in front of Sacre Coeur. 

[paris-dispatches]

Panoramania

My favorite feature of the iPhone 6s camera has got to be the panorama feature. No matter how wavey my panning is, the quality of the images seem to be consistently good.

This is taken from Ile de la Cité looking north at Hotel de Ville, the main city hall of Paris. The grandeur of the building is lost here, of course, but there’s plenty to see here anyway. 

[paris-dispatches]

Evans’ Walkers

Mary and I went to see an exhibit of photos by the great American documentary photographer Walker Evans at the Pompidou Center. I was amazed at how many of his images were so simple yet profound. I was particularly struck by some of his street portraits. He would just set up his camera and tripod on a sidewalk and fire away as people walked by:

He also took many photos of shops and billboards. His father was in advertising and Evans was a prolific hoarder of signs selling Coke and all kinds of stuff. Here is one of his ad shots:

I couldn’t help but be inspired by seeing such work, so walking out of the Pompidou - or rather, riding down the famous escalators - I tried to replicate his style by capturing both passersby and advertising in the same image. 

...and...

[paris-dispatches]

Last day in May

My iPhone camera reveals another lovely day here in Paris. This is taken in the Place de la République, where most protests and demonstrations begin or end or both here in Paris. 

In between public outcries and the occasional political rally and concert, it is just a huge public square where people hang out, skateboard, stroll and generally just be Parisian. There’s even a cafe in the square on the other side of the big bronze statue of Marianne, the personification of the republic. She is surrounded by three statues personifying liberty, equality and fraternity, the values of the French Republic. 

One could say the folks in this photograph are exercising those values right here in the heart of Paris.

[paris-dispatches]

Search goes on...

I did my first bike ride with a group since our arrival in Paris nearly 10 weeks ago. I lasted 45 minutes before I was dropped.... I was hanging with them fine until we hit some hills, and then the law of gravity started working and the other riders - most of them 50 lbs lighter and 10-20 years younger, granted - began to pull away. After fifteen minutes of riding solo, there was still no site of them waiting for me so I turned back. So, I’m still in search of a group that either goes a little slower or has the courtesy to regroup after people drop off the back. 

OK, that was the bad news.

The good news is I had some nice views coming home:

This is about 10 miles southwest of Paris. If the path went all the way to the city, that would have been fantastic - and too much to expect.

I did find the road below closer in to the city, thanks to Google Maps. It is along a light rail line and is laid out in such an interesting way. US transit planners could learn a few things from the ones here in France.

It looks like they took a four-lane boulevard and made it accessible to every mode of transportation: pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles and a train. And I can tell you it works. 

[paris-dispatches]

Eyes open

Even when you see things with your own eyes, sometimes things are difficult to comprehend. While waiting for Mary earlier today on the street outside our apartment, I was checking my phone when I realized I should be checking out the street that I’m usually passing without looking at all that closely.

Here is what I happened upon...

...perched on a small ledge a few feet off the curb. I don’t know what the connection is between Mr. Carson from Downtown Abbey and the Ramones, but here they are together. I suppose it’s not unusual to be a fan of both of the actor and the band, but in Paris? London or New York I could see, but I did not realize Downtown Abbey might have much of a following in Paris. 

Ah, the things you see if you only look.

[paris-dispatches]

Leaning

Some of the buildings in our neighborhood date from the mid- to late-1500s. Witness this one below on the right side that the bike is leaning against. The first floor leans out about a foot from the ground to the first floor (second story in US terminology). 

I don’t know the history of this building, but it is not in danger of falling any time soon. Neither is the EU, after Sunday’s election in France.