Basque Cuisine

We had lunch in a Basque café (Chez Gladines, 30 rue des Cinq Diamants) that Graham's colleague had recommended and it was excellent. I had the biggest salad I've ever seen, which came in a huge silver bowl with heaps of fried potatoes, cheese (2 types), meat (3 types) and even a fried egg. Despite valiant efforts on my part I was unable to finish it although the French man sitting next to me saw his off with no trouble.

We walked back (still grève!) and discovered some modernist buildings tucked away in the 13th arr. so I'm going to try to find out more about them, especially the one on rue Paul Gervais.

More Velib adventures

So I admit I'm fast becoming obsessed by the whole Velib thing. On the way home last night, after squeezing on to a bus back to Porte d'orleans, I found out what happens when you accidentally check out a vandalised bike. It was the last one left on the rack of 33, and I couldn't see it properly from the machine, so I checked it out anyway. When I picked it up I found out the saddle had been reversed and then glued into place. Nice job guys. So I checked the bike back in and waited for more to arrive. This didn't take long, there was a steady stream of people checking in and out. But, there's some kind of time delay: after you check a bike back in you can't immediately take one out. So I had to keep trying the ticket until eventually it let me have a bike, and I could join the peloton racing up the boulevard st michel and back into town. The traffic was terrible, but there's a bus lane all the way which was pretty much empty (not many buses running) so it was a very enjoyable ride.

Pendaison de crémaillère

That's French for a housewarming party - literally hanging the chimney-hook, which is supposed to be the last thing you do when you move into a new place. Anyway, we clearly need to have one, and soon.

I made it to work, malgré the grève. First I went looking for a Velib' - someone was just taking the last one from the rack closest to our flat, so I crossed onto the isle st louis, where again I arrived fractionally too late to get the last Velib from the rack close to notre dame (that's the one I photographed). I must get an abonnement - you can just scan your abonnement card on the bike stand next to a free bike and ride away, instead of having to use the machine. Anyway, I crossed to the 5th looking around for another rack and eventually found some on the Rue st jacques. Negotiating the one-way system and roundabouts to get to porte d'orleans was a little trickier than I expected, but I got there in the end and I think I just got my bike back into a rack before the free half hour ran out.

From there, I found a bus that was running (they're on a 40% service today apparently) not exactly to the Bagneux RER, where my lab is, but to nearby, so I took that rather than waiting around and then walked the rest of the way. The bus was absolutley rammed of course, and everyone was unfolding maps and looking at plans on their mobile phones to try to work out where the bus was taking them. It took about 1 hour 15 to get to work instead of the usual 45 minutes, so not too bad. Once the buses are running properly, I might even choose to take a Velib' - it's kind of fun to ride through Paris and the main road has a cycle lane most of the way.

Now all I have to do is get home again..

Grève situation

The RATP guys have decided to extend the strike through tomorrow as well.

Meanwhile, we made a final raid on BHV to kit out our flat. Most important purchase was a clip-on spotlight to light up the cooking area, so you can see what's making that burning smell. We're currently testing it out by turning a bottle of 2€ vin du table into vin chaud aux épices.



It's also Beaujolais nouveau day, so we decided to buy a cheap bottle. Vive la grève.

On the RATP as a whole, 1 in 4 trains are running, but on the B line (which I would take to work), nul. So another day at home. Line B is also the one that goes to CDG airport. A good day to be a taxi driver.

One metro line that's functioning at 100% despite the strike is line 14. It's entirely computer operated. Unfortunately it doesn't go very near Cachan - I'd guess about a 2 hour walk from the final station at olympiades.

Thanks to the strikes I didn't make it in to work today - our part of town was really quiet all day, so I guess a lot of people took the day off rather than struggling in to work in the traffic or on foot. The St Michel RER station was closed, so you couldn't even go down to look for a train. Apparently the RER B line is notoriously militant.

It's not clear what will happen tomorrow. It seems that some disruption will certainly continue. I'll probably go down to St Michel in the morning and see if I can get a train, but I'm not holiding out much hope.

It's a very interesting point in French political history - a narrow majority of people voted for Sarkozy on the basis of his programme of reforms, so they must now presumably be against the strikers? The early retirement privileges were given to state railway drivers in 1946, when they were expected to shovel their own coal into the engine, so are they really fair now? But how do you tell a 49 year old guy who has worked for wages below the private sector all his life, in return for the pension package, that he now has to do at least 2.5 years more work (this is the deal that's being proposed) ? A lot of UK workers might say retirement at 53 isn't too bad either, but the syndicats here are concerned that if they make any concessions then it will lead to all their privileges being eroded away.

Personally speaking, though the strike is an incovenience. and though I can't imagine how France can afford to pay for such a generous retirement package for state workers given the ageing population, I think if I was a state railway driver I'd be right at the front of the picket line defending my rights..

Grève

On Wednesday the railway workers are going on strike again, to protest against the proposed withdrawal of their right to retire at age 50 on a full pension. The results of this are a little unpredictable, but basically it seems it will be impossible to get anywhere on the metro, RER or SNCF train in any kind of reasonable time. The lab has cancelled all the 'missions' starting that day and meetings have all been rescheduled since people will either be unable to get to ENS-Cachan, or unable to leave their children at the nursery (since the nursery workers can't get to work). I considered going to work by Velib', but the last bike station in the south is still about a 45 minute walk to the lab, and more critically, the Velib's will apparently all be snapped up like hot cakes on Wednesday morning. So, it seems best to work at home on Wednesday, and take advantage of the situation by booking a table for a good long dinner on Tuesday night..

In other strike news, the fishermen are apparently back at work after their fuel price strike (which Le Monde claims was really triggered by customs inspections) and the students are still on strike at proposed welfare reforms.

Oysters

.. are extremely popular in Paris. They can be very reasonably priced or extremely expensive depending on the size and the source. We had a few as a light Sunday lunch, purchased from the market at Bastille. I've heard there are two good ways to go to the market: early, when nobody's there and all the best produce is available, or late when the vendors start selling things off cheap by the plateau. So far we've only managed the latter - we'll have to try and get up earlier and give the former option a go. Anyhow, the oysters we had were all lovely, and they were the cheapest ones - good job Sam packed the oyster knife.

Sam grilling oysters. I had mine raw.

Menu à 12€

We had our best 3-course meal for €12 so far yesterday, at Café Med at 77 rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Île. Similar to the other cheap places on the island, quite small with tiny tables and closely packed customers, but a noticeably higher quality of food. I had vegetable soup, which tasted fresh, sauté of chicken with curry sauce, which was better than I expected, and an excellent tarte aux pommes. Sam had tagliatelle with salmon for main course and a chocolate fondant for dessert, both of which were also excellent.

There's only one place left in the book on the island that we haven't tried, but there are hundreds of others further afield. My colleagues at the lab have recommended some of their favourite places in the Butte-aux-Cailles area down in the 13th - one of them even includes oysters as a starter on the €12 menu! There are also a lot of places in the 11th (which borders our arrondissement) that look good..

Gordon who?

Since we moved in two weeks ago the restaurant opposite our door has been closed. We have been hoping that the owners were merely taking an off-season holiday. Unfortunately, that now seems very unlikely...

Muenchen

We've now returned from a trip to Munich for the ESCAR conference and Lebkuchen hunt, both of which were a success in the end. The highlight was a trip to the BMW factory - like something out of a sci-fi film with hardly any people and just huge orange robots throwing car bodies and chassis around like matchwood, twisting them in front of cameras for the QA guys to check over, sparks flying from the spot-welding, enourmous noise from the steel presses, oil smell in the engine shop, it was all great. The lowlight was when a group of ignorant, sub-human Bolton Wanderers supporters entered the bar where I was having a post-conference beer, abused the waitress, chanted 'German scum!' at the bemused bystanders, pushed a waiter's tray of empties on to the floor, treated him to a few minutes of shouted abuse, before mercifully leaving to be ambassadors for our great island race elsewhere. I was glad to be flying back to Paris and not back to England.

Lebkuchen

I'm writing from München where I am about to commence the second day of the Great Lebkuchen Hunt. If you've not heard of them, Lebkuchen are particularly delicious and popular (supposedly) German christmas biscuits. The best type are made by Schmidt, a Nuremberg based company who have no less than 11 shops in Munich, all open for pre-christmas biscuit buying. Despite my best efforts yesterday (I consider myself no amateur when it comes to shopping) I was unable to find even one of the shops and returned home sadly biscuitless. I am anticipating greater success today since I have found the addresses for the shops on the web!

Velib' update

Having actually read some of the Vélib' website now, I've realised it's an even better deal than I thought - for an annual fee of 29 Euros, the first half hour of every ride is free, and you can take as many half hour rides as you like every day so long as you check the bike back in. Yesterday, over morning coffee in Pick-Clops on my way to work, I read in Libération that sales of bicycles in Paris have actually gone up, 10 to 20%, since the Vélib' scheme started. "You should have been here on Saturday, it was insane!" said one bicycle shop owner the paper interviewed. Apparently people try the scheme and find it's really handy to go around Paris on a bike, but then they get up one morning and find all the Vélib's are gone from their local rack, or they're all broken or whatever, and they wish they had a bike of their own..

ENS-Cachan

I started work yesterday at the Normale Sup' in Cachan - all seems well. They have the essentials for computer science: an excellent free espresso coffee machine, a water cooler and a good bakery a 5 minute walk away. And some computers and stuff. I work in the left hand side of the building in the picture. Not sure who the architect was - he's probably keeping quiet about it.

La Langue

I'm very pleased because I've been accepted onto a French course for December. It is an intensive course for 3 weeks and I will have classes every morning from 9 until 1. It is at a small language school in the 11eme so I will be able to walk there in about 20 minutes. I'm looking forward to being able to understand a little more of what's going on.

Non à la prohibition



I'll tell you pourquoi - because I like to eat my sashimi without a nosefull of carcinogens coming from the two girls at the next table, who inevitably seem to order coffee and light up their Gauloise full strength as soon as Sam and I get our first courses. Well, ok, that applies more to restuarants than bar-tabacs, and to be fair, lots of restuarants here are non-smoking already or at least have non-smoking rooms. Interesting to see how this all works out come new year...

"Sam and Graham in France" is a bit of a lame title. Can anyone think of a better one? Suggestions to the usual email addresses please..

Galettes

Today is a holiday in France so the Marais is really busy with shoppers and promenaders. There is a small and cheapish place nearby doing good galettes where we managed to squeeze in for lunch. They are surprisingly filling, although we bought some tarts on the way home.

Montmartre

Yesterday we went for a stroll around Montmartre. We followed - more or less - a route suggested by the Blue Guide Paris which took in the sights of Montmartre as well as some lesser visited neighbourhoods nearby. Luckily it was a sunny day so we were able to take a few photos and get a decent view from the top of the Butte at Sacre Cœur.

The area around Montmartre varies from downright seedy to elegant within a few streets, but it is certainly picturesque. There was little evidence of artists in residence although I did see one girl sketching buildings on the pretty back streets.

holiday

Just found out my first day at work (on Thursday) is a holiday - result! So I start work with a one-day week...

The sun finally came out today (see sunny flat pictures on flickr), so we took a walk through the Louvre courtyard and the Tuileries, then over to the Musee D'Orsay and back through the 6th, stopping for lunch in Le Citrouille, one of the cheap restaurants on Rue Gregoire de Tour. For the 12€ menu, I took herring to start, grilled lamb chop and chips and then tarte aux pommes. Pretty good, but we both agreed probably not quite as good as the Lys D'Argent..

We're off outside now to watch the eiffel tower flickering..

Menu à 12€

On our first night here, we were hungry and tired, and staggered into a brasserie near to the bastille and ordered a two-course meal à la carte, which was great. However, the bill was about 45€ each, which we were happy to pay in the circumstances, but it a bit out of range for everyday dining. So, on Saturday, in BHV, we bought a book by Guy Le Vavasseur called Le Guide des Restaurants à Moins de 12 Euros de Paris. This contains details of 365 restaurants
in Paris where you can get entrée, plat and dessert for 12€ or less - sometimes with a 25cl of wine thrown in. That's my kind of dining. Unsurprisingly, they're a bit thin on the ground in the fashionable Marais - there's one directly opposite our front door which is currently closed - Piccolo Teatro, and another, Les Vapeurs du Marais, changed hands in May and is now a fairly average Italian called Fuxia. However, there are three in a small cluster on the Isle St Louis, which is a 5 minute walk away, so we tried one of them, Au Lys d'Argent, for lunch today. It's a tiny place with (according to the book) room for 30 diners - so small, that all the clientele wish the entire restaurant bonjour and au revoir on entering and leaving. There is a full menu at 10€50. Sam and I both had soupe de légumes, quiche lorraine, and gâteau au chocolat noir. It was all great. Add a half-bottle of côtes du Rhône, mineral water and coffee and the bill was 35€ for the two of us. I could get used to this..

We'll try the other two on the isle and see how they compare. Most of the cheap places are in the latin quarter, or down around butte aux cailles. If we try hard, maybe we can visit all 365 before my contract ends..

Velib'

The Mairie de Paris has scored a big hit with its new bike rental scheme. It costs 1 euro for half an hour, then 2 euros for every extra half hour until you reach 3 hours. Then it's 4 euros every half hour. So the incentive is to take short rides - to actually use them to get somewhere rather than hire them for the day. When you get to your destination, you just check the bike back in to another velib' station. Apparently the recent Metro strike forced a lot of people to try them, and now they're everywhere. The pictures below are from the isle st louis velib' park


Velibs with the hotel de ville in the background


The first rule of velib' club is: no riding on the pavement.

Four

Today's mission was to travel outside the Boulevard periphique (eek!) to retrieve Jenny's electric oven (le four) for use in our flat. She stored it in the cave of a rotary contact when she left Paris. We took round a small bouquet of roses to thank the guardian of the four for her trouble, and had a coffee and a nice chat with her in her very impressive duplex appartment, with two large terasses and a view of the tour eiffel.

Getting the four back on the metro involved a fair amount of effort, but we made it and it's now safely installed on the luge that inexplicably forms part of the furniture in our flat. We'll try and work out some better place to put it tomorrow.

We've just found out that one of our neighbours has a piano. Luckily the pianist is quite good. Our windows face onto the courtyard so there are plenty of opportunities to observe French life. From where I sit, I can see the lady who lives opposite folding laundry, although most people have net curtains to prevent such spying.

Since the sun has come out we're going to make another expedition to Muji.

Spent most of today searching BHV, the huge department store next to the Hotel de Ville, for cintres, which are either arches or coathangers depending on the context. We were after the latter. Eventually, after asking about 15 extremely busy shop assistants, we discovered the largest range of coathangers in the western hemisphere. Plastic, wood, metal, 3 pairs of trousers on each hanger, ones to hang other coathangers on, tie hangers, skirt hangers... naturally, we purchased the cheapest, plainest white coathangers available, and left the rest of the Saturday shopping crowd to fight it out on the escalators.

We also live very close to a Muji shop which, after much searching, was the only place we could find affordable rectangular (as opposed to square) pillow cases. This is the kind of fun thing you end up doing when you live abroad - all these people who keep emailing about strolling around museums and discovering little hidden markets don't know what kind of fun we're having!

Food report

Dinner last night: moules-frites for 7 Euros each, in a slightly odd place on the rue st antoine. It receives fresh moules every day from Bretagne, which is nice, but the cafe consists of two separate shops next to each other, and the only way to get between then is to go out through the main door, onto the street, and through the front door of the other one. Why does this matter? Because one half contains the bar, and the other half the kitchen. So, the waiter/barman in the bar area (where we were), takes your order, makes your drinks, then takes your order through to the other half of the cafe. Later on, your food is brought in the front door by another waiter (at this point we hadn't realised where the kitchen was, and wondered if he'd gone up to a take-away..). In the other part I guess the inverse operation is carried out. The cafe is extremely busy and waiters are always running in and out with trays of drink and food, and to add to the fun, the bar part contains a Tabac at the front which (on a Friday night at least) has a permanent queue, which the waiter has to push through with his large tray of moules or drinks.. excellent entertainment and very tasty moules, though they could have done with a bit more cleaning.

Lunch today: gallettes. Excellent.

Dinner: we finally cooked a meal in our little flat tonight, with produce from the local market in place beaudoyer. We accompanied it with the bottle of wine the landlady left for us, which was very decent. Cooking in the flat is fine, we have only electric cooking hobs but they seem pretty servicable, The only problem is there's not much light in the cooking area, so you have to lift your saucepan off the stove and move it into the light to see how burnt the food is getting..

Ouverture du compte

Success! Societe generale even gave us 60 Euros each for opening an account - although you have to nominate a charity to recive 30 of them. I gave mine to Handisport France.

Just returned from a first night dinner: oysters and coquilles st Jacques. Both slightly perturbed by the fact that you can still smoke indoors here. At first it was quite nice, sort of like old times, but then it quickly became clear that it's harder to enjoy your oysters when someone's puffing on a pipe at the table next to you.. anyway, the dinner was great, it's fantastic to be here, after a journey involving no less than 6 changes of transport, pursuading first the ferry check-in to allow us both about 3 times our baggage allowance, and then the St Malo ticket office to issue free replacement ticket for the ones that never arrived in Edinburgh thanks to the postal strike.

I've stuck a few phone camera pictures on my flickr page (link on the right). Photos with a proper camera to follow. The flat seems great though, and the location unbelievable. We have two guest beds - make your booking now!

Arrival

We're here. Flat looks great. Pictures will follow..

A la Recherche des mots de passes perdus

aha..

This french is going to need to improve..

Epiblog

So that's the end of my year on mainland Europe. I'm back on the island. Not much to say, except that all things considered, it was a fantastic year. I spent the last few weeks first with Jacopo in Merano, then with Jenny in Munich and Berlin. Finally, Dan came with me to Genova to hang out for a bit while I closed my bank account and took care of other matters. He also generously leant me his baggage allowance so I could get all my stuff home. There are a few pictures from that trip here.

I really enjoyed my time in Italy. It's a country which seems quite comfortable to conform to its stereotype, i.e. very beautiful and permanently in chaos. It was good to get back to Germany for a few days at the end too. I can definitively say, after hard, dedicated research in 10 European countries this year, that the Germans produce the finest beer in Europe. Or possibly the Belgians..

And that's the end of the blog. Thanks for reading, get in touch soon.

G
x

Am in a dodgy web cafe in Munich, waiting for Jenny and her friends to arrive. Had a great time in Merano with Jacopo. It's a lovely town. We went to the races, climbed a mountain and hung around the city. A few pictures.

Spent today looking round the Englischer Garten. Hard work - it's almost 375 hectares. It's also full of Biergartens. The beer is just as good as I remember it. Yesterday, I had pork liver and roast potatoes and salad at the Dürnbräu.