The weather has been gloomy since I arrived, and rainy on and off. On Monday it cleared in the afternoon as I am hoping it will today. Yesterday afternoon it rained intermittently but just lightly as I roamed around. It only rained more heavily after I was back at home.
This apartment is quite nice and as well equipped as any I have ever stayed in. There are more than ample closets and drawers. There are more condiments and spices than I could ever use. The freezer is full of stuff including what looks like a full chicken. I have not figured out if this was left by former visitors or if my host Hillaire lives here some of the time. The medicine is filled with more toiletries than I have at home. I guess i should ask him before I eat more of his food!
The layout and decor are great. These are my only complaints: The apartment is directly beside some major train tracks, coming from Gare du Nord i think, so there is the frequent rumble of trains going by. But it is a muffled rumble since we are on the 7th floor, and so tolerable. More of an issue is that we are about a ten minute walk from any of three metro stations, which is a lot more than I am used to in Paris. It would not be an issue for many people, or for me in the past. But I have had limited stamina for the last year or two, and get very tired after walking for just a few minutes so have to pace myself. Frustrating since walking ³is one of the great pleasures of being in Paris.
My modus operandi in the past has been to have a tentative destination and walk toward it, while being open to other possibilities along the way. That is pretty much what happened yesterday. I set out heading toward a museum I'd not heard of before , the Musee d'Art Naif. I thought I'd had my maps app loaded on line, which turned out not to be true. But I did at least have the map so could see where I was headed, or so I thought. But got twisted and never found the museum. Did have an interesting walk around the quarter though. I stopped at one of the few pattiseries I have found that has seating. Ordered a chocolate pistachio mousse cake and a hot chocolate before I saw that they also had baguette sandwiches, so that was my lunch. It felt good to sit down for a while.
The neighborhood is largely African, as I remembered from one of my previous visits some years ago when I worked on a volunteer project designing a small garden for a community center. That one involved mosaics too, inadvertently. When we visited the Paris mosque they were replacing the blue and white tiles on the interior pillars and I asked if we could have them for our garden.
In this neighborhood more of the restaurants are African - Tunisian, Somali, etc. than typical French. At home I prefer ethnic restaurants, but here I want more French food. There's a bistro right next door to me though, and another couple just down the street which I am sure I will try. I have already eaten at Momo downstairs. Had a delicious salad topped with generous chunks of salmon. And a citron presse, kind of a make your own lemonade with fresh squeezed lemon juice.
There's a multitude of fabric shops in the neighborhood. Most have bolts of fabric piled messily in the window. A few have more elegant displays, outfits on mannequins in the windows, fabric displayed appealingly along the wall. I guess they'd more properly called tailor shops. Some have displays of hats as well which I guess are handmade. I of course am tempted.
The
sun is breaking through. Time to get mobilized. Which museum shall I head toward today? The Pompidou? The Musee des Arts Decoratif? (My favorite). Hope my two cups of coffee give me some stamina.
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