We arrived safely at the Centre Mennonite de Paris by about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, and were unpacked and ready to go grocery shopping by 12:30. Everything here seems like our second home by now. We know where to put everything (clothes, camera equipment, phone rechargers, suitcases) Our phones and computer automatically remember the wi-fi address and password. Since Thursday is a holiday (May 8th, the day France, as some signs here would have one believe, won World War II), I wanted to get our French SIM cards for our smart phones before stores closed for the holiday, so I took the métro about 5-6 stops and found a store I had used last year. Everything now works fine, and for 10 Euros each, we can make all the text messages and local phone calls we seem to require for the coming five weeks. When we return to Vancouver, we will remove the French SIM card and insert our Canadian card, and it will be as though nothing ever happened.
After a supper of white fish, flat beans, and mushrooms (from Monoprix) and some Edelzwicker white wine from the Alsace (€7.50 a litre--and it's great), we felt it was time for another walk, our attempt at staying awake until at least 10:00. We decided to walk along the Rue du Maréchel Leclerc, which runs east-west, parallel to the A4, a 6+ lane highway. Our road and sidewalks were on the upper bank of an old canal which nicely separates most of St Maurice from the bustle of the highway.
We paused to read just a few of the posters. The first advertised a wine festival featuring wines which go well with summer weather.
Another poster tells of a Spanish (?) ballet troupe that will be performing in St Maurice next week Friday. I might try to get tickets. She makes house cleaning seem somewhat attractive.
The local grade school publishes its weekly lunch menus. The photo is not as clear as I would have liked, possibly because I had missed a night of sleep. Thursday does not offer lunch because the school is closed for the holiday. I would guess that these students eat far better food than in many schools in North America. They even indicate which items are organic.
We enjoy observing how people park in Europe. Space is limited. People who designed so many of the roads and sidewalks never dreamed there would be such things as cars, or that people would live in buildings without adequate garages. The sign below visually shows where one to park bicycles and motorcycles.
We took a brief detour to walk up the narrow Rue Maurice Gredat, which climbed rather steeply, reminding us of streets in Seattle. Quite a few cars were partially parked on the sidewalk, only barely having two wheels on the road. This makes walking a bit troublesome but gives drivers considerably more room. I later saw a sign which specifies that this is permissible on this street.
We paused to see the local Eglise de St Maurice (Catholic). We had also hoped to visit the local cemetery, but it was closed for the evening. Judging from the sign, it is where soldiers of the Commonwealth have been buried, presumably from WW II.
Since the hill is steep, the mail is not delivered to each of the homes individually, but residents can retrieve their mail from a long row of mail boxes. The French post office is called "La Poste". Its symbol is the post horn which recalls the days when mail would be delivered by carriage and a horn would announce its arrival. These horns were tightly curved into circles for ease of carrying (and playing with one hand which the other hand held the reins). There were no values. These mail boxes are very classy, unlike the absolutely boring centralized boxes being installed throughout Canada, which soon intends to stop all home delivery (Oh, Canada!)
Some enterprising soul(s) constructed a very sturdy tree house which, perched high in the trees on a high hill, likely offers some nice views.
One nice thing about visiting Paris in May is that the hundreds of chestnut trees are in full bloom. Most are white, but these blossoms have a nice reddish purple tinge.
Other plants are in flower, but this one is new to me.
I shouldn't do it, but I just had to photograph a little portion of a graffito that interested me.
Janie invited us to join them for an osso bucco dinner this evening. The smells are superb and the evening promises much good food, conversation and laughter.
During morning tea, we were talking with Neal Blough about this and that, and somehow the conversation turned to our little fellowship and last Sunday's interesting speaker, Colin Godwin, the new President of Carey Theological College in Vancouver (Baptist). The name sounded familiar to Neal but he couldn't place it. Then I mentioned Colin's research interests and that he has started two congregations in Liege, Belgium, and it all became clear. Colin had done some of his research on Anabaptists at the library in the Centre Mennonite de Paris, the one Janice comes to help annually and started organizing in 1988-89. Small world.
Janice has started on her library work, and I already have some books needing new labels.
The weather is much like Vancouver, rainy and about 12 C. Neal just purchased an Android smart phone, so I helped him set it up for his e-mail account through Orange.Fr, the large phone company we use when getting our SIM cards.
All for now, with love from us both,
Evan
3 comments:
It's so nice to be walking the streets of St. Maurice with you again. The graffito shot would look great on a wall as a 4' x 4' print. Fabulous color!e
Fabulous slice of life. I like the school menu - not much in the way of options for vegetarians some days. No word on what wine they were serving the kids, is there? ;>)
The unnamed plant has the leaf of a hydrangea. There are wild cultivars that probably have smaller flowers - a hundred years of cross-breeding have produced scads of plants with huge flowers and no means of support, and the wild ones have nearly vanished in some parts of the world. Kind of looks like an Annabelle.
Mark put it well--I too feel almost like I'm walking with you there. I enjoy the little touches like the symbol for the mail, the parking, tree house and little two-room per floor house, etc.
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