A WALK ON THE EAST SIDE
2010
Tomorrow the taxi will pick us up at 7am, so we spend the morning packing, in order to have the rest of the day and evening free. It’s lunchtime when we finish and we decide to try the famous André Allard restaurant around the corner. On our way we see the entrance to the Lycée barricaded with garbage cans
- we’ve been hearing the striking students all morning. They seem quite peaceful now, gathered in their usual clusters, smoking and chatting. We manage to find a table at Allard’s, and order the lunch formule - plat et dessert with a half a bottle of very good Sancerre. I have duck with pan-roasted potatoes, which tastes exactly like Christmas in Denmark, and Oswaldo has a grilled fish. It’s a very old restaurant - they must never really have changed the décor since it opened in the 1930s - and the waiters are courteous and competent, dressed in formal black suits. After lunch we walk east and south in the direction of the École Normale Superieure, which spawned so many great mathematicians, taking us past the imposing Pantheon. The day is our coldest yet, but bright and sunny, very pleasant to walk in. With a couple of misses we locate the École, which has a lovely inner courtyard, where we sit for a while and imagine all the famous people who did some of their best work here. We’ve arranged to meet Davicho on Blvd. St. Germain just after 6pm, so we continue our walk behind the Jardin de Luxembourg - where the leaves have yellowed since we last saw it, and - with pit stop for a noisette and a green tea with mint - we eventually end up at that great food store, La Grande Épicerie, where we stock up on exotic teas, to somehow tuck into our already bursting bags. Davicho’s plan is to take us to an vernissage at the gallery of an old mutual friend from Buenos Aires, Lina Davidov. Although she’s seen Davicho from time to time, she does not know he’s in town today, and she hasn’t seen Oswaldo since they both lived in Buenos Aires almost 50 years ago. So it’s an emotional and happy moment, duly celebrated with champagne. Later Davicho takes us on a long Metro ride to an interesting looking area several stops beyond Bastille - the Faidherbe-Chaligny station - where we dine in l’Ebauchoir, a large busy bistro with a charming mural - and as always, eat extremely well. We’re tired when we reach our place just before midnight, The bags still have to be closed, and we have to set the alarm for 5:30am. As it turns out, however, neither of us sleeps almost at all, so at 5 we give up and have a meager breakfast of whatever is left in the kitchen, and then discover there is not hot water and thus no nice hot bath to wake us up... We freshen up as best we can and leave our Parisian home to enter the cab waiting for us on the narrow street in the dark morning. Our Parisian adventure has come to and end.
LAST DAY IN PARIS
Thursday, October 21, 2010
THREE OLD FRIENDS FROM BUENOS AIRES TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ALMOST 50 YEARS - AT LINA DAVIDOV’S GALLERY ON 210, BLVD. ST. GERMAIN.
No comments:
Post a Comment