Paris Wed-Thurs April 17-18, 2013

The Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times" has hit.  Of  course, the problems of the last few days pale in comparison to the horrors at the Boston marathon and later events there, the situation on Wednesday was most disturbing for me.

While preparing lunch Wednesday, the doorbell rang and two men announced they had come to clean the gas pipe.  Like an idiot I let them in even though I sensed this was not smart, in fact it was stupid. They proceeded to take apart the exhaust pipe from the gas heater in the kitchen and to remove a lot of soot from it, explaining how unhealthy it was for it to be there.  Then to compound my idiocy, they gave me something to sign saying they had done the work and I signed it.  Only at this point did I exhibit a modicum of intelligence and call the apartment owner.  Her first words were "don't let them in".  Too late to say the least.  Well to truncate the story and prevent my return to deep depression, they called the police when I refused to pay them.  Then with the police present, they managed to "extort" 80 euros.  It wasn't the money that hurt ( well it didn't help) but the feeling of idiocy I felt and the sense of shame at falling for such a scam.  In the future I won't open the door to anyone without a battle.  And the very nice Paris policeman carefully wrote down the phone number for the police and insisted I call them anytime I felt any sense of fear.  I hope I learned my lesson.  I still feel like a fool.  It turned into a lost day since I felt completely down and refused to go out in public.

French disaster number 2, the assault in Lyon being number 1!!

Thursday Harley insisted we go out and so we took the bus to Musee Nissim de Camondo.  This is a "hotel particulaire" or private mansion built by the Camondo family at the start of the 20 th century on rue de Monceau and backing on Parc Monceau.  This area of Paris was largely settled by very wealthy Jewish bankers including such families as the Rothchilds.  The homes are magnificent and the Camondo building also houses a large collection of art and furniture from the 18th century.  It is indeed a museum.  Every room was magnificently furnished.  One interesting note was the number of clocks, large and small, that filled so much of the wall space.  The home even contained an elevator.  

For me, since I love anything connected with food, the kitchens were most interesting and it is of these rooms that I took the most photos.

As we headed for the bus back to the apartment walking up rue des Malesherbes we heard this terrific crash and both of us turned just in time to see a large Mercedes sedan fly through the air and land with a terrific thud.  The driver had missed seeing a concrete stanchion 8 to 10 in he's high in the middle of the street.  He must have hit it at some speed and went up in the air.  When the car landed it was minus the driver's side front wheel and other assorted car parts and the engine was leaking various fluids.  Being nosy we waited around about 20 minutes. It no police or tow truck arrived so we gave up.  We did see about 10 police vans and busses go by.  They were all loaded with people.  Don't know if the people were police or people who had. Even arrested.  We just assume there was a "manifestation" or demonstration somewhere.  I count this as the third of our "interesting times"  for this trip.  That's enough.

On the way home we stopped for our usual bread and wine which we consume quickly and for the mâché salad to which we have become addicted.  But the bread consumption has to stop, especially the baguette with poppy seeds which is irresistible.  It will be difficult to lose the extra pounds when we get back to Baltimore.