Looking out our window, one could almost think we’re near the Mediterranean – white-washed buildings, red tile rooftops, and bright sun – instead of in Paris in March.
Yes, Paris is going through a remarkable period of weather. If I didn’t know better and didn’t look at the temperature, I’d think I was waking up at the beach each day. We’ve had a run of absolutely luminous, clear skies without a hint of the famous “Paris Gray” usual at this time of year. Temps have been all over the place, and too chilly to be fooled about being in Southern France but the days when we’ve gone into the high 50s and low 60s have been a treat.
Here we are fourteen days into the French lockdown and I’ve detected a change in demeanor, mine and everyone else’s. We seem to have gotten through the novelty phase of this and now we’re now bracing for what comes next, including lockdown extensions. When the authorities said “15 days” at the outset, we knew they were just breaking it to us gently and that extensions would come, of course. And they did, we’re locked down until April 15th now. I’ve grown weary of the unending bad news, though, especially from the U.S. where really evil people at the top are making things unimaginably worse. Well, buckle up, friends, we must persevere.
I’m happy to report that all my technology tools are working well and doing a great job. Those would be my iPhone, my iPad, and my Microsoft Surface laptop. All of the online services that support my retired, nomadic lifestyle are also still delivering beautifully. I’m also staying well-entertained and am sure the homicide rate would skyrocket if not for Netflix, PBS, and similar streaming services.
I belong to a Facebook group for retired, nomadic folks like myself and have recently heard from quite few others who are stranded in Europe for the duration. Many, like me, are in their first year of the lifestyle, and we share a dark humor about our luck, current circumstances, and imperiled future plans.
FaceTime and Skype have been wonderful, allowing me to periodically talk to and see some far-flung family members and friends. Much better for the psyche than just emails and texts. If you haven’t done it, try it out.
I’ve fallen behind a bit on my Paris Lockdown Lunch reporting, but rest assured that we have continued to dine in style. Last Saturday we treated ourselves to take-away pizza, and yesterday we had the nice fluffy omelettes shown above (stuffed with Beef Stroganoff) with bread and a bottle of Brouilly. Today we had steamed artichokes with garlic mayo and butter (fantastic!), with a full-bodied Spanish Tempranillo red wine.
Now that so many of us are in mandated isolation, I wonder how you’re keeping in touch with family and friends. Email and texts, of course, keep the basic contacts going, but there’s nothing quite like hearing and seeing someone to give me a lift.
I use FaceTime on my iPad for video meetings with friends and family back in the U.S. who also have Apple products, and I use Skype on my Windows 10 laptop for those in the Microsoft camp. Both work very well, although it’s slightly more complicated to get things going with Skype. The 5-8 hour time difference is a nuisance, however.
There are lots of tips available online for getting the best video meeting results. Among them, I especially like the one that suggests you ensure that your camera angle is level or only slightly upward – this keeps you from looking like a hippo and avoids giving your friends a tour of your nasal passages. Checking the background behind you is also recommended, so that your head isn’t framed within some distracting colors or images.
I’m temporarily marooned here in Paris, as you know, but the embassy keeps sending me notices that all Americans should get out of Dodge right now, or be prepared to stay indefinitely. I’m prepared to stay, especially given the chaos, misinformation, and bad leadership I see happening in the U.S., but I do worry about my visa limits. I hope those limits will be extended or suspended during these strange days.
Cashier in her bio-containment area
I mentioned earlier that some grocery stores here in Paris have taken to swathing their cashiers in plastic as a health precaution. In the image above, you can see an example wherein there’s a small opening at the end of the belt for you to put your items on the belt, and at the far end there’s another opening so you can retrieve and bag your goods. Kind of kills any attempt to make a friendly impression on the cashier or have a conversation. So it goes in the Age of Coronavirus.
Last night we treated ourselves to extraordinary apple tarts. The local boulangerie (bakery) has won prizes for its croissants, its pain au chocolat, and its “Three Kings” cake (they won so many times for the latter that they’re no longer allow to compete). For me, getting in on the whole French relationship with their local baker and their daily consumption of fantastic breads and pastries is something wonderful. The tarts were outstanding!
The Stroganoff
The Tuna Melt
Yesterday we had a nice Paris Lockdown Lunch based on that old favorite, Beef Stroganoff, washed down with the rest of the Haussmann Bordeaux. Today, we took a decidedly down-market excursion with the distinctly American Tuna Melt, with Veggie Chips and a nice 2017 Beaujolais. The tuna salad included capers, shallots, and sliced cornichons, with a nice sharp cheddar melted over it. Very tasty indeed.
We have a family of crows in our neighborhood that is, of course, oblivious to the whole virus thingy. They may be curious as to why we’re all hiding inside and disappointed that there’s not as much discarded food laying about. It’s hard to say, but they do occasionally let loose with a lot of loud, coordinated cawing which, given the fairly quiet streets, makes quite a racket and echoes around the buildings. I still haven’t seen any of them, nor their nest, on the rooftops.
One week into the lockdown, the French Post Office has announced a temporary reduction in delivery days, from six days to four this week, and down to just three days starting next week. The authorities have also fine-tuned the restrictions on leaving the house a bit, turning the screws tighter. Some people, it seems, have been cheating.
It’s a strange thing, waiting for some invisible virus tidal wave to crash over us. Do we measure progress in the broadcast numbers of hospitalized and dead and suppose, when those numbers start to fall, that the end of the lockdown is near? I’m not sure that’s true, but we humans seem to be wired for progress indicators, and for hope.
It’s shocking to see the disarray and national leadership vacuum in the U.S. The notion, voiced by the President, that restrictions there, barely in place and not everywhere, should be lifted because the economy is being battered is the height of folly. So many more people are going to die if restrictions are lifted. Take note, voters, take note.
Turning to more mundane matters, one of the interesting things I’ve experienced since my seclusion here is Ultra-High Temperature (UHT) Milk. This is so-called “shelf stable” milk that lasts without refrigeration for months before opening. The French seem to like it; in fact, around 93% of all milk sold in France is UHT Milk. As with regular milk, the UHT version comes in a choice of fat levels (Whole, Skim, 2%, etc.) and bottle sizes. I can’t recall ever having it before and, while it does taste a little different from fresh milk, I’m quite happy using it in my morning cereal or oatmeal, and in my tea and coffee. Have you had it?
The French ardor for UHT Milk is charmingly at odds with the French reputation for using only the very best, freshest food ingredients, and with the vast selection of cheeses, yogurts, puddings, and other milk products typically found in grocery stores here.
Today’s Paris Lockdown Lunch consisted of a nice omelette containing Greek roasted potatoes and topped with gravy from the stuffed eggplant we had last week and parsley, accompanied by fresh bread, olive oil, Greek olives, and baba ganoush. A bottle of Haussmann Bordeaux filled our wine glasses and went down easy.
The French word Attestation means a “certificate” or “written declaration” but, in the Coronamania context, it’s the form that you must print, fill-in, sign, and carry with you whenever you leave the house here in France. It affirms that you’re on the street, within a few Kms of your domicile, for one of the five permitted activities. “Hanging with friends” and “Getting a coffee at the cafe”, sadly, are not among those activities, and you can be ticketed or even jailed if the cops stop you and you don’t have your Attestation with you.
It’s Monday in Paris and some food stores that were open on the weekend are not open today, making the street scene in the afternoon extra empty. Some folks in the grocery store got a little testy in the check-out line due to a social distancing failure and it was easy to mistake the double-gloved, gowned, and masked cashier for an ER nurse.
Bread, that daily French staple, gets cleaned out quickly in stores and we were lucky to find a batch of baguettes just coming out of the oven. As in many cities, the food-buying cycle here is short – large refrigerators and freezers are rare – and many foods have little or no preservatives and are intended for immediate consumption. Baguettes, for example, really are a daily purchase for many.
We had an American treat for breakfast yesterday: bacon and eggs. The chef in my apartment would not allow me to photograph the finished plates – she felt the fried eggs were not perfect enough for display (I can attest that they were perfect for eating, though). We went to the butcher Saturday to get the bacon and, as you can see above, French bacon is sliced rather thickly, more like American ham steaks. This results in the bacon tasting like ham, not like, well, bacon. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the meal completely.
As much as I’d like to say that the bottle of Bordeaux above is from my personal vineyard, it is not. As you may know, Baron von Haussmann was the French official that Napoleon put in charge of renovating Paris in the 1850s and so the wine celebrates him. No family connection to me, as far as I know, but I couldn’t resist the bottle.
Today’s Paris Lockdown Lunch consisted of tomatoes stuffed with beef, pork, and basil, on a bed of multi-colored rice, accompanied by a a nice Greek wine. It was quite filling and provided a variety of interesting tastes.
Here’s a little break from Coronamania: let’s talk about how the French conduct their elections. Just before the situation here got messy and the lockdown was put into place, Parisians were holding Round 1 of important municipal elections. Sunday was the first voting day in a system wherein you vote once, then come back next week and vote again for the top vote-getters from the first round. I joined my friend Marti in Paris as she went to vote and here’s what I saw.
Her local voting place was in the gorgeous ballroom of an elegant, former private residence now turned into a government building. Security included going through a metal detector and bag inspections and then we proceeded into the ballroom.
Note the “social distancing” lines for those in line
Step 1 – As a voter, you wait in line to show the registrars your national identification card and are given a small unsealed plain envelope.
Select the ballot/flyer for your chosen candidate
Step 2 – You then pass a table that has one-page ballot/flyers on it for each candidate (it’s actually the info about a main candidate, plus their slate of proposed appointees) and pick up the desired flyer (and maybe a few others to confuse any poll-watchers). These flyers were also mailed earlier to all voters so they could familiarize themselves with them at home.
Step 3 – You enter a private, curtained voting enclosure, fold up your ballot/flyer of choice, and seal it in the envelope. There’s a recycling bin for any other flyers you don’t use.
Step 4 – Exiting the enclosure, you approach a second table where you’re located in the voter rolls and you initial the roll, indicating you’ve voted. Then you drop your sealed envelope directly into the big plexiglass bin. Voila! You’ve voted.
Yes, the counting of votes is laborious, but the good things about this system include:
All elections are held on Sundays, so no issues about missing work to vote
You see your vote going physically into the bin – there’s no doubt about whether it was accepted
There are no opportunities for “hanging chads”, for filling-in the wrong oval, for confusing candidates on the ballot, etc.
The order of candidates on the ballot is meaningless here
A “physical backup” of the voting exists by definition
I’m not saying this is The Perfect System and would work for everyone, but it sure looked good to me.
The French are not as demonstrative about their national pride as, for example, the U.S. is and so there is no “I Voted” sticker available after you vote.
During today’s shopping trip to the big Monoprix grocery store a few blocks away, we stood in a brief entry line where everyone self-arranged to practice social distancing automatically. After entering the store we saw this sign:
which says “We have sufficient stocks for everyone, Be reasonable about quantities, Let us be united”. That last part about being united is a typical and admirable French response to crises.
It’s Saturday morning in Paris, under skies described as “Paris Gray”, and rather more people are out doing their shopping today than have been out recently. Regulating how many shoppers can be in any store at once, keeping away from others, refraining from touching anything unnecessarily, etc. have all quickly become the new standards.
Stores have put tape Xs or lines on the floors approaching cash registers to encourage distancing while standing in line to pay and newly installed plexiglass sheets shield the cashiers from their customers. Many stores have gone to accepting credit/debit cards only, thus letting their staff members avoid touching any money.
The latest news from here includes reports that entire areas of the city, such as the Seine river walk, areas around the shuttered museums, and blocks with closed commercial buildings but no food stores, have been declared completely off limits. A small exodus earlier this week of Parisians going to their country homes was met with dismay, amidst worries that they may bring the virus to rural communities and/or overtax limited health care support there. Even with the restrictions in place, the number of Covid-19 cases in France is said to be doubling every four days.
Digesting the never-ending Coronamania news reports online can become a full-time occupation, if you let it, so we’re making sure we structure our days to prevent that from becoming overwhelming. We’re also thinking up ways to make weekend days distinct from week days. For example, this morning at breakfast we switched chairs at the dining table. Not a big deal, but a little different take on things that breaks the routine. Later, we may push back the furniture, put on some Merle Haggard, and Two-Step around the living room a bit.
Today’s Greek Paris Lockdown Lunch
Here’s today’s Paris Lockdown Lunch: local restaurants may be closed by official order for sit-down meals but some are still open for take-away. We went to Les Byzantins on the way back from Monoprix and brought home a Greek feast that started with assorted small puff pastries, olives, hummus, and babaganoush, then carried on to eggplant stuffed with ground beef and cheese, and roast potatoes. All accompanied by a nice Greek red wine. Absolutely delicious.
Each morning we get up and have a moment of calm and reflection before going online to see what’s going on in the world. We watch the NBC Nightly News from the previous night online and, while it’s reassuring to see the faces of Lester Holt and his crew, it saddens me to see what’s going on across the ocean.
What are the restrictions put in place here in France? The big one is that we must stay at home. We can only go outside for these reasons:
To travel to and from work if your work is essential and cannot be done from home
To buy food and essentials
To attend medical appointments
For vital family reasons – attending to ailing parent or grandparent, for example.
For individual physical exercise, jogging or walking is allowed but must be done alone or in pairs, within 2Km of home. Cycling is banned.
Anyone stepping out of their homes will need to present a certificate on demand, available to download from the government’s website, stating their reason for being out.
People breaking these restrictions will face a fine of €135. Police issued 4,000 fines in the first full day of lockdown, and France’s Interior Minister says the fine could rise to €375 if people continue to flout the rules.
So far, we have not seen anyone being stopped, nor have we been stopped, on the street while going to the store or taking a little walk for exercise. We are, however, taking our properly-completed forms with us every time. If you think this sounds a little like WWII movies you’ve seen of Nazi-occupied Paris (“show me your papers”), it doesn’t feel like that at all here. Instead, there’s generally a spirit of cooperation and carrying the form is no big effort.
Today’s Paris Lockdown Lunch
There’s nothing like having an excellent lunch each day to lift the spirits. Today’s Paris Lockdown Lunch included tagliolini pasta and mushroom sauce with parsley and parmesan cheese, fresh bread with butter, and a lovely Malbec-Merlot red blend from Bordeaux. Santé!
We’re sure living in interesting times, no? It appears “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto”, and to prove it, I’m now residing in France, an early coronavirus epicenter.
I was planning to spend the entire month of March in Lyon, France. Then the French restrictions came down and that plan went out the window. I was in Paris last weekend visiting my friend, Marti, just as the measures to reduce public gatherings were announced. That announcement last Saturday, shuttering cafes and other non-essential businesses, throughout France was astounding here, if prudent.
On the street that morning in Marti’s neighborhood, people were out and about, but there was definitely a somber mood in the air. There were lots of well-behaved shoppers queued up at the grocery stores and bakeries. Yes, the toilet paper aisle was cleaned out, but there was still plenty of wine to go around. Pharmacies had no hand-sanitizer or wipes, of course.
Outdoor cafe seating stacked indoors for the duration
Riding to the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris on Monday at midday revealed all the closed cafes, with their traditional sidewalk chairs and tables stacked inside, and no sign of life at Burger King or McDonald’s.
French President Macron delivers the bad news
No sooner had I gotten back to Lyon than additional restrictions were announced. People here were not taking the need to voluntarily isolate seriously (there were pictures online of large groups of people congregating in parks and along the river front) so the government clamped down harder.
All public gatherings were banned and gathering places, such as public parks, closed. Public transportation services have been reduced to the minimum. Grocery stores, bakeries, butchers, pharmacies, and doctor’s offices could remain open – everything else had to close. People were ordered to remain at home and self-isolate, teleworking was mandated, for 15 days. I love the fact that book stores are considered essential and remain open.
Your papers, please…
They say 100,000 police and security officers across France have been mobilized to stop and interrogate anyone found on the street or at roadblocks about why they’re not at home. There’s an official form you can download and print that describes the five acceptable reasons for being on the street (grocery shopping, going to doctor, etc.) and you must show this form if asked. Failure to do so can result in fines up to €150. In addition, France closed its borders to any non-citizens or non-residents trying to enter.
One customer comes out before one can go in, no more that 10 customers in shop at once
So, a lot of things were happening very quickly. The announcement of the further restrictions came Monday night and went into effect Tuesday morning. As you may know, airline companies have been hit very hard by all of this and are struggling. This resulted in my British Airways flight from Lyon to London Tuesday being cancelled, along with almost all other BA flights. The French rail system reduced the number of its trains. Naturally, in this Golden Age of information via the Internet, it’s often hard to get accurate information when you need it, especially in a crisis. I found it very hard to tell which transportation modes were still operating Tuesday and whether they would still be doing so the next day.
The U.K. was making noises about more restrictions so going on to Bristol by any means seemed like it might be a poor choice if the U.K. was locked down like France. I considered just flying from Paris back to the U.S. but there were almost no direct flights, and any connecting flights did so in suspect places, like Frankfurt. I say suspect because Germany had already closed its borders, so how was a flight going to connect in Frankfurt? In addition, the stories coming out about the chaos in U.S. airport Arrivals halls were awful. Did I really want to fly into a “virus incubator” and spend hours standing with hundreds of other people, all jammed together?
I thought not. So I got back in touch with Marti and she has kindly let me join her in Paris, for the duration. I have about three months on my tourist visa here but a lot of those concerns may go out the window as this thing goes on.
The Louvre is closed
I’ll be posting in the coming days about the ongoing situation here. I don’t need to repeat what the doomsayers have been suggesting regarding the future, but clearly travel-related industries are going to be severely affected and may not bounce back for years.
I will say I believe it will get very bad here and it will last a long time (I do not think this will blow over in a month or two). The U.K. and U.S. are going to experience the same issues as Europe and will pay a price for dragging their feet in preparation. If you’re in either country you should prepare now for some difficult times. Clearly, the current U.K. and U.S. administrations have dropped the ball and missed the opportunity to get out ahead of this. It’s shocking here, for example, to see coverage on TV last night of kids going about Spring Break in Florida as if nothing is happening in the world. Please, friends, do not underestimate this.
I don’t want to leave you on that depressing note, so I will say that it’s a lovely 68-degree, sunny, almost first day of Spring here and we’re having a nice lunch on the balcony. This is Paris, after all.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, 2,000 years ago Lyon was a Roman city called Lugdunum. It was a key city for Empire, the capital of Roman Gaul, the intersection of many Roman roads, and the birthplace of the Emperor Claudius. I spent an afternoon last weekend touring the Roman ruins and visiting the great museum beside them.
The view from the stage
Located on top of the western hills above my apartment, the ruins include a bath house, a 3,000-seat odeum music/poetry venue, and a 10,000 seat amphitheater. All three were quarried for building stones in later centuries and exist today diminished in size. The large theater has a rebuilt stage, is set up for modern lighting and sound, and is used for events.
It’s a pretty steep uphill climb to get to the ruins but luckily there’s a funicular that runs up the hill from the local Metro station. The tunnels it runs through have little illuminated niches with Roman statuary in them, a nice touch.
The Lyon Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization is a really cool place, buried in the hillside adjacent to the large amphitheater. It even has large windows that look out at the stage. I’ve drawn a yellow line around the museum in this photo:
The museum is a concrete marvel, with four of its five stories buried underground. It houses a magnificent collection of artifacts, including nicely-restored mosaics, and a lot of stones and statues. The structure is designed so that you progress downward through four floors of exhibits and has great exhibit lighting. Despite being underground under tons of concrete, I felt that it was an open and airy space. The entry fee was just €4 and included a audio guide!
In addition to the well-displayed artifacts and exhibits, seats and benches were liberally available, some of the multi-media presentations were really well done, and there was a complete absence of guards keeping an eye on things.
A nice animated display showed the amphitheaters as they were, complete with their long-gone stage houses, and there was a working (just push the button) scale model of the stage showing the mechanics used for changing scenery. As a veteran stage hand, that was my kind of exhibit!
You never know who you’ll run into when visiting a museum; the two scary dudes above, for example.
Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière
Not too far away, on what was the site of Emperor Trajan’s Forum, the Christians have had their revenge with the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvièr. Next to it is Lyon’s own min-Eiffel Tower replica, used only for modern communications tech.
If you’re in Lyon, I highly recommend a visit to the ruins and the museum!
I’m unpacked and living in Lyon, France for the next month. I had a comfortable, two-hour flight from Dublin on Aer Lingus and the French Customs and Border Control officer stamped my passport without asking me a single question. My luggage appeared as expected and in good shape.
Cobblestone streets and three- and four-story buildings
Lyon is in the southeastern part of France, about 467km (290 miles) from Paris and 148km (90 miles) from the Swiss border and Geneva. It’s an ancient town and was a key part of the Roman empire, back when it was called Lugdunum. Lyon is the third largest city in France and, historically, was known as an important area for the production and weaving of silk. In modern times, it has developed a reputation as the capital of gastronomy in France.
Lyon is divided into three parts by two rivers, the Saône and the Rhône, which converge to the south. The western part of town is Vieux Lyon (old Lyon) and my flat is within the blue circle above. My neighborhood is part of the charming old town, with sloping, cobblestone streets fronting old buildings. The main attraction in my area is the Cathedral and the really touristy area is north of it; my place is just south of it. So I’m close to a lot of interesting things, but not directly in the flow of the tourist hordes. Come to think of it, I’m not sure there are tourist hordes in March. At least I haven’t seen any yet.
My flat is in a very old building, a few steps up from the street, and was nicely renovated by a local architect. You can see the rooms here: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/34456841. As always, there are a few quirks (hit my head twice on a low beam) but generally it’s really pleasant. The shower is terrific: roomy, good water pressure, rainfall shower head. The flat’s in a great location, with a Metro stop just 50 yards away, and bakeries, banks, small grocery stores, and good restaurants nearby. My initial Airbnb throw-a-dart-at-the-map selection process seems to be working well!
Behind my flat the ground rises steeply to the Fourvière hills and atop them are the ruins of a large Roman theater complex and a modern Basilica. The walk up there is steep enough that there’s a funicular that leaves from the Metro station. I’ll definitely be exploring the hill top.
The weather so far has been mixed sun and clouds, with light winds and temps in the 40s-50s, which is an improvement on my last few stormy, windy weeks in Dublin.
Lyon is foodie central and is famous for its bouchons. A bouchon is a restaurant that serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, such as sausages, salade lyonnaise, duck pâté, and roast pork. Compared to other forms of French cooking, such as nouvelle cuisine, bouchon dishes are quite fatty and heavily oriented around meat. There are several bouchons near the Cathedral and I will investigate! In addition, traditional French, Italian, and Indian restaurants abound. In case I miss Dublin, there are two Irish pubs nearby, and if I get a hankering for ribs, there’s an American BBQ joint just around the corner.
I like the French restaurant ambience – tables and chairs spilling out onto the street, menu boards, waiters with white aprons in attendance – and especially the great French wines. Beer is, of course, also available, with good German brews on tap. A bar at the end of my street even sells Paulaner Munich Lager in sizes up to 1-litre in the traditional Oktoberfest Maas mugs.
As elsewhere, concerns about the coronavirus are running high here. I did not see anyone, though, in either airport or on my plane wearing a face mask. The papers report that Paris has taken some pre-emptive actions, closing some schools and canceling some events, but I’m unaware of anything like that yet here in Lyon. I’m washing my hands a lot, using hand sanitizer in public, and feel great. I hope you are, and do, too.
Tomorrow I’m going to venture out to learn to ride the Metro and go to the Tourist Information office. Au revoir for now!
The Occasionally-Examined Life 