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Monday, June 3, 2013

YET MORE PARIS MUSINGS


After two months of perfectly awful weather – rainy, cold, and dismal – Paris has finally coughed up two days in a row of sunshine, and everyone is beginning to smile again.  It is still a good deal cooler than it ought to be for June, but it is possible to believe that summer will arrive on schedule.  This morning, I successfully conducted a scientific experiment, although my readers will probably be less impressed with it than I was.  A word of explanation is required.
The Seine, as you might expect, flows west to the Atlantic Ocean, a fact that totally disorients an East Coast type like me, just as I am disoriented whenever I visit my grandchildren in San Francisco.  If you are sitting on a boat floating down the Seine, our neighborhood will pass to your left, which is why our part of Paris is referred to as The Left Bank.  Thus, when I crossed over in front of Nôtre Dame this morning at six-thirty for my daily walk and turned left along the Right Bank, heading for the Louvre and the Jardins des Tuilleries, the Seine and I were moving in the same direction.

I noticed a fairly large piece of wood floating downstream up ahead of me, and by the time I had passed the Louvre and was striding [hem, hem] alongside the Jardins, I was a bit ahead of the piece of wood.  I thus was able to deduce that I was walking slightly faster than the Seine was flowing, which allowed me to conclude that the Seine flows at roughly 3 ½ miles per hour.  That is enough science for today.
I have just finished my lunch, a two egg omelet with a mushroom and some cheese cut up in it, all cooked with butter and flavored with salt.  Eggs, butter, and salt – three things I simply never eat in America, thanks to the necessity of keeping my cholesterol and my blood pressure down.  However, I permit myself this indulgence occasionally in Paris because I have read that for some mysterious reason, eggs, butter, and salt are actually good for you in Paris, even though they can kill you in the United States.  Apparently it has something to do with the Gulf Stream. 

Tomorrow Susie and go to rue de Pot de Fer for our appointment with the English speaking French doctor.  I shall report.

 

2 comments:

David Auerbach said...

Perhaps after your appointment on the rue de Pot de Fer you should make a lunch of a pot de feu (perhaps cooked in a pot de fer).

NotHobbes said...

Thank heavens for the Gulf Stream, for without it, Scotland would be as cold as Nova Scotia :-)