F Train to Paris

In which a Jewish family from Brooklyn moves to Paris, France for two years of work, school, and adventures.

 

Wish me mazal tov--my blog is one year old today. And I'll probably be wrapping it up pretty soon, as we are no longer living in Paris, though I still hope to write about our summer travels and talk a bit more about our experiences during the past two years.

The kids are back in school--so far, so good--and I start a full-time job on Monday. After two years of coffee, museums, and long walks, that will be a big change, but I'm looking forward to it.  Ralph is not loving the commute to New Jersey, but he's surviving. And we are all gratified by the very warm welcome we've received from our old friends and neighbors here in Brooklyn.

During our first couple of weeks back home, two spiders took up residence in front of our house: a large one whose web stretched from pine tree to a very tall lily stem, and a smaller one that wove its web between two trash cans. I enjoyed watching these two reweave their webs every day, one by day and the other by night, as I rewove the fabric of our home and our lives. Putting the puzzle of our household back together--packing stacks of books into bookcases, clothes into drawers and closets, kitchen utensils into cupboards--often with great frustration and always dripping with sweat, I took great pleasure in stepping outside the house to admire the work of these tireless, unflappable workers. Both have departed, just as our house began to feel like home again.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 18:18 | link | comments (4) |

Today is apparently Blog Day, so I'm blogging. Someday soon I will sit down in front of a computer in a comfortable chair and write about our travels around France this summer, but for now I'm siting on the floor with a laptop in my lap, a position that's not really conducive to writing lengthy posts.

I'm supposed to include links to five blogs "with a focus on diversity and bridging cultures," according to Global Voices Online. So I'd like to draw your attention to a few of my links (they're over there on the left). Aimless, of  The Aimless Files, has recently begun blogging again after being offline for months. I can't wait to catch up with her blog about Jewish parenting in California. Then there's Balabusta at Sabbath Meals, who blogs from (I think) Boston, also about Jewish parenting with an emphasis on the vegetarian meals she cooks for family and friends on Shabbat--and, lately, about penguins. A good friend in Paris blogs about parenting and about her obsession (sorry, Karen) with teaching her daughter to read, at This Blog. One of my all-time faves, although he doesn't call it a blog, is Dan Gordis's essays about life in Israel and--you guessed it--parenting. Finally, a blog that's about neither Jews nor parenting: L'Amerloque, the guru of Franco-American cultural differences, developed a following via his comments on other blogs, and finally started his own last spring.

Enjoy these bloggers, and come back here in a couple of weeks. By then I hope to have set up my desktop computer (and my desk) so I can tell you all about our travels and our rentree to Brooklyn.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 04:12 | link | comments (1) |

Greetings from Brooklyn! We are back in NY after a wonderful voyage around France and a bit of Germany. I hope to post at length about our travels, but for now I just wanted to say hi.

We arrived very late last night after a very comfortable flight--we were lucky enough to have been upgraded to business class, which makes all the difference. Our container arrives on Tuesday, so by the end of next week we'll be comfortably installed in our Brooklyn home.

Shabbat Shalom, et a bientot...

 

posted by: pariskleinmans at 18:13 | link | comments |

The movers have packed virtually everything except the computer--and they actually packed that, too, but I made them unpack it. This is my last post from my soon-to-be former home on rue Maspero, Paris 16eme. On Sunday we set off for our road trip (which I outlined in the July 15th post). I'll post while on the road if I can; otherwise, I'll check in when we get back Paris, briefly, around August 18th.

Yesterday I had coffee with a fellow blogger, Laura of Cucina Testa Rossa fame. It was fun to meet her, and I hope now that she's quit her stressful job she'll have time to blog again. While in Champagne, I hope to met up with blogger Vivi of Dispatches from France. When I launched my blog last year, I had no idea I was becoming part of a delighful group of expat anglophone bloggers who have made Paris their home, whether permanently or, like me, temporarily. Following their adventures and meeting them, through our comment boxes, our emails, or in person, has been an unexpected pleasure.

Goodbye to all my Paris friends. You've made my two years here so rich. I'll miss the coffees at Kleber and Lubeck (okay, I won't miss the coffee at Lubeck), the museum tours with Kelly, the wine-soaked book club meetings, the intellectual stimulation of the literary salons with Toby and company, even the ISP PTA meetings and working in the Eurecole library on Tuesday afternoons. And if I didn't write all those articles I meant to write about Jewish life in Paris, or work hard enough on my novel-- well, I was too busy living this exciting expat life.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 10:46 | link | comments (6) |

My computer and its desk are a little island within a sea of boxes. The first floor of our apartment is completely packed (the movers have spared the computer for now), and the bedrooms upstairs are being packed today. We're really leaving.

Our Paris apartment is quite impressive. It is located in an "hotel particulier,"  a small mansion built in the 1920's that has been divided into three apartments. The owner, an Italian businessman who breezes through for a couple of days a few times a year, has a duplex on the top two floors. There's a third apartment below his, which has been empty since November 2003. And the rest of the building has been ours for the past two years. As you can imagine, with three boys it has been nice not to have to worry about disturbing the neighbors--we don't have any!

The entrance to our space is through a pair of glass doors in the building's lobby. We have a little space on the ground floor for coats, shoes, bikes and scooters, and then we walk up the curving staircase into our apartment. On the first floor (which Americans would call the second floor), where the living room, dining room, and kitchen are located, the ceilings are very high, there are decorative moldings and fireplaces, and the rooms have huge french windows and parquet floors. The kitchen is small but functional. Upstairs, where the bedrooms are located, the rooms are simpler but quite comfortable. We brought all of our furniture from Brooklyn, which has made the place feel more like home.

The apartment is, in a word, gorgeous. The location, too, is amazing: in the 16th arrondissement on a tiny, quiet  street near the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperatoin adn Development), in a neighborhood bounded by the Jardins de Ranelagh and the boulevards Suchet,  Henri Martin, and Emile Augier. The metro and four different bus lines are just a few blocks away, and great shopping is nearby as well. We buy most of our food at the Marche de Passy, a covered market, and on rue de l'Annociation, a small market street just next to the Marche. We're right near a great park, the Jardins de Ranelagh, and quite close to the Bois de Boulogne as well. The older boys were able to walk to school.

It could have been paradise, and it many ways it was. Unfortunately, the owner of this little jewel of a house has not kept it up very well. The electricity is not up to code and especially during our first year, the main cutoff switch frequently tripped, leaving us in total darkness (and requiring us to constantly reset all of our alarm clocks). The kitchen applicances are old and break down frequently. And you already know about the kitchen door that fell on E. (If you don't, read about it here.) At times, the apartment's charms have not seemed worth putting up with its drawbacks. We heard a rumor that the owner is planning to sell it, which doesn't surprise us.

For the most part, though, we feel lucky to have had the chance not only to live in Paris, but to live in this particular corner of the city, in this particular apartment. In June, when the huge jasmine bush on our corner bursts into bloom and perfumes the air for blocks, we have sometimes felt that life can't get much better than this.

Alas, our second Paris adventure is just about over. But don't feel too sorry for us. We are moving back home to the other city we love best in the world, New York, to our own brownstone in Brooklyn. It may not be as elegant as our temporary Paris home, but it is also a jewel.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 13:45 | link | comments |

Lighting Shabbat candles in our Paris apartment for the very last time was poignant.  As I circled the candles with my arms and gathered the light toward me, E. standing at my side and doing the same, I thought about the dozens of Shabbatot we spent here. Although they lacked the richness that our wonderful community in Brooklyn provides, we developed a Shabbat rhythm of our own--sleeping late instead of going to shul, most of the time; Ralph's long Saturday morning baths in the deep bathtub; taking long walks in the afternoon; playing ping pong in the Jardins de Ranelagh. We're excited about moving back home, but we will all miss the life we built for ourselves here in just two years.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 09:50 | link | comments |

I have about 20 minutes before Shabbat to write this post, and I'm determined to use this time to give you a sense of what our last couple of weeks in Paris have felt like. The weeks have flown past, but the days are long.

The older boys are long gone, as you know, and Ralph has been working in NY for the past two weeks; he got home just today. E. and I have had this lovely rhythm--quiet mornings working purposefully to organize the apartment (mostly me), followed by afternoon outings and playdates. I accomplished a lot, and I am almost ready to welcome the movers, who arrive on Monday to begin packing us up. (However, if you walked into our apartment right now, you'd never be able to guess that we're moving out in a few days.)

I also spent way too much time in front of the computer planning the road trip we will take once our belongings have been shipped off to NY. We will leave Paris on July 24th and head east, spending a couple of weeks traveling around Champagne, Alsace, the Black Forest, the Jura, and the Rhone-Alpes. Then we'll zip across the country to spend a couple of nights in the Dordogne, and wind up our trip with a visit to our friends Boris and Emanuelle in the Charente. I booked us into an assortment of hotels, chambre d'hotes (French b&b's), and campgrounds along the way. I will try to find an Internet connection here and there so I can post about the trip.

But back to Paris. This wonderful city is so full of things to do that you can spend two years here, determinedly exploring, and feel like you've barely scratched the surface. In the past two weeks, E. and I have discovered several new attractions and revisited old favorites. In fact, if you have a week to spend in Paris with a six-year-old (or thereabouts) this summer, you could do worse than follow in our footsteps. Here are some highlights, organized thematically:

Parks/playgrounds:
--Our local fave, Jardins de Ranelagh in the 16th (metro La Muette). One of Paris' great, underrated parks, with plenty of grass for picnics and soccer (no guard will ever throw you off the grass here!), two playgrounds, a fantastic manually-operated carrousel with rings to collect on your baton, a great puppet theater, and even ping pong tables.
--The Poussin Vert playground at Jardins de Luxembourg. It costs 4 euros for a kid and parent to enter, but it's worth it. Lots of great climbing structures for all ages. Crowded, however, and full of tourists--I heard more English in one Sunday afternoon here than in two years of regular visits to Ranelagh.
--Parc Andre Citroen (15th). On a really hot day, put on your bathing suits, parents and kids, and come here to play in the fountains.
--Jardin des Tuileries. There's a great playground here, on the north side of the park about halfway between Concorde and the Carrousel arch, with climbing toys you've never seen anywhere else. Great for older kids, too. Also, all summer long there's a carnival along the northern side of the Tuileries. It's really trashy (except for the ferris wheel with great views of Paris), but the kids love it.

Museums:
--You must go to the Shadows exhibit in the children's space at the Centre Pompidou. Just go.
--E. learned about Henri Matisse at school this year, so we went to the Musee de Luxembourg to see the Matisse expo. It's all about his later works, including the Jazz series. E. and his friends set up their own sketching workshop on the floor and did some wonderful drawings.

Restaurants:
Some kid friendly places, mostly in our own 'hood...
--Dino's (chaussee de la muette, 16th): good, somewhat upscale Italian food, opens for dinner early and is quite kid friendly. Great pizza, pasta, and desserts.
--Matsuri (rue de Passy, 16th): sushi on a conveyor belt! The food is actually pretty good, and it's fun to pick your food as it rolls by. Go early--by 8pm it's quite crowded. That's true of Dino's too.
--Micky's Deli (rue des Rosiers, 4th): great kosher burgers in the Marais.

I hope to have a chance to post once more before the computer is packed up. If not, a bientot! And Shabbat Shalom.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 21:42 | link | comments (2) |

For two-fifths of our family, the Paris experience has ended. J. and R. finished school last week and left yesterday for NY, on their way to camp, which starts on Wednesday. They will rendezvous with us back in Brooklyn at the end of August.

It's much quieter around the house as a result. It also means I no longer have home-grown babysitters around, so I can't go out as much as before. But above and beyond the fact that it's been convenient to have them around to babysit for E., I miss them. For a couple of teenage boys, they are pretty great.

Just before he left, R. had the world's most low-key bar mitzvah. For friends and family who read this and panic--no, you didn't miss the big event. The bar mitzvah celebration will take place as planned in October, in Brooklyn. But in order to mark the fact that he had actually reached the official age of bar mitzvah, R. had an aliyah last Shabbat at our shul in Paris. There was a bat mitzvah going on, and in the midst of it we had arranged--without telling the rabbi why--for R. to be called up for an aliyah. Besides us and our friend James, who happened to be there and who we clued in, no one there was aware of the significance. It was the ultimate private party.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 12:15 | link | comments (3) |

Tuesday night was  La Fete de la Musique, when France (and now many other countries around the world) traditionally celebrates the summer solstice with free music in public spaces.  Last year, we had a very successful evening, and this year we tried to duplicate it.  We discovered last year  that the Louvre is a great place to find musicians--especially classical ones, as you might expect. Musicans station themselves all around the central courtyard and the Cour Carre, especially the covered passageways. Ralph and I took E. (the older boys opted out) and met up with some friends near the pyramid. We heard an all-male trio singing in Latin, and an accapella  chorus singing Spanish songs. Then we left the Louvre via a doorway in the Cour Carre and crossed the river on the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge that links the Louvre with the Institut de France. The Lourvre complex had been fairly calm, but the bridge was crowded with picnickers and amateur musicians, plus a more professional group of (very loud) drummers at the far end. When we reached the Institut de France we were pleased to find the same band we heard there last year, the Saints Peres Band. These are talented musicians who wear funny animal hats, as you can see in the photo on their site. The first song they played was "YMCA,"  but the rest of their set was a little more traditional. We listened for about half an hour, then decided to make our way to Bd St Germain and catch the 63 bus home.

What a mistake! The left bank was wall-to-wall people, and it took us half an hour just to walk the couple of blocks to Bd St Germain. We ducked into the nearest metro and headed home.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 13:13 | link | comments (1) |

So often these days I'm wistfully aware that I'm doing something for the last, or almost the last time before we leave Paris. But certain just-one-more-time experiences I really could have done without. Like taking a child to the emergency room at Necker (more about that later). Or waiting for the depanneur--the applicance repairman. Yes, once again the washing machine has broken down. And if the repairman can't fix it today (assuming he shows up), I'll get to visit the local laundromat again--another experience I could have happily skipped.

I won't leave you hanging about that emergency room visit. As my father would say before beginning to tell a story like this, "Don't worry, everyone is all right. But...."  Last weekend R. (age 13) complained that his leg hurt. We ignored it for the moment, as we had tickets (all of us except E., plus a group of our friends)  for "Julius Caesar," in English, at the Theatre de Chaillot, starring Simon Russell Beale and Ralph Fiennes. (Yes, we went on Shabbat, but we bought the tickets in advance and walked home.)  On Saturday morning I looked at his leg, and just above his knee it was extremely swollen. When it hadn't improved by Sunday, I took him to the emergency room. After several hours of waiting, x-rays, and blood tests, a surgeon saw him and felt, based on the fact that R. has had a number of swollen joints over the past two years, that it could be  serious rheumatological disease. He wanted to admit him and do a procedure in the morning to drain the swelling and investigate. This procedure, it turned out, was actually surgery, under general anesthesia. To make a long story short, they kept R. in the hospital for four days and eventually determined that he does not have  serious disease, but a condition, which he will outgrow, called reactive arthritis, in which his immune system overreacts to an infection by swelling a joint. (In fact, he had strep throat a week before.) Virtually all of this took place in French, by the way. Necker Hospital is the one place I've found in Paris where people don't automatically switch to English--or at teast slow down--when they detect my accent.

So R. is home, wearing a sort of half cast (open in the front, then wrapped in bandages like a mummy) to keep his knee from bending. He will leave for NY on Sunday as planned, along with his brother J. He's back in school to spend the last few days of the term with his friends, having missed all of his final exams. And his parents may recover one day from the shock of hearing that their child might have a serious, chronic disease.

The repairman arrived, by the way, and it looked at first  like the washer problem, too, might not be serious. But, in fact, he needs to order a part, which may be ready by the end of the week, or perhaps not until next week. So I'm off to the laundromat once again, and I'll finish this post later on.

posted by: pariskleinmans at 11:54 | link | comments |