Life in Lockdown - Almost Two Weeks! (Revisited)

OK we're gonna try this again. Now the video link goes to YouTube, which does work!

Virus or no virus, it's still Spring! And within our allotted 1 km from home we found these incredible tulips.

Some random thoughts and impressions—I feel a bit distracted.

We’ve kinda fallen off the map, blogwise. We’ve all been blindsided by this Cornonavirus and its consequences, and still don’t know what to make of it. I feel like we’ve been on a forced vacation—in spite of all the things we could be doing, it’s, like, vacation! I think I’ll just sit here and stare out the window…  Really. Every time I sit down to write, nothing happens. So Paula is doing this one, I’m just commenting.

Looks like we are in for the long haul, at least till the end of April. Whether you read any news or not the reality is that the Covid virus is here and it’s not going away any time soon. Not to be dramatic but the world as we knew it—is no longer. The future—who knows!

So what are we doing? Life either seems to be going really, really fast or really, really slow depending on mood and time of day.

There are some wonderful, amusing and touching moments as we travel inside and outside our apartment.

(Yeah, even the French can be funny in a crisis.)

 We live on the 7^th floor of an apartment complex. Being in a city is very different from living in the ‘burbs; we’re much closer to our neighbors, for one thing, and there’s more of a sense of “we’re all in this together.” Every night at 8 PM (20:00) there is 3-4 minutes of clapping, drumming, shouting, whistling, cheering for all the people who are on the front lines with this—medical personnel, grocery store clerks, delivery drivers, pharmacies, long and short haul truck drivers, food producers. 

If you don't see the video link, click here to go directly to YouTube

Every morning at 6AM a delivery truck comes to re-stock the grocery store right below our building. It used to annoy us; now we say: yeah!! More re-stocking! Full store shelves!

Entrance to The Mall. All that's open now is the pharmacy and a large supermarket. Guards ensure there's not too many people inside, and lines on the ground keep people well spaced.

We are spending time doing Zoom, Skype and FaceTime calls, checking in with family and friends. We’ve even started doing Netflix Party movie nights (but only in the same time zone). It’s pretty cool—each person signs in to watch a movie at the same time and you can chat and stop the movie to make popcorn or go to the bathroom.

Things are pretty calm here in France. The stay-at-home and social distancing is being taken very seriously. Every time we step into the street we are required to have a paper with us, our “attestation,” stating our name and address and why we are out and about (work, grocery shopping, doctor visit, family care, exercise). Yes, we can go out and walk around, but only for one hour a day, and no more than one kilometer (about 2/3 mile) from home. 

After watching what happened in China (very strict) to Italy and Spain (not strict at first) and seeing the difference in outcomes it seems pretty clear that the tough-at-first approach, although difficult, is the most effective for “flattening the curve.” Here is a link to a great article—The Hammer and the Dance—that explains why isolation is so important.

More great moments even in the seriousness of it all:

 I went to the Asian store to get Thai spices (it’s within 1 km of our place!) and the owner was playing fabulous 30s jazz on a record player – so we spent a few moments dancing in the aisles, a careful 6 feet apart.

I’m getting good at pressing the elevators buttons with my elbow

I’ve started taking photos of our meals, arranging them artistically (for me) and giving them fancy French menu descriptions. I keep threatening to post them on Instagram.

Déjeuner sur le balcon (aka Lockdown Lunch):
Salade grecque et chèvre feuilleté épinard avec vin rosé 

            Neighbors are creative. A street near us had people hanging from their apartments with one guy on his balcony calling out numbers. Balcony Bingo, we learned this was called.

            The quiet is really astounding. Few cars, people, everything closed and shuttered. A bit like Christmas Eve when everyone is inside somewhere.

We’ve been watching this huge tree we can see from our balcony get more and more green as its leaves come out. Now I don’t see that very often in California. (Another “feature” of living in the city: that tree has become our main contact with nature!)

Our Tree, seen from Our Balcony. What a difference in two weeks!

The couple one floor down sing and practice piano each day at 6 PM. First 30 minutes of opera scales (thankfully he's not a soprano), then 30 minutes of show tunes. As we sit here sipping our gin & tonics is almost like being in a piano bar. All we need is some mindless conversation in the background...

We feel blessed. We are not sick, are warm and dry, have plenty to eat, enjoy each other’s company and have lots of distractions. What are we missing? A bit of nature. We can’t drive anywhere even if we had a car and the major gardens and green spaces are closed. (Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a few weeds to pull!) We do go out for walks most days but this is a city after all.

Stay safe, don't worry.

Sending safe-distance kisses from France.

France Under Lockdown!

Place de la Comédie, Montpellier's normally-busy main square, all but deserted!

Paula wrote today's blog.

SUNDAY

Well it’s not really a lockdown, but it is the first day of French President Macron’s closure of everything except grocery stores, pharmacies and medical clinics. Sunday most places are closed anyway so it’s generally quiet. But the two boulangeries near us are completely out of bread. And that’s what French people want: there’s plenty of toilet paper in the stores. People are still out and about, mostly of them young. This is a student town and generally speaking they probably don’t think anything “will happen to them.” Of course that’s not the point of the shutdown—it’s to get people to stop moving around long enough for the virus to be isolated and not spread.

The train station Gare St Roch--kinda empty!

Except for the live piano found in every train station in France--can you find the four real people?

The park on a grey day, also empty.

Saturday we had a great outing with three other expat friends: walking along the river, stopping for a beer at a café, sitting in the sun talking about how different the world is from two days ago. Countries closing all flights and borders—the epicenter of the virus now in Europe.

Mark, Mary, Debra, Paula. Weird light on the trees is sunlight reflected from the buildings in front of us.

And guessing what it will be like in a month, two months, six months? Economically, socially, politically. It’s staggering to think of the standstill of so many businesses. And people being laid off. France is a very socialistic country—so it will take care of its people.

Staying at home is not really a problem for us. We’re comfortable, have plenty of essentials, like wine and cheese and pasta. Netflix will do well. We just bought 2000 shares when the market tanked (only kidding). Paula has her painting supplies and we found a Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary game in the closet. Only problem is everything is in French—bien sûr!

Ok who can answer this one?

"Quelle star a interprété la chanson du film Titanic?"

I’m practicing opening doors and elevators with my elbow. No more kissing when greeting each other. It’s the elbows bump all around.

And with eating at home more, I'm experimenting with recipes,  on a Thai food kick. (We’ve found a couple of Asian food stores near us!) Perfecting curries and also peanut sauce dishes. I've found some no-additive peanut butter--not easy to find in Europe. The French don't use peanut butter.

MONDAY

OK it’s official! EVERYTHING is closed except food stores, pharmacies, takeout food. No hair cutting, laundry, bicycle shops, travel agents, anything you can think of that’s not food or drugs. Oh tobacco shops are open if you want cigarettes or vaping supplies. The huge Place de Comedie in the center usually filled with cafes and laughing people is empty. Tourist office is closed. McDonalds is closed. To comply with distance between people, the groceries stores are only letting in so many at a time. So there are lines outside. This is only the second day…never mind a  month from now…can’t imagine what it will be like 3 days from now. It will take weeks to show any decline in the number of cases, if we did everything perfectly starting today.

We will publish updates on the blog.

Closed boulanger; long line at the grocery store (they only let in a few people at at time). We live in the high-rise at the end of the block.

Recommendation for all of you in the US: Don’t panic, but don't take this lightly, either!

We'll finish by this bit of doggerel by Mercedes R. Lackey, published SiFi author and frequent Quora contributor:

You cannot get it from a box

You cannot get it from a fox

You cannot get it from a cat

You cannot get it from a rat

You cannot get it from a dog

You cannot get it from a log

You cannot get it from a veg

Or sitting on a window ledge

You cannot get it from a fruit

Or from a mouse, however cute

Or get it from someone Chinese*

You sure can get it from a sneeze

Or touching things and then your face

Or any contaminated place

A face-mask will not help you, Sam

And you don’t want it, Sam-I-Am

So wash your hands at every chance

Instead of touching things, just glance

And do not panic, jeez, that’s dumb.

Cause panic will not help you, chum.

*And quit lumping every East Asian into the category of “Chinese” because they have epicanthal folds.

             Via Quora: https://qr.ae/pNnuSI

Another Trip to the Country--and Perhaps the Last?

We took this trip a week before the French government announced its lockdown, closing non-essential stores, all cafes and restaurants, and most events. (Ah, for the good old days…)

Le Pont du Diable at St-Guilhem-le-Desert. Still standing, still no lost souls...

This was our third trip to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, and the first time in a OuiCar, a unique car rental experience. We first visited this small town in the hills not far from Montpellier a couple of years ago, with our French friends Bernard and Claude. That was in June, and it was hot and crowded. Last December we were there again with Nicholas, our former landlord. Then, it was cool and empty. (We’ve got a blog about that trip here.)

View from the Devil's Bridge, up the canyon of the Herault River.

We returned there recently, with our American friend Debra, and two new friends, also Americans, Mary and Mark. However, getting to St Guilhem is not so simple. Once, long ago, Paula and I almost got there on the bus, but due to mismatched bus schedules—and some threatening rain—we didn’t make it on that trip. This time the five of us rented a car through an organization called OuiCar, which means “yes car”, sort of, and is pronounced “we car”. And “we car” strikes me as a a fine name for a car sharing service.

The system is an outgrowth of the “sharing economy,” a kind of Airbnb of rental cars. The cars are privately owned, OuiCar handling the rental infrastructure. We were quite confused as to how it all worked, and kept bugging the owner with questions. He was quite patient, and once we got the GPS coordinates of the car’s location through the smart phone app we figured we were on our way.

Saturday afternoon Paula and I hiked the 10 minutes over to the lot where the car was kept to check it out, so we were ready Sunday morning when we all met at the car. The app locked and unlocked the car, and started (and ultimately ended) the rental period, through a cell phone connection. Everything went very well, and by the time we were back in the lot that evening, we’d put 101 km (62 miles) on it, and saw some great countryside that no bus would ever visit!

             St-Guilhem-le-Désert

The town square of St Guilhem, and it's officially-recognized tree.

Our first stop was Le Pont du Diable, the Devil’s Bridge. There are several dozen Devil’s Bridges in France, each with a similar story: there’s a difficult river to cross; the architect runs into trouble and turns to the devil who agrees to help for the usual fee, the architect’s soul (or, in some versions, those of the entire village). The deal is sealed, the bridge is finished in the night, but when the devil comes to collect his due, there is some anomaly in the contract that allows the architect to get away with all souls intact.

The Tree during a previous summer, with leaves.

And so it was with this Pont du Diable—it’s a sturdy bridge, still functioning, with no reported souls lost. It passes over the Gorge de l'Hérault, at the bottom of which we find the Hérault River. Once done examining the gorge, and the river (and, of course, the bridge!), we drove up the gorge to the village of St Guilhem.

On this visit we finally got clear that the “le-Désert” part of the name is not there because of the desert-like landscape (it’s dry, but certainly no desert!), but rather because when the town was founded, sometime in the 9^th Century, the desert was associated with Egypt which was seen as the Holy Land, where one might well wander for 40 days. So adding le-Désert to the name was more a way to sanctify it, rather than describe the territory.

With that out of the way we continued into the village to explore. The first, and mandatory, stop was under the vast spreading tree in the village square. Mary explained that this was officially one of the most impressive trees in France (there is an actual designation for that), and she saw it in a movie some time back. How satisfying to sit under it and sip coffee in the shade of its trunk! (Still no leaves in early March.) It is quite old, having been planted in 1855. Or maybe 1848, depending on who you want to believe. Either way, it’s old, and impressive.

Views in the town.

 Next stop was the 13^th Century Romanesque church and its cloisters, some of which were removed and installed at the Cloisters Museum in New York City. I’m quite intrigued by the whole story of the sale of these cloisters and asked Debra to look in on the originals when she visits NYC in a few weeks. (Although her plans have recently changed: no one is keen on traveling until the COVID virus works itself out!).

Some of the remaining cloisters (that's Debra at the far end).

Mark tosses a coin into the fountain. It is unknown if this ensures a return to St Guilhm...

Back wall of the church.

After wandering through, and photographing, the very picturesque village, we retrieved our  lunch and found a table in the picnic area. We settled in, enjoying our baguettes and a variety of cheeses, olives and a bottle of wine. Meanwhile, I noticed our French neighbors eating potato chips and hot dogs. (After that, I soooo wanted some potato chips…)

That's Mark on the right, taking the photo, with his wife Mary; Debra on the left with Paula; and me right in the middle.

Done eating, we elected to head on to the next village on our list, rather than exploring the hiking trails climbing out of St. Guilhem. With only a few minutes left on our parking meter we loaded up the car and headed out, leaving our parking spot to a grateful new arrival. We wound down the hill and back to the river gorge, where we followed the twisting, hilly road to St-Martin-de-Londres.

A parting shot of St-Guihem

             St.-Martin-de-Londres

I had read of this town in a guide book last time we’d been in Montpellier (November). It had something architecturally noteworthy (the church, no doubt), and among the many old villages in the area, was one of the few worth mentioning. So, I figured there must be something there to see. Once in the town we found a public parking lot and headed out to look for the church.

The church at St-Martin-des-Londres

Another note about names: Londres apparently derives from a Celtic word, lund, meaning swamp. No connection to the city in England. Apparently.

We wandered down the stone streets and through a narrow passage, and there was the church, in a small square surrounded by ancient stone houses. We poked around for a bit, admiring the buildings and the views. Then, a well-dressed older man wandered through the square, leading a full-grown sheep. Oh. Now, THIS was interesting…

We gather 'round Blanchette and her human.

Blanchette

Once he had an audience—the five of us—he began to recount the story of the sheep, named Blanchette. It seems some time back a woman had stopped along the road and stepped into the woods on, ah, personal business when she discovered a new-born lamb, recently abandoned by its mother, who’d run off with the rest of the herd. She brought it to the village where it was taken in and raised by our narrator. Once we got that story straight, our new friend explained that he was the local historian, and clearly a raconteur. He regaled us for the next hour and a half with stories of the local history.

He was a very animated story teller...

It seems the church had been built—well, the initial building was just a chapel, the current building came along a few centuries later—by monks from the monastery at St-Guilhem-du-Désert (where we’d just been). At the time there was nothing here, just woods and rock, but the spot was of interest because of constructions by the Celtic Druids, who were drawn to it by the intersection of magnetic energy lines. So the monks built a chapel on the sacred spot (in the 7^th Century, apparently), a community began to grow, and the story took off.

OK, Blanchette, time to go home...

After a time a woman—our raconteur’s wife, I think—took Blanchette home, but the stories continued. About the Revolution (in the 1790s), and how Catholics were trapped in the church by Revolutionaries, but some managed to escape through the secret tunnel and made it to Montpellier, and three days later (it’s a long way, without a car) soldiers came and everyone was rescued, but we could still see the burn marks on the outside walls from the fires that had been set. Exciting stuff!

St Martin himself, over the entry to the church.

And, inside the church.

But the sun was getting low, so we said our goodbyes. After a few final stories we made our way back to the car, and were soon on the highway returning to the big city. All in all, a very fine day.

Ancient houses surrounding the church.

And I think we all agree, we say YES to OuiCar. A great inexpensive way to get out of the city for a day!

This will be the last of our regular blogs. With most stores and events shut down, and travel discouraged, we’ll be staying in. We will, however, continue reporting on life in France under these unusual circumstances. And, of course, our reaction to them!

We Go to Paris--The Quai Branly Museum

There is, of course, no end to the museums in Paris. While we had come on this trip expressly for the Leonardo display at the Louvre (see that blog here) we'd planned to have an extra  couple of days in Paris. And of course, finding something to do here is never a problem!

A museum I had never heard of, that Debra was keen on seeing, was the Quai Branly (full name: Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac), just east (upstream??) of the Eiffel Tower. What a mind bender it turned out to be!

Spearheaded by former French president Jacques Chirac—while former American presidents endow libraries, it seems former French presidents start museums—it contains artifacts from the indigenous peoples of Asia, Oceana, Africa, and the Americas. And in both layout and content, it provided an ongoing jaw-dropping experience.

A note on the name:  apparently it is named for the street it is on, the Quai Branly, honoring the scientist Edouard Branly. This was in an attempt to avoid any issues with “political correctness” that might have been raised through using words such as First, or Primitive, or Native Art, or Museum of Man.

Entry into the display area is via a long and winding ramp, a sort of birth canal, which has, flowing through it, a river of words. The words, thrown bright and white on the dark carpet from projectors overhead, are in hundreds of languages and designate geographical features around the world. As we wound up the ramp towards the displays it was almost like battling upstream through the rapids as the illuminated words flowed around us.

And then we arrived into a vast, dark space, filled with brightly-lit exhibits. Stunning. Statues, sculptures, carvings, fantastical shapes. We moved among the items in the darkness, stunned and amazed. I had no idea such things even existed! As we made our way from display to display we were unaware of where, exactly, we were in the museum, or how much more there was to see, or where the exit was. We were lost; wandering, not knowing what was next nor where it would end.

(When the museum opened in 2006 not all the reviews were positive. One negative review from the New York Times carried the perfect journalistic title: “Heart of Darkness in the City of Light”)

Our greeting, at the top of the ramp.

A bronze drum from China, made something like 2000 years ago; this one found in VietNam where it was a symbol of power; used in funeral ceremonies for important people. I soooo wanted to strike it... 

This new museum contains the collections from the former Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie (National Museum of Arts of Africa and Oceania) and the Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Man), plus a bunch of new stuff as well. All in all there are something like one million items, of which only a small number (like, say, 35,000) are on display at once.

Carvings, large and small.

... and very intricate!

We found ourselves overwhelmed; it was all we could do to take it in. Details such as dates and places were irrelevant!

Note how the window in the background is painted to give a jungle-y feel to the room. Drum from the Nunez River, Guinea

Masks...

And then, least you lose track of which continent you are on, you turn the corner and... 

Incredibly colorful Carnival costumes from a century ago; Peru.

We wandered for well over an hour until we felt thoroughly saturated and overawed. I think we missed some areas up on the mezzanine, but we were pretty full by then! On the way out I noticed a large darkened cylindrical room, perhaps four stories high, that appeared to contain musical instruments. At several levels I snapped some photos…

Enormous collection of musical instruments, not yet put out on display 

We found ourselves being carried back down the ramp by the flowing words. We eventually took refuge in the café (every good museum has a café!) to catch our breaths before starting the long trek back to our rental, and were rewarded with a seemingly larger-than-life-size view of the Eiffel Tower. The kind you only see in movies. (Needless to say, the prices at the café took the view into account!)

As sunset was coming on, we pried ourselves from our cozy café seats and strolled along the Seine, enjoying an incredible sunset display on this amazing, cool but clear wintertime Parisian evening.

Pont Alexandre III at Sunset

Strolling the Streets of Paris

Of course, not every minute of our time was taken up with enclosed passages and amazing museums. We strolled the streets, admiring the endless sights. Without much more discussion, let’s just see what we found…

Palais Garnier, otherwise known as the Opera.

A golden detail from the roof.

We peered into the window of this amazing shop...

Other curiosities in the window from that same shop.

Oh, a staute of Louis XIV! In Paris (left) and in Montpellier (right). Why should Paris have all the good stuff?

A little glimpse of Sacré-Cœur, about two kilometers away.

Another gorgeous sunset along the Seine.