To the Left Bank...

It was a very noisy night with youngsters celebrating their youth almost directly under our window at 3.00 in the morning. I am not sure whether we are annoyed by the noise or by the fact that we are too old to even contemplate being up at 3.00 am let alone celebrating our long distant youth! But up we were so we did the only thing one can do at times like that and slept in this morning.

One of the things that constantly surprises us is the little blocks of flowers. Just behind the Marie of our district, there are two little areas which have elegant displays of flowers. They brighten an otherwise drab corner and seem to remind us that no matter how cold the winter might be, there will be a spring.

Virginia wanted to take me to a bookshop on the Boulevard Saint Michel to show me the whole department that is set apart for Les Bandes Dessinees or, “comic strips.” Well, they aren’t exactly comic strips rather they are reminiscent of what in my youth were called “classic comics” which were cartooned versions of well known books such as Jane Eyre or The Three Musketeers. The shop is huge with a tremendous range of works in a multiplicity of languages reminding one that the French still read! The store caters for students at the Sorbonne which is just around the corner so it is not surprising that it has a very well stocked six floors. With the exchange rate where it is, some of the books in English were actually cheaper here than in Australia. We also discovered that along the "Bou san Mich," as it is affectionately known, there are numerous bookstores many of which sell second-hand books in English at a much better price than you pay by going to the specialist English language second hand bookshops that are widely touted in all the travel guides. A great place to get that "trash" that we all read whilst travelling.

After a bite of lunch we walked over to the courtyard at the Musee de Moyen Age; truly a medievalist's delight. At the moment the museum is showing an exhibition of Asterix cartoons to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this delightful French cartoon strip.

For most of us, time is a luxury; for the French, time is a necessity of life. Let me give you two examples. Even as I prepare to send this I sit in Cafe Francoeur where over a glass of beer, some peanuts and olives, I will spend at least an hour. Virginia has a glass of Chardonnay and is reading the paper. We will be here for, I should imagine, a total of two hours. Nobody is bothered, it is just the "French" way. Next to us is a gentleman who arrived before us and has been nursing a cup of delicious looking hot chocolate. He is still there as we prepare to leave. Virginia was telling me about the other example. She was doing some food shopping and she noticed an elderly woman buying potatoes. Let me digress for just a moment. They have the most delicious tiny potatoes (similar to Jersey Royals) here. Well, this lady was meticulously picking them up, one by one, scrutinizing each and every potato with great care, and if it passed her inspection she would add it to her bag. At home we would just pick up potatoes willy-nilly, possibly discarding a rotten one or two, but she was making sure that every potato matched in size and shape.

This may be something that is only common, however, among older people. We also noticed that there are now a whole breed of "DINKS" who buy the pre-packaged, pre-cooked, expensive goodies. Why anyone would do this in a country which has such magnificent foodstuffs we cannot imagine; especially where food is not cheap and the pre-packed is much more expensive. Still, we see the same thing happening in Australia and a number of years ago, in England, kitchens were becoming a thing of the past with a microwave being the only "cooking" device in many homes. There, however, we have a sense of a return to cooking. Maybe it is the "Jamie" factor.

In the Courtyard Musee de Moyen Age