PARIS SANCTUARY
February 21 - MAY 2, 2001

11 rue Castex - Our home
It was quite sudden. One minute we are in Singapore and the next we are in Paris. Tired, weighed down with bags, we found Allain at our Apt Rental Agency and he got us the keys to our apartment. We picked up a box from him, which we had shipped with some winter clothes (we had none) we had bought in Bangkok, as well as the keys and so we had way too much to carry to our new home, but after a taxi ride, we found 11 rue Castex, however there were no directions on how to find our apt. Three buildings, three staircases, and we wandered around, trying to find our apartment which did not have any sort of number or label. I started knocking on doors; I was tired and I wanted to relax, dammit. Luckily, they were all too French to open their door to the likes of us. Laura found Carmen, the concierge, and she gave us the instructions to our apartment. And so it began.

Upon entering, we unpacked with as much relish as we had packed our bags, back in July. We went out to walk the streets and sights. The buildings were so beautiful and quaint, all the cafe's, with their heaters out and turned on high because February in Paris is very cold. We were not prepared, so we had to put on all of our clothes. My faux Polo sweater from Bangkok was getting a workout it never thought it would. We ate a French lunch at Le Reveil on Henri IV; Laura had the beef, I had the special of the day, beans and ham, and it was amazing. No rice, no noodles, just a little down home French cuisine.

As I type this, we have a little over two weeks before we leave and the days just flew by. We have been writing quite a bit on our website, so our Paris section is going to be quick and dirty. Our apartment is 60 square meters, the the Marais and was perfect for us. Absolutely. I could be in the main room, Laura could be in the bedroom, and the world did not end. We could be in two different rooms! How fantastic is that? After sharing a hotel room and being together every waking moment for 7 months, having two rooms was heaven. The decor is a little Japan, a little cheap Turkey in the shape of red fuzzed carpets, a little French antique, and a big cracked mirror. It was cracked when we got here. We can hear the bells ring outside, but luckily the last bells are at ten at night and start at seven in the morning. Our views are little chimneys, ivy covered walls and a school where boys study hard when not looking into our living room!

We hooked up the laptop, fought with our ISP until we figured out it is cheaper for us to call the States than use the French networks. Instead of 25 cents a minute for Intnernet, we call servers in Santa Clara, California for 10 cents a minute. We have speakers for the laptop, and my good friend, my yellow, Don Bauman sent me 1,200 minutes of music, hardcore 70's classic rock and cheesy 80's heavy metal, so we have been rocking out. (Editor's note: Aaron has been rocking out, Laura has been asking him to wear his earphones) In Singapore I bought the Star Wars series on VCD so we have been watching that as well as Toy Story 2 which I saved on our harddrive in Bangkok. I bought a pirated copy of Dungeon and Dragons in Phuket and The X-Men as well. And back in January Don Bauman sent me Titan A.E., so we had some movies to watch. The TV, all dubbed in French, except we watched Ally McBeal on Saturday nights.

One of the best parts of living where we do is that everything, everything is close. A main Metro station (Bastille) with 3 lines is just outside our door, line 1 we go down the Henri IV entrance, line 5 we go on the Rue Saint Antoine entrance, and get this, we don't even have to cross the street when we walk to buy grocieries. To go to our bread shop, we take a left on Rue Saint Antoine and buy Pain Complet and Pain de Campagne (the best!), for about two bucks for both loaves, and then we also sometimes get Religieuses there. A Religieuse is kind of like an eclair with an attitude. Mon Deiu. On Sundays we go to Cafe Francais and buy a carre aux almonds which is heavenly, but not good for people allergic to almonds! But on most days, after buying bread at our shop, we would head to our fruit and vegetable stand across rue Castex and past an Anglican church. At this stand on weekends there is a very friendly woman but on most days there's an old guy and a guy with a moustache. The old guy always tries to stiff us with bad quality produce or have us buy the most expensive stuff. But we learned that trick and either go to the moustached guy, the young guy, or the woman for help. Or, if we get the older guy we make sure to look around for the cheaper stuff (don't need oranges from Tunisia, Spain will do just fine). We're in France remember, so you can't pick your own produce, you must point, be careful not to touch or they will quickly remind you, and request how many of that item you want.

Further on down was another bakery where we would buy our sweeties, a Royal Chocolat, an Opera, or bread when our other store was closed. Yeah, we eat a lot of bread! Across another little street is our butcher, and they weren't very nice, but the quality of the meat is amazing. Laura would send me out to get the meat and I would shudder. The butcher's just didn't speak any English, and my French, well, it is pretty much, "I don't speak French, I'm sorry. Do you speak English?" Two steps from the butcher was a chicken stand, sellling baked chicken, cooked potatoes, and little salads. Their chicken was to die for! A little ways from the chicken stand was a store where we would buy our pate for pate campange sandwiches. Yum! We also bought sausage at this little shop, called a Battieserie, and they were very nice, but again, no English. Further down the same street we get to Monoprix, kind of life Safeway meets K-Mart. We would only go there for our milk (no non-fat milk in France, only demi-creme, yeah right, a whole lotta creme if you ask me), Coke Light (a huge treat for Laura), Orangina, chocolate bisquits and yogurt. Back out onto the streets, right before getting to Eglise St. Paul-St. Louis (a church and metro stop) we come to our fromagerie. It's the cheese, Gromit! In Nantes while with French friends, we wrote down a list of cheeses to buy and we then went to our fromagerie and began to buy. But you have to rememeber, the Pate, the cheese, yeah in the States it's expensive, but in France, it's cheap-cheap! It's French, but no import taxes! Also at this fromagerie they had this home-made gnocci, and man, that was our stable meal for many a visitor, on many a night. We'd buy blue cheese for salads, cheddar for tacos, grier and creme freshe for the gnocci, extra aged amilise, funky ash cheese, drippy, goey, cheese triangles, and chevre, a hundred kinds of chevre. Then back to the apartment, with the bread sticking out of the bag, the whole deal.

Going eight months without familiar foods, I missed my mother's cooking and Laura mised her mother's cooking! So we had my family recipes for Green Chili and Burritos, Tacos, French Toast, Pancakes, Chipped Beef, ham and cheese croissant roll ups. Laura also made her mother's ham, cheese, and macaroni casseorole and her chicken and rice casserole. We had a gas stove with oven, and I burned all the hair off my arm trying to light it. We also had a full size refrigerator, quite a find for Europe.

You might be thinking, they are in France and they are eating easy bake instant croissants with ham and cheese? They have access to world class cuisine and they are eating chipped beef? Com'on? Well, seven months in Asia will do that to you and eating out in Paris is very expensive. When we did eat out, we'd eat at Le Reveil, at Cafe de la Post, at the best restuarant in Paris along the Place de Vosges, but cooking in was a lot of fun. A big thanks to Julie (Laura's sister) for bringing a frozen macaroni casserole and a bevy of Mexican food supplies as well as a bag full of Taco Bell sauce packets! Big thanks to Kristen who brought us another shipment of Mexican food, and for Peter who brought me computer gear. We got lucky a few times and got genuine French meals in French people's homes. We ate at Amandine's parents house in Nantes and with Peter's friends, Xavier and Segolene, and Xavier's parents, Gerard and Therese. The food was wonderful where ever we went! We would have a multitude of courses followed by cheese followed by dessert. We soon learned to pace ourselves.

What did we do while were here? We took long walks at first, around the neighborhoods, around Place de Vosges down the Seine, in and around Notre Dame, snuck into Sorbonne, and walked down the jardin next to the Louvre. We watched movies, we read, we slept a lot, we thought, wrote, prayed and meditated on the world and our part in it. We worked on our taxes and our money. George W. got his share this April 15 from us. We planned the next part of the trip and Laura played a great deal of solitaire. I played a Dig Dug knock off for awhile, but it was only a trial version and I quickly got to the end of it. We wrote emails and I worked on my novel. We even printed out book one, Everywhere, and Laura went through with a red pen and I went back through it and corrected the edits. I pretty much rewrote Everything, book two of my trilogy and went through that a couple of times. We surfed the web for info on Southern Africa and literary agents, and we worked on our website. I wresteled with video editing software, feeling like Jacob and the angel, and I left crippled. We hung out with our visitors, went clothes shopping for our emaciated, India shrunken bodies, bought uncomfortable shoes that looked so good but made our feet hurt.

What an absolute treat it was. 11 rue Castex will be in our memories for a long, long time. Leaving 11 Rue Castex felt like leaving Santa Clara, a whole new trip, a new series of saying goodbye. A week before we left, Laura and I found St. Gervais, a place where the monks and nuns of Jerusalem have prayers. We would get up early and go, and listen to the monks and nuns sing. It was beautiful, and it settle us down. Trying to find a home in the spirit, Laura is reading a book by Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, and she keeps saying, "It's all a path to God." Leaving Paris, we enter back into the monastery of the world. On to Africa.

The Parlor of 11 Rue Castex

Lunch Served - Pate Sandwiches for all

Audio Clip - The Sounds of Easter Mass at Notre Dame

We love gargoyles! -- A Saint Chapelle Gargoyle, A Batgoyle, a Chartre Doggoyle!A Gargoyle of Notre Dame If you throw a rock in Paris you'll hit a church, the rock will bounce off a gargoyle, and then it will hit a museum!

The Champs-Elysees for Jennifer Herrera
From her email - "Isn't that poetic, April in Paris? Are you writing poetry and sipping coffee by the Seine? Eating brie and baguettes on the Champs-Elysees?...find that webcam on the Champs Elysee and stand in front of it so we can all see you living the glorious bohemian life."

A good picture of Aaron and Laura after a haircut.

Steve Jankowski captures our Paris Flat Moments

Take me to A Quick Bit of Nantes