Parc Monceau, Cernuschi Museum and a scare in the Metro

Overslept . . . needed to. We did our morning chores and hung wet laundry all over the house. Ed got all our glass recyclables together and we took them to the local recycling center at rue du Bac and blvd. St. Germain. Then we went over to Le St. Germain for lunch and sat upstairs where we had a wonderful waitress and a very good meal although Ed’s sea bass was probably better than my veal. The waitress talked Ed into a Pouilly Fuissé, my favorite white wine, so I was happy. Ed got crème brulée with a boule of ice cream on it and I got the superb profiterolles . . . perfect. [Le St. Germain, 62 Rue du Bac, 75007 Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 4548 9969 and no web site]

We took the Metro out to Parc Monceau and walked around taking pictures of flowers, follies and people. We were here on May Day a few years ago with the girls and it seemed all Paris was in the park. It was warm for May and there was one jogger going in circles all morning singing at the top of his lungs. It was pretty funny and you could always hear him coming. I'm sure he has a great future in opera. Today was more quiet but there were still a lot of people out and it was the perfect day. There were all sorts of activities including a really cute little boy chasing bubbles and much bigger boys playing soccer.

Then we exited the park to visit the Cernuschi Museum just outside the park gates. It is another of the free City of Paris museums. It is an Asian collection so we didn’t know what we were looking at but noticed statues smiled and were happy up to the Tang Dynasty (900ish) and then became very warlike and angry-appearing after 900. Need to read some Chinese history to find out what happened around 900. It couldn't have been good. [Cernuschi Museum, 7 Avenue Velasquez, 75008 Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 5396-2150; Cernuschi Museum web site]

We walked around to the Nissim Camondo Museum and it was nine euros so we skipped it as the day was growing short. It is a museum of French decorative arts in a beautiful old mansion, and may be a fun visit in the future. [Nissim Camondo Museum, 63 Rue de Monceau, 75008 Paris, tel: +33 (0)1 5389-0650; Nissim Camondo Museum web site]

We walked back to the park and found a bench in the shade and watched joggers and kids with either parents, grandparents or nannies. Truly fun was one little boy chasing bubbles. He never tired and he never caught one. Such joy and energy! This park is a real neighborhood draw. Everyone around seems to use it as their back yard. Love it.

It started to get late and I was getting chilly so we walked back through the park to our Metro station. We got on a nearly empty Metro to CDG-Etoile and the fun stopped. We crammed ourselves onto a very crowded #1 line to Concorde where we changed to an even more crowded train to our rue du Bac stop. Solférino is the stop before ours and as we approached the station, the train stopped and the lights went out. It’s very dark in the subway tunnel without lights! There was a brief inaudible announcement, and then we sat, half the train in the station and our half in the very dark tunnel. Someone said there were people on the tracks. Great.

Finally the lights came on and the train moved into the Solférino station and it was filled with riot police, but the doors wouldn’t open. We waited. The doors opened and a few people got out and no one got on. We made it to rue de Bac without further incident but our station was also full of riot police.

At home I checked my e-mail for “perturbations” but none were listed. The police were sure expecting something because they didn’t appear by magic. We listened to the news and checked online but never did find out what had happened. Another demonstration? Life is never boring here . . .