Buddha’s Relics

                         Joanna had to cover up with a shawl
                          to enter the temple.

Dec. 21, 2013

The view of Chinatown from the room looks roughly like a cross between Queens and Kowloon—tall, utilitarian structures to pack people in. The view from the elevator bank, is quite different. There are rows of low buildings with terracotta roofs. The streets are pleasantly narrow and there is a prominent structure with low eaves not far away.

It was a temple, the man at the desk said. So we went there. Turns out, it isn’t just any temple. It is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, maybe the top entry on my see-list for Singapore. About six blocks or so from the hotel. Who knew? Not me, certainly.

And it sits next to a market.

It doesn’t get better than that. Well, sure it does, but not in public, without chemical assistance, and with your clothes on.

The stroll from the hotel is down little streets with arcades over the sidewalks. There are commercial establishments, a gym that promises to unleash my inner beast, and several French and Korean restaurants.

We got to the temple neighborhood. It was upscale Asia: the street overhung with strange trees (I guess if you’re from here there not strange), the heat and humidity of the air balanced by a breeze, cars and a few bicycles zipping past. It’s only when we got to the steps of the temple and saw the sign that I realized my luck. Wow, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.

I had read about this in two guide books. It isn’t old, perhaps 10 years or so. I forget how the tooth got to Singapore. There is one other tooth shrine, in Burma.

The ground floor of the temple leads into a ceremonial chamber with monumental Buddhas and Bodhisatvas. To one side is the Hundred Buddha Wall, with figures of various sizes. Some larger ones in niches are surrounded by smaller bas reliefs, about the size of my hand.

Altars are dedicated to various Bodhisatvas, the enlightened teachers, including Kuan Yin. As always, I stopped to say a Hail Mary there.

The second floor is a museum of Buddhist culture. Stone, silver-, and gold-leaf figures represent various periods of art. There was far more information than I was able to absorb.

One piece, carved from dark stone, was almost 2,000 years old, and it was one of the newest acquisitions of the museum.  The relics of the Buddha were divided into eight portions after he was cremated, for distribution to eight kingdoms. Asoka, the Buddhist emperor of India, collected them all and redivided them into 84,000 portions.

The relics are venerated, much as saints’ relics are venerated in Catholic churches, as symbols bringing one psychologically closer to the spiritual.

There is a display of eight Buddhas, each with an empty bowl. Each figure’s hands are in a different position, and each position signifies something different, but exactly what they mean is among the many things that I didn’t absorb.

They are near a room where photography is forbidden. It holds relics of the Buddha. The reliquaries are glass in frames and hold tiny crystallized spheres. Each is identified with a different part of the body—hair, blood, bone, nose, flesh. This kind of thing is right up there with the Eucharist. I’m not sure what I believe, if anything, but I take Communion.

These are matters of tradition and the poetry of it all takes precedence over analysis.

Like saying “Hail, Mary” in front of the image of Kuan Yin.

Speaking of whom, I learned something more. Kuan Yin is the Mandarin name for Avalokitesvara (which I do not know how to pronounce). In India, Avalokitesvara is male. It was when the Buddhist traditions were brought to China that Kuan Yin became female. The Cantonese name sounds like “Gun Yum.”

We walked out the far side of the temple and strayed right into a street market. These things are so much fun. I’ve been to a couple of them in Amsterdam. But there is something about Asia that’s even better. Stands sold everything from fresh vegetables to “I love Singapore” key chains.

Joanna stopped to get cocoanut water, and I had sugar cane juice. Neither one tastes the way I expected.

Just in case that was too healthful, we stopped at a table by the curb and shared a 20-ounce bottle of Harbin beer. It is almost near-beer. The label lists it as 3.6 percent alcohol by volume. So all 20 ounces had about the same kick as a 12-ounce lager.

After that we decided to stroll back to the hotel. I knew the way and led us up a street and around a bend, and boy, my feet were getting sore. I had gotten us lost. I hailed a cab. “We’re lost. We need to go to the Orchid Hotel on Tras Street.”

The driver laughed a little and pointed. “It’s right there.”

I am so glad I hailed that cab. I had led Joanna past the hotel and was still headed in the same (and now wrong) direction.

I remembered how it works in New York. I offered to pay the driver for opening his door. Maybe there’s no charge for that here. He seemed confused. Joanna, mindful of the condition of my feet, said, “Since we’re in the cab, why don’t you just drive us over there?”

And so he did.

The base of the hotel building is lined with shops, including several Japanese restaurants. We went to Gyoza King. Gyoza are Japanese fried dumplings. We had them filled with pork, along with a plate of stir-fried tofu with minced pork gravy, and fried cabbage with bell peppers. That and a Sapporo made dinner and I was done in.

We stopped at a convenience store called Cheers for some staples—yogurt, beer, and chocolate. That’s where I found my favorite local beer so far. It’s called Baron’s, “brewed in the classic European tradition, and inspired by a Black Forest brewmaster’s timeless recipe.” (That’s right from the label.) At almost 9 percent ABV, it’s a perfect nightcap.

Good night.

Hello, Singapore

Dec. 21, 2013

Got here just fine. The planes were late at every stage, so connections were easy.

It was two hours and change to Chicago, 18 hours to Kong Kong, and another four to Singapore.

By the time we got to Hong Kong, I was so tired, I didn't even want a beer. there was still a little gout left in my feet, so I took a pain killer and don't remember much about that last leg of the trip. I think I was actually able to sleep a bit.

We got to the Orchid Hotel around three in the morning. Joanna was in much better shape than I was. Maybe she was able to get more sleep during the trip. Probably it's because she is tougher.

I had booked rooms from the 21st. We arrived on the 21st, but about 12 hours before check-in time. There was space available so we booked an extra night and slept till 10 in the morning.

We had to ask the waitress in the hotel restaurant this morning what day of the week it was. God, I love that—being so far away you can't be sure what day it is.

We had two versions of a dish called char kway teow, which had cockles, chicken bits, sliced fish cake, prawns, red chilis, noodles, and secrets in it. I had the Singapore version which was heavy on soy sauce, and delicious. Joanna had the Penang, which was white.

There's a temple not far from the hotel, so we will stroll in that direction this afternoon.

Today's photo is the view from my hotel room window.

More later.

Dec. 21

Welcome back to Asia, Grasshopper!

See you next Saturday!

Larry 

Avoir Paris

October 18

Considering all the things that have happened at the Bellevue—broken toilet seat, room change, wifi slowdowns that banished me to the lobby, a planned power outage—our last day in Montmartre went really well.

I was out of the hotel looking for coffee and something baked at maybe 7:30. It was the middle of the night out there. It was still dark, a little misty, and very few people were on the street anywhere. Even the earliest shops were just opening up.

Bread’s what we needed. We had bought fruit and yogurt the day before. I wound up walking half way to Pigalle before I found a shop selling bread. There was a cut loaf on the shelf, so I asked for the “demi baguette” and felt very worldly.

Back on the Rue d’Orsel, the streetside counter of the grocery store was just starting to set out some pastry. I ordered two coffees to go. They serve it in soft plastic cups without lids, but I managed to get both of them to my room without spilling.

We checked out of the hotel and left our bags, so we could do some wandering. We took a few back streets and wound up on Boulevard de Magenta again.

We stopped at a cafe around 10 or so where Joanna had hot chocolate and I had a glass of Bordeaux. We had seen a large building surmounted by statuary, but hadn’t gone there the day before because our route from the market took us in the other direction. This time we went to see. It’s a monumental railroad station called the Gare du Nord.

The statues represent cities connected to the station by rail. They include Berlin and London. Today there’s a tunnel, but when the station was built, sometime in the 1860s, I guess the rail trip included a Channel crossing by ferry.

Inside, the roof is that beautiful late 19th century ironwork, much like the St. Quentin market.

When we got to the market this time, it was open for business. It’s always fun to see the colors and shapes of things in markets, even at home. But in Europe or Asia, there are different things to see. Here there were whole mackerel and sea bass, tuna heads, piles of shellfish, including a pink-shelled scallop called St. Jacques. I wonder if it’s what they make coquilles St. Jacques from.

We passed a counter specializing in Portuguese food where Joanna recognized chopped pigs’ ears. The far side of the counter was a kitchen, and the lady was starting to serve lunch. The lady spoke Spanish and French, but no English. So I was able to tell her I don’t know how it’s called in French. I said “cochon” and pulled the top of my ear. The word I wanted, as I later learned, is “oreilles.”

The lady suggested vin blanc. OK. She brought us a half bottle of Casal Garcia vinho verde, a tasty Portuguese white. Why it’s called green I don’t know because I keep forgetting to look it up. I may have a bottle of Casal Garcia in the fridge at home right now. If you don’t know what to get somebody for a gift when you visit at Christmas, a bottle of red and a bottle of Casal Garcia will work: red and green wine just like Santa brings.

Pork is right up there with snails and chicken on my list of favorite meats, well ahead of beef or shrimp, for instance. So far I have eaten feet, neck, tendon, knuckle, and the usual chops, hams, ribs, etc. Sausage, of course, is one of my basic food groups.

This was my first time eating the ears. They have some tasty meat, lots of pleasant fat, and also cartilage, which gives them crunch. As Joanna told me, that’s the fun of eating pigs’ ears. They came with a mildly hot sauce on the side. Not my favorite part of the pig, but a lot of fun nonetheless.

When we left the market, we walked past the front and then turned left. We were not paying too much attention to the names of streets so I’m not sure how we wound up on Rue La Fayette. That was going to take us to the department stores, so I looked at the map.

We veered off onto Rue Lamartine, one of those narrow streets and eventually came to a crossroads called the Place de Something. I couldn’t find it on the map but I knew where we were, at the top of Rue Lamartine. It had been a while since the Casal Garcia and pigs’ ears, so we went into the cafe. There is always a cafe. A jolly short lady waited on us and also told me where the toilettes were.

This is hardly the first time I’ve seen this here, but you rarely find it in the States. You pass through a door into a unisex washroom, with sink, dryer, etc. There are two small closets, one with the silhouette of a guy in a suit, the other of a lady in a skirt. It’s private, but not that prissy American idea of private.

I remember the 1970s. When the Equal Rights Amendment was coming up for the plebiscite, opponents started a story that it would mean the end of separate men’s and women’s rooms in public places. That must had secured the shy vote, because the ERA failed to pass.

Joanna had a crepe with Nutella because, one, they didn’t have what she really wanted, which was chestnut sauce, like one she had in Avignon, and two, she wondered what the hell Nutella is. It’s a chocolate sauce, but not too sweet, so she liked it in small doses. Nutella may be in the A&P back home, but I’ve never seen anyone buy it.

I had Bordeaux and Joanna shared some of the crepe Nutella with me.

Outside the cafe was the back of an old church. We went around the front and discovered that it is Notre Dame de Lorette. It’s old, maybe 17th century. The interior is decorated with Baroque paintings, scenes from the life of the Virgin, and from the Gospels.

One of the side chapels is devoted to St. Therese of Lisieux, as in Sacre Coeur.

In the transept, on the right as you face the sanctuary, there is a dome whose four pillars are each devoted to a different virtue. One is Fortitudo, in which Jesus is called the Fortitude of Martyrs. The other three are Fides, Spes, and Charitas. These involved such themes as not fearing to die, and expecting the resurrection, and visiting prisoners. I remembered St. Paul: “Faith, hope, and charity: there abideth these three, but the greatest of these is charity.”

Appropriately enough, I guess, we took Rue des Martyrs back to Boulevard Rouchechouart and the hotel.

We cabbed to the Mercure Orly Aeroport Hotel. There’s a sign at the Bellevue that warns the cab ride usually costs 50 euro. You have to go across the entire old city from the Montmartre through the Left Bank to the southern suburbs. We were leaving at rush hour. The lady at the hotel desk had to call twice to get us a cab.

I expected to pay a premium, but no, the fare came to 50 euro 20.  So I was ahead of the game.

The hotel is fine, like every airport hotel I’ve visited. Not like every one. the hotel at Lantau in Hong Kong had all kinds of bars and restaurants. This had only one. It was OK, which is to say it was the worst restaurant meal we had in Paris. If I was somewhere else—say in Holland, or even England—the food would have been more than OK. But compared to what we have been finding in France, this was American bar food, and kind of bland.

The St. Jacques, juicy scallops served en brochette, wrapped in bacon, with a side of Napa cabbage were very good, but not oh-wow surprising or bursting with flavor. The duck breast had to be the blandest duck I’ve eaten anywhere. Good, but only good.

We had a nice St. Emilion by the glass, and then I ordered a half bottle of Burgundy. It was a white called Macon Villages. I was surprised. For some reason I expected a red, but hell, I was half in the bag. It was strong enough to hold up against the duck so I was happy.

The best part of the meal was the creme brulee, which Joanna and I shared for dessert. The rich vanilla, controlled sweetness, and of course, pudding texture were perfect. Had I known, I would have been tempted to order three courses of that for dinner, along with the Macon Villages.

My father used to say that God watches over fools and drunks. That’s why I have always felt that my life has been doubly blessed.

My luck was in full swing by the time we left the Mercure in the morning. The shuttle was dead on time and took us to Orly Ouest, which may be where all the international flights leave and arrive.

The check-in counters aren’t lined up by airline as they are at Newark Liberty.

The terminal has four halls and lettered sections inside the halls. The departure board tells you the hall and section for your flight. We needed Hall 3 and Section D. Ever since I nearly missed my flight to Bangkok because I went to the wrong terminal, I am eager to get to an unfamiliar airport as early as I can. We were days early for our flight, so there were maybe a dozen people in line ahead of us.

When we got our boarding passes, we were assigned seats in the 12th row of the plane. Must be a small airplane to have economy seats in the 12th row.

We were sitting at gate 31, which is actually Gates 31 A through F. Our plane was to board at 31 B. There were announcements all over the place, but I didn’t hear one for British Airways 8001, which, as often happens, was combined with flights of two other airlines—Iberia and American, I think.

In any event, we were last to board, which is great because there are no lines, no waiting while people stuff the overhead bins. We get to row 12 and we are in business class.

God watches over fools and drunks. I got another upgrade. There are no built-in TVs on the plane. When the seat belt lights went out, the crew handed out iPads. The games were in French—real French, not pidgin French. I wasn’t in the mood for a movie. Who wants to watch the Lone Ranger by the Walt Disney studios?

I had to ask the kid across the aisle how to turn the damned thing off.

About an hour into the flight, it got even better. The drinks cart came by. I started with a short bottle of a 2012 Medoc, Chateau Moulin de Hontemieux. Joanna had apple juice.

My kind of fruit juice keeps the creative juices flowing because it lowers the inhibitions and convinces me that I am witty. So hell, I’ll write anything.

Joanna ordered more wine with lunch and so did I. She gave hers to me. I am really enjoying this business class.  Be well, all.

Harry

P.S. Got to Newark on time, a little after one, and breezed through border control. It would have been even faster, but the couple ahead of us were clearly Moslems, so were being fingerprinted and questioned and photographed.

Made it home by 3 in the afternoon.

Au Marché, Au Marché

October 17

In California it’s a prison, but in this part of Paris, St. Quentin is a market. We had passed it during the cab ride from Gare de Lyon to the hotel. So we decided to walk there.

It’s on the Boulevard de Magenta, which seems to be the discount alternative to the Champs Elysées. I could buy a black suit with gold pinstripes for about $150 American. A pair of pointy shoes was going for 25 euro, or less than $35.

But unfortunately, my luggage is pretty tight for space now. Maybe next time, I won’t pack anything. I’ll bring an empty suitcase and buy my clothes on the Boulevard de Magenta.

We stopped at a wine shop and bought another of those extremely low-priced bottles of estate wine, 5 euro 90 for Chateau Pier Rousselle ’09, a Bordeaux that won a silver medal at the Concours Général Agricole in Paris in 2010.

The Marché Saint Quentin was already closing for the day when we got there a little after one. Most of the stands were shuttered, a few more were in the process of bringing the shutters down. A butcher, maybe a baker, and a few fruit shops were open. I’m guessing the building is late 19th or early 20th century—beautiful ironwork, like an old train station, and the base of the wall is stone surmounted by a wall of decorative brickwork.

The photo of the day is “Joanna Goes to St. Quentin.”

Not much to do there, so we moved on. We passed a side street that looked pretty dense, and decided to go there. It was Rue Faubourg-St. Denis. I think I’ve heard of this place before. When, where, why, I don’t know. Maybe it’s disreputable for some reason.

It was on the way there that we passed the organ grinder.

At the end of the street is an arch with the dedication “Ludovico Magno,”  to Louis the Great. In 16 and something he did something. We had come to the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and followed it for a couple of blocks, when lo, there’s a second monumental arch dedicated to Louis the Great. This had words more including the words “Germanorum” “exercitibus” “superavit,” and “sub-something-or-other.”

My take is that Louis XIII fought and defeated a German army, and as a result took over some provinces. They could have been fighting over Alsace and Lorraine back then. I don’t know. Shakespeare didn’t write about these guys, so to me, they’re just kings.

If Louis XIII is the right Louis, then his mother is Maria de Medici, who commissioned the Tuileries. If it is some other Louis, then forget it.  Royal families are inbred, so they have a hard time even naming the heir apparent. Most French kings are named Henri or Louis. I was watching Jeopardy one night and the answer was “the last king of England who wasn’t named George, William, or Edward.”

The question (this is how contestants play Jeopardy) is “Who was James?” that’s James II in 1688. In 325 years, the royal Brits couldn’t come up with anything but three names for their kings. Genes will out.

We sat over a glass of wine at a cafe and realized we were headed in the wrong direction. Wrong in the sense that it was leading us away from Galeries Lafayette. We were trying to bear in that direction because it would keep us within reasonable walking distance of our hotel, and also of the Red Light district, if we needed to go there.

We stopped on the way for lunch. We were still headed in the same direction, but the name of the street had changed to Boulevard de Montmartre. The Cafe le Zephyr is next to Musée Guerin. I mention this because the musée is marked on our maps, in case I want to go back there again.

Joanna had crepes with banana, and I had saucisson frais and potatoes with cheese.

The Galeries Lafayette on the Rue de Lafayette are several department stores, a home store, a men’s store, a ladies’ store, maybe more. Very colorful. Went into the home store and saw stuff. Not my kind of thing. I’m trying to get rid of stuff at home.

We wandered some streets up the hill toward the hotel. We stopped in a park where there were stuffed animals hanging in the trees.

A man came up to sell me flowers. Non.

This pissed him off and he shoved the flowers in front of me and started to yell.

A salesman doesn’t make me say no twice. That pisses me off. So we had a mild confrontation while I told him, “Deux fois, non.” About that time I was already calculating, in case things got rougher, where I would step to kick him in the knee and get the most damage done.

He went off saying something about “merd.”

A man on the bench pointed his thumb toward his mouth: drunk.

Damn. I almost rolled a drunk. I felt mildly ashamed.

We got back to the hotel, took a rest and I opened the Pier Rousselle, another surprisingly good wine that was a lot of fun. As Bordeaux go, this wasn’t as smoky, but it had the taste of good fruit and an alcohol bite.

After all the walking we had done, dinner was going to be near home base. We went to the L’Anvers de Decor, where we had gone a few days earlier for a snack.  We had a whole grilled sea bass for one course and lamb shank cooked with rosemary for the second.

We had glasses of Bordeaux and Côtes du Rhone with that.

Perfect end to another perfect day.

Love to all.

                       Great wine at Le Consulat, Montmartre

Playing the Palace

October 16

We had a forecast of rain, so we decided pursue indoor activities today.

We wanted to be out of the hotel before the lights went out, so we left before 8 o’clock. After breakfast at L’Atelier, we took the Metro to the Concorde station, where we went yesterday.

The political demonstration was packed up and gone. There were no discernible bullet holes or blood stains in evidence, so I guess everything went peacefully enough.

We walked through the Tuileries to the Louvre. It took almost two hours to get inside the museum. The line snaked across the monstrous courtyard into a passage to the east side of the palace. It moved fairly fast, but everyone had to go through a quick security check, putting bags through a scanner, or at least letting a security guard look inside.

Then there were more lines to buy tickets. These were glacially slow because although there are four of more places to get tickets, each one had only one window open. 

Everybody has questions, so that slows the lines down more. The underground lobby is immense, noisy, and busy. This was my second time there in about a week, and I still had trouble orienting myself. We wandered around looking for the bag check, which is one place, and the coat check, which was closed, and the second coat check on the far side.

Wow. Time to sit down and get something to eat. That was Joanna’s idea. If we waited till lunch time, she said, everything would be so crowded that it could take hours. We shared ham and cheese on a baguette and an apple turnover. They didn’t sell wine at that counter, so I settled for orange juice.

Everything in the Louvre is worth seeing. The place is so big, though, that you’ll never do that, unless of course you have plenty of time on your hands, like maybe 50 years with no distractions. That big crowd filing in? They were distributed through all that space so you’d think they’d disappeared.

Last time we were at the museum, we saw Mona Lisa and part of the Renaissance galleries before the museum closed and we were chased out by security guards and a man with a push broom.

Today, I wanted to see one of the paintings highlighted on the museum plan, a Vermeer called The Lacemaker. On the map, it’s on the second floor, where the letter C is. This took me through some of my favorite territory, 17th century Holland and Flanders.

Many painters’ names were new to me. Others were familiar, Huysmans, Cuyp, and of course, Vermeer. We saw a painting of the Herengracht. The boats and the walk are different, but the buildings are the same today.

The Louvre has two Vermeers. I think there are about three dozen in the whole world. The Lacemaker has vivid light, maybe necessary to practice the craft. There are red or tan shadows in her yellow dress. I wonder if that is where Vermeer painted a surface of one color and then repainted another contrasting color over it.

This is one of the few technical details I know about masters and oils, especially Vermeer. So I mention it to sound smart.

The painting is tiny, like other Vermeers in the Rijksmuseum. It measures about 8 by 10 inches. The amount of detail on that small scale is amazing. Some red thread is spilling out of her basket. If you lean in, not quite close enough to set off the proximity alarm, you can see where the artist drew individual threads.

The lacemaker is wearing a collar that may show off her own work. The details of the lacework even at that small scale are so real that you know if you could touch the surface you would feel the lace.

Next to it is The Astronomer. This is one of the Vermeers with light coming through a window on the left of the picture. It seems to be a favorite orientation of his. The light falls on the astronomer’s face, his hands, and a globe. He is surrounded by a crescent shadow.

We went through several galleries, and even saw a wall of paintings by students and emulators of Rembrandt, but so far not one painting attributed to Rembrandt.

That’s because there is an entire room that’s all Rembrandt: self portraits with a hat, without a hat, with a cloth cap, young and old. There are landscapes, portraits of merchants. and the Supper at Emmaus. The guy could do anything, and nobody else could do it as well.

A two-hour walk through the Low Countries got us a little thirsty. We didn’t want to eat anything, so we went down to one of the cafeterias where I had a small bottle of Just Merlot from Pays d’Oc, while Joanna ate yogurt. 

That threat of having to eat Dutch food for two years if they mess up the wine must really motivate the French. Even this cheap stuff was smooth and fruity.

Next we decided to visit Venus de Milo. It’s also one of the most famous holdings of the Louvre, and so we’d see it to say we did. 

But first you work your way through galleries of Classical statuary. Some are so fragmentary that the appeal is lost on laymen. The interest is probably scholastic.

But most of the statues are striking, lots of butt cheeks and sleek limbs. Some of these stones were carved more than 2000 years ago, and once Rome fell, it took Europe more than a thousand years to relearn how to represent the human form that well. It must require a good knowledge of anatomy, and nearly magical handling of tools and stones. There are also bronzes, but the biggest and the most sensuous works are made of marble. 

The most spectacular room in this area of the museum is called the Salon des Caryatides.

As you go in, you pass under a colonnade held up by four caryatides. They are original to the palace and were carved in a neo-classical style sometime in the 16th or 17th century. Being French, they have huge nipples.

The rest of the room is filled with marbles from about the third or fourth century B.C. to the second A.D. There are several of Venus, others of Hercules, a couple of Silenus, and one of a sleeping hermaphrodite. There’s lots more, too, heads of emperors and other things too many to recall after only a half hour of looking.

Venus de Milo is in a separate room and very beautiful, but I didn’t see anything that distinguished it in quality or appeal from the several other Venuses, or even the Dianas, on display under the Room of the Caryatides. At least one of the other pieces, a fragment of a Venus torso, was more sensuous and suggestive.

Not quite ready to quit, we went to the Egyptian section, to see a large statue of Rameses. I was trying hard to show off and recite “Ozymandias,” but all I could remember was “I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Which is close, but not quite right.

For the record, the first of those two lines should read: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:” ending with a colon.

In any event, the full irony is lost on me. Sure, Ozymandias and his empire are long gone, but there was his statue. In France. Now that’s still pretty influential.

We spent at least six hours wandering the Louvre. It’s like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, only far bigger.

It rained most of the time that we were inside the museum. Today’s photo is the Eiffel Tower, seen in the rain from the Louvre.

We slogged through the wet sand of the Tuileries to the Metro station. As we often do, Joanna went for a rest when we got back to the hotel, and I drank wine.

We had dinner at a place up Rue d’Orsel called the St. Regis.

I was really craving food made of stuff that is usually tossed out back home. So we had snails, frogs’ legs, and something called “slice of neck pork.” We were handed menus in English, so I don’t know the original French name for that dish. 

The pork was a little tough, but tasty. The reason frogs’ legs are said to taste like chicken is that they seem only to be served fried. I’d like to try them done some other way, but haven’t had the opportunity so far.

I ordered the no-name house red in a half-liter carafe. If you order like that in the States, you can wind up with Opici, which ain’t going to poison you, but is made to sell for about 15 bucks a gallon. I used to drink it all the time, and still do now and then. 

But then came my downfall. Larry had to take me to a wine tasting three or four years ago in New York. It caused my wine bill to go up, but it did give me a new life’s ambition. Since then I have been trying to sample all the wines made in Western Europe. As well as the western United States.

Anyhow, this carafe at the St. Regis was a hoot. Wines are fruity, sometimes with a bite. Some people taste specific fruits, like plums, cherries, and so on. Many wines have a spicy aftertaste. Loire Valley wines often have a slightly mineral flavor, for instance. This one, whatever it is, was the first wine that ever gave me a hint of smoked ham. No kidding. As it was going down, I tasted hickory-smoked country ham.

After dinner, Joanna seemed to be doing just fine, but I had enough walking, high culture, and viniculture to fill one day, so I was ready to pass out. I came back to my room and did just that.

Sleep well, all.