Bercy

Here in Paris, Ally is working at the Service Historique de l'Armée de la Terre (Army Historical Service), Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library), and Archive Nationale (National Archive). Maybe she will write about that sometime. Today she was at the BN.

Sam and I took Eli to meet Ally after work. We rode the métro to Cour Saint-Émilion so we could go to Bercy Village and nearby parks. The Saint-Émilion used to be the center of the Paris wine trade. Wine would come to Paris by river and be unloaded there, so there was a big warehouse complex. Nowadays, of course, wine is not shipped that way. The warehouse area has been converted to parks and a sort of outdoor mall on the Towne Centre Shoppes model. There's a great movie theater, too, as well as a big sports-concert arena (the Palais Omnisport) and the Ministry of Finance (which French newspapers refer to as "Bercy" the way ours call the Department of Defense "the Pentagon"). It's all right across the Seine from the BN's new location in Tolbiac. Like the airport north of Paris, the BN is officially named for a French president--François Mitterand--but everyone calls it by the old place name. So it was easy for Ally to come find us.

Eli enjoyed the parks. He even got to ride a carousel, which was old and made of wood the way I guess they used to be. Eli had to have a ticket, but Ally rode free as his adult accompanier. (I was just wondering what the word for "one who accompanies" would be, and Blogger's spellcheck waved accompanier on through. Astonishing.)

Last night's dinner ended up being ravioli and salad. Tonight I made a bolognaise sauce. I really need to break out of this Italian rut! Sam got bread for us tonight and was lucky to get baguettes fresh out of the oven. They were still warm we he got them home. Some of you may be aware of the alarming level of butter consumption during this trip. Apparently the butter here in France is better than at home, so people who don't normally use it back in America have begun spreading it on everything they eat. You know who you are. I still can't tell the difference between French grocery store butter and Land O'Lakes, but the bread was even better with butter on it.