When it comes to sports, I am more of an athlete than a fan. Running, swimming, hiking, I want to be on the go! As a child, I learned to enjoying going to baseball games with my family and friends. In college, it was football games, rooting for the UCLA Bruins. Then I married a Montréal and discovered the accidental choreography of ice hockey. Living with Mr French, I started tramping out to the Stade de France in -0 weather to cheer on Les Bleus. Truth be told, I have loved every minute of it, but nothing has been quite as fun as last week’s visit to Roland Garros for the Women’s finals at the French Open.

Mr French and I were there as guests of a sponsor, so there was a delicious pleasure to walking up to a guard, giving our name and being invited in, without tickets in hand. We were early, but the grounds were already buzzing with true fans who were there to watch the seniors matches (remember McEnroe?) and the junior championship tournaments.

There is a booth, sponsored by Longines watches that lets people time their serves. Could they match the 200kmh of a male pro? Not many were up to the task, but a lot had fun trying. And, yipee for me, there is a tennis MUSEUM! Can you believe it? A museum at the arena? Not only that, but the collection is alot about fashion. The evolution of tennis shoes, the first sequined tennis outfit for an indoor match, and the history of the famous Lacoste logo. There was the beret of the Basque Bondissant, with air holes added for comfort, and a tin trophy made from scrap metal during the war.

There is also a more serious display dedicated to Roland Garros, a pioneer in aviation and valiant fighter during WWI. He was also a playboy, with a roll call of famous friends and a fascinating story. The final exhibit honors tennis during WWI, which began exactly 100 years ago.

Heading up to our seats, we were invited to touch the Susan Lenglen trophy that the Russian Maria Sharpova and the Romanian Selima Halep would be battling over in the afternoon heat. Our sponsor had invited guests from across the globe and it was a particular joy watching the match as cheers sounded out around us in Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese and English. There wasn’t a lot of French to be heard, because they are a much more sedate crowd and were complete drowned out by my Spanish neighbors. At one point I turned to the elegantly discrete French woman next to me and apologized for having made her jump when I shout in disappointment over a fault.

“Non, its is not a problem. I find it, uhm…. amusing.”

Our group was split evenly between those cheering for the prodigal Sharapova and the new comer Halep. It was an incredible afternoon, the second set going in to over time, and the entire match lasting more than 3 hours, bringing Sharapova to her knees when finally victorious, while Halep returned to her bench and composed herself under a towel.

Both women were extremely gracious during the awards ceremony, applauding each other’s efforts and skill and acting like the true sportswomen young girls can model themselves after. So now, I’m a tennis fan. Stay tuned for a visit to Wimbledon in the very near future…

Karen Samimi’s Thursday visit…

Arc de Triomphe

I’ve climbed the Arc de Triomphe (Arch of Triumph) several times since I’ve lived in Paris, with visiting family members. It happens to be a 20-minute walk from my apartment, and I’d been meaning to go back for awhile. I chose a cool, dry April afternoon, even though the skies were filled with both white and ominous-looking grey clouds. That didn’t matter though: the skyline appeared even more dramatic than if the sun had been shining brightly.

The Arc was constructed from 1806 and 1836 to glorify the armies of the French Republic and the Empire. The single arch is located in the middle of a square with 12 avenues radiating out from it, all of which are named after battles and famous people related to France’s military history. Originally named “The Star”, this square is now called Place Charles de Gaulle.

To reach the visitor’s entrance, take one of the short underground corridors leading from either the Champs-Elysées (near the Charles de Gaulle Etoile métro exit) or the Avenue de la Grande Armée.

The only elevator in the Arc is for employees and the handicapped, so visitors must walk up all 284 steps of the spiral staircase to visit the mezzanine at the top of the Arc. About half of the Arc is currently covered with scaffolding due to restoration work, but daily visits continue. A few steps below the mezzanine is the attic room displaying the history of the construction work and architectural models and sculptures.

Every evening at 6:30 pm, a ceremony for an unknown soldier at the flame of remembrance on the ground level within the Arc is conducted by one of France’s 900 veteran’s associations. The colorful ceremony may be watched either from the ground behind the crowd barriers or with a bird’s eye view via a horizontal video screen installed in the attic room.

The platform roof offers an impressive unobstructed view of the nearby Eiffel Tower and the rest of the Paris skyline and leafy avenues below. Large sculptures in high relief adorn the exterior walls of the Arc, and names of battles and generals are engraved on the inside walls.

Visitor information:
Open every day except January 1, May 1, May 8 (morning), July 14 (morning), November 11 (morning) and December 25
From April 1 to September 30: 10 am to 11 pm
From October 1 to March 31: 10 am to 10:30 pm
It takes about 1 hour for the visit, excluding the waiting line.
I found the line to be shorter after 4 pm on a regular weekday.
Last admission is 45 minutes before closing.

Access:
Métro lines 1,2, and 6 or RER A station Charles de Gaulle Etoile
Bus lines 22, 30, 31, 52, 73, 92 and Balabus

Entrance fees:

6 – 9.50 € for individuals
30 € for groups of 35 students maximum, including 2 adults
Free admission for:
Minors under 18 (family visit)
18-25 years old (for people under 26 years old who are citizens of one the 27 countries of EU or are non-European permanent residents of France)
Disabled visitors and their escorts
Unemployed
General public, on the first Sunday of each month from November 1 to March 31

That was what was going through my head, a elaborate garden party with elegantly clad madames and their equally chic monsieurs murmuring gaily over the clink of champagne glasses and bird song. In reality, we were just on a tour with a few hundred other very casually dressed Parisians, visiting the gardens at Matignon, the Prime Minister’s residence, which were open to the public this weekend for the Fête des Jardins.

The Fête is an annual event that encourages everyone in the country to get out and explore local gardens. In Paris it is a particular treat, as very few of us have gardens of our own. When the girls were little we’d take them to our secret garden, Square Catherine Labourré for planting workshops, bird house building and harvesting the potager (kitchen garden).

The girls are beyond that now, and I had forgotten about the Fête until we cycled by a small line outside a small open door in a very long, imposing wall. Mr French stopped pedaling and wanted to know what was going on.

The entrance to the Hôtel de Matignon is on the rue de Varenne, but the gardens end on the rue de Babylone, where I once lived, so I knew exactly what was on the other side of the door. We stopped in for a stroll and were enchanted by the gorgeous grounds. There were signs up all over the place, explaining quirky facts and interesting details. We learned about the dog cemetery from when this had been the Austrio-Hungarian embassy and the tradition of having each Prime Minister plant a tree on the grounds while in office. Past choices have included oaks, maples and Prime Minister Cresson’s ginko. Manuel Valles, the current Prime Minister will be planting his tree this fall, but has not yet selected a species. Looking like an abandoned war bunker, there was an old glacière, where ice was once stored for cool breaks on hot summer days.

There was a lot of staff around the place, too; police circulating on Segways to make sure everyone stayed off the lawn, gardeners answering questions and bee keepers introducing the monument’s most recent tenants.

The gardens are not particularly floral, but they a sumptuous place to stroll and dream of garden parties…

Appropriately, they used a dark color to show where the FN came out ahead.

That was the cover of Le Figaro Sunday night. France has just survived a political earthquake. The cover of the British Guardian paper was very similar in talking about the UK. On Saturday, three Jews were killed outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels. On Sunday two young Jews were beaten up in a suburb of Paris. But that is not what has everyone so upset. What is upsetting this week is racism and intolerance and a much bigger scale; the catastrophic results of Sunday’s EU elections, when several anti-EU parties gained seats to represent their countries in the European parliament.

The results have left much of the continent feeling the earth move under our feet. Not only are these parties against the EU, but they are against immigration in general, immigration from Africa and Asia in particular. With guerilla fighting going on around the airport in the Ukraine, there is an unsettling feeling of 1939 in the air.

In France, the results are a disaster; 57% of us didn’t even care enough to get out and vote against these intolerant racists.

My excuse? Everyone in my neighborhood was going to vote like I would, so my vote wouldn’t count anyway. Horrible logic, and now I regret it because the Front National, France’s racist, far-right wing political party has won the biggest part of European parliamentary seats in France. My vote would not have changed the results, but it may have sent out a clear message that the French care who represents them at the EU.

The truth is, many of us feel there is no one to vote for. The Socialist party that is currently running the government is an unequivocal disaster. They are consciously killing the economy to the point that very few French see things getting better for their children and there is a massive brain drain to countries where hope is encouraged. Or at the very least, not discouraged.

The UMP is the more right wing of the two major parties but they lack courage to make the changes that would be necessary for France to grow economically, or the foresight to foster tolerance in society. Even if they’d be an improvement, they are so deep in scandal over the misuse of funds that they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a federal budget.

There is a far-left political party, but communism didn’t work the first time around, and the French are not anxious to be the next guinea pigs. Which leaves the far-right Front National that is responsible for the recent seismic activity, winning more seats than any other party in France. The FN wants France to pull out of the EU and now they are representing us in its parliament. It boggles the mind. They are against immigration, would like a return to the franc and claim that the gas chambers in concentration camps didn’t necessarily exist. Their eleven mayors who were elected on the national level in April are doing really important things like outlawing hanging one’s laundry to dry out of one’s window, evicting human right’s associations and preventing the construction of a mosque. For the FN, France is a Catholic country, always has been, and really needs to be again. They are bad news and they are not alone.

UKIP, a similarly racist party excelled in the UK elections. It is a disaster with indifference among Europeans opening the door for intolerance. The crisis in the Ukraine, random violence against minorities and the current mood has some people very, very worried.

Maman French gets very angry when served oatmeal. I learned this last Christmas vacation when I pulled an apple-pear crumble out of the oven and she went into conniptions over the oatmeal laced topping, spouting out expressions like “donkey feed” and “during the war”. This little tantrum popped into my head last Friday afternoon as I started scooping oatmeal-chocolate chip cookie dough onto baking sheets, making the cookies I’d be bringing to the convent next door for the Fêtes des Voisins. I was assuming that the nuns would be about her age and suddenly panicked that they may have the same aversion to oats.

My assumptions were wrong. The nuns are of every age and from diverse backgrounds; there is a British nun and a sister from Rwanda. They greeted us warmly, showing us a buffet table set up in their cafeteria and invited us in to discover their tidy garden.

Before learning more about the Société des Auxiliatrices des âmes du Purgatoire, I was anxious to see inside the Neo-byzantine chapel I admire from my balcony every morning. Built in the 1870’s it is now a National Monument and the nuns gather here for mass every Thursday morning at 8:30, the harmonious singing of their prayers vibrating on the air to create a concert with the tap tap tapping of the keyboard in my living room. The church is a peaceful symphony of pale stone and gold studded mosaïcs, with a glass door that announces “Hope” to all who enter.

Marie-Françoise was the first nun to greet me outside and I immediately began peppering her with questions; What was their order? What did they do? What did she?

The Auxiliary Sisters of Purgatory were founded by Eugenie Smet in 1856. Today they are 540 nuns in over 20 countries practicing the Spiritual Exercises of the Jesuit leader, St Ignatius of Loyola. Among other activities, the nuns on our street teach catechism and run a hostel for religious scholars. They also use their hostel to welcome families who are in Paris to tend to their ill children at Necker, the Children’s Hospital that is just a block away.

As I got more personal Sister Marie-Françoise was very generous, sharing that she had been a teacher before entering the religious life. She is now retired, but works at a center near Montparnasse where homeless can get a fixed mailing address, spending a few hours each week signing people up and distributing mail. And she takes care of her one hundred and four year old mother. 104!

After our chat, we returned to our neighbors who were gathered around the table, sharing snacks and talking about life in the neighborhood. As we entered the hall, an elder nun pointed me out. “That’s her, that’s the American who made the cookies.” Was it praise or accusation? I held my breath a second as questions started coming my way about the spices I’d used, the cooking time and would I share the recipe. I blushed, I thanked them and the question turned to more important topics, like who owned the huge dog who never seemed to leave the balcony of the 4th floor. Wasn’t it sad the chocolate shop had left the neighborhood? Any sightings of our infamous neighbor, Gerard Depardieu recently?

We had a lovely evening meeting our neighbors. I befriended a Japanese journalist, got a list of some great new restaurants to try and have a date to hear the nuns sing in their chapel during mass a week from next Thursday.

La Fête des Voisins is so new that it doesn’t get a lot of press, but it is so successful it has now spread Europe-wide with cityhalls across the continent encouraging neighbors to get out and get to know one another. Its a lovely way to spend the evening.