La Poste IV/Ceska Posta I

Friends,

Took short walks Monday night with Daphne to get the baguette for dinner and with ANneAlexis to get Francois's newspaper. As usual her meal was fabulous--oranges follewed by a stew of lentils, carrots and sauages, a mixed green and avocado salad, baguette and a Pyranees bread that she makes, cheese plate, and an anise flavored Pyranees cake (she served it to you too Shannon) with bottled cherreis which are also eaten with the cheese. She servedtwo traditional mustards--one dijon-ish and one very vinegar-ish.

Tuesday morning I arranged my ticket to Prague where Iarrived this mornig after taking a luxurious Thalys train to Cologne and then sharing a sleeper with a young Korean who works in Germany and misses his family dreadfully and a young Frenchman who said goodbye to his girlfreind to take a carpentry job near Prague. There was also a couple on the lower berths who were VERY anxious about the presence of strangers in their sleeping quarters and would not talk to us but only to each other in whispers.

The Montparnasse tower was directly across from the train station so I used my free ticket, thanks, Greg, to ascend. It is the tallest building in Paris and has an elevator so smoothe that I had no sense of motion. Two floors per second. Not as exotic a view as that from the Eiffel tower, though it contains the same components. There is just something about having the wind on your face when you are taking in a view.

I went to the doll museum or Musee de las Poupees on high recommencdation from Anne Alexis and her girls. The Skipper on a skateboard in the temporary Barbie exhibit is just like one you had, Theo. Perhaps it is one of the dolls you said I really bought for myself but addressed to you!

According to the exhibit Barbie had over 100 professions. My favorites were the pregnant Barbie, the Barbie just delivered fo twins, Barbie shampooing an incredibly curly poodle. Best of all were Barbie's Mom and Dad who had come over to baby sit the twins while (apparently single mom) Barbie had a date. She was preparing for it in a purple see through negligee and garter top stockings!

There were tons of really fine dolls from about 400 years ago forward and just the sort of big wooden dollhouses with about l940s looking furnishings that I really really love. I pored over the paper dolls in the boutique and then with unaccustomed maturity decided to buy nothing.

There was a genuine accordion busker on the metro. Parisians hate them but I looked aloof and secretly enjoyed it very much.

Lunch was a bit of a risk at a Tabac--sort of the European urban convenience store. I had a wonderful salad with tomatoes and boiled eggs and rounds of baguette topped with chevre over the greens. For dessert I got an ice cream and lolled on the pavement in front of the Pompidou Center with dozens of other tourists. We watched an Asian man sing Let It Be and a juggler. When I moved on it was to watch a man make combination collage and pastel postcard sized "works." An idea for the gallery, Libba!

Then I circled the fountain there which is a pool filled with figures that are either all mechanical ribs of metal and cogs and springs and such or are rounded acrylic abstractions of colorful clownlike figures.

It is difficult to believe I wasted a monment's anxiety on where I was to go. In spite of the machine gun armed camo clad soldiers patrolling the train stations, the fact is, I love to be on my own in a station, feeling all smug and confident when I can figure out what to do and where to go and feeling a little on the edge when I can't.

Anne Alexis had sent me a picnic for the train--a sandwich of thin sliced ham, soft cheese, and lettuce on leftover homemade pizza--what a great idea, and an orange and some of the leftover anise cake. Luxury.

When we entered Belgium the houses suddenly became red brick instead of cream stucco and there was more variety in roof tile color. In Brussels I saw a huge building topped with a golden dome that reminds me of the cap on raspberry liquer. I loved suddenly seeing all the signs in Dutch too with its charming double vowels and -ens and -kers and such. There was a tall narrow very dark Gothic church with an onion dome atop a pointed spire. The dome had porthole style windows in it, making me feel it was preparing to submerge at the command of Captain Nemo.

The train station in Liege is made of high metal arches that curve a bit so you feel you are riding through the skeleton of a giant whale. And as we pulled out of Aachen a blue hot air balloon ascended over a very narrow dark Gothic church.

At the station in Cologne I encountered a huge group of boy scouts including a few girls, a helpful baggage man who directed me to the correct platform in what seemed almost like native english though, of course, he said he only speaks a little bit, and a friendly man who offered me an apple.

It was great to return to dear familiar, if somewhat seedy, sights and sounds of Prague--the easy subqway system, the bus to farkan that I got on automatically though Icould not remember its number, Pany Hana greeting me at the garden gate and returning me to the usual downstairs room that we have had so often before (Jim, Craig, Shannon), and my usual internet cafe which now has a new entrance. And there is a TGI FRiday's here at Andel. Hm. Too much moderninzing and Americanizing.

Off to eat and read a book.
Ahoj,
Lowell