Favorite cafe

 

After a month fully living here it seems like we are settled in. But we probably aren't as much as I think we are. There is a lot to discover here and wild enthusiasms for new things may or may not translate a way of life. 

Our relationship to cafes offers a case in point here.

When we were in the process of moving here, through day trips and brief overnight trips, we found a cafe down the street called Umi. This is a modern style of cafe that makes very good, albeit not perfect, coffee drinks. We went there a lot when we first moved here and thought it would surely be a regular place for us, so convenient and of a kind with many of the cafes we've loved in the past, in a modern, new wave style.

But now we haven't been back for weeks. This is partly because, one day, we discovered going to the grand old street cafes. These are the large, old world, sprawling and lovely cafes pouring out onto sidewalks in the busiest, usually pedestrianized areas. They are often crowded, and very charming. Oddly no more expensive than a more practical cafe like Umi, there are a couple of these down the street from us, and these suddenly captured our imagination and became the go to style of place for us for a week or two. We thought we would just go to these old world European places all the time going forward.

But those places have a lot of theater to them, and fancy waiters, and a lot of bustle, which can be exhausting at certain times. Also, it is cold here sometimes in the Winter, and these places can get a little short on charming indoor seating. At which point we discovered back of the house cafes or tearooms.

Backroom cafes are super quaint rooms at the back of what are usually sweet shops or chocolate shops. A perfect example of one of these is Canet, which has a couple of very different shops down two different streets from us. We went in just to peep at the pastries, or chocolates, or macarons, I forget which, and noticed a little super charming tearoom, almost fussy, but not quite. We sat. A patisserie showpiece, a macaron, and two coffees later, we were fully committed to this kind of cafe. It immediately seemed like that's where we'll be going from now on. 

I even have a few pictures for once (well, I mean, I often have pictures, but not so often of what I happen to be talking about). These are from Canet number one:

You may now have noticed how everytime I described a new kind of cafe I also said it was just down the street from us. This might hold the key to the matter. 

Everything is just down the street from us! Places that we might describe as "far" here would be the closest possible places we could walk to where we lived in Saint Minneapolis. I don't know how to say this without seeming like I'm being ridiculous, or exaggerating, but I do believe it is not outlandish to say that within an easy ten or twenty minute walk from our apartment are, I don't know, 500 places that could be considered in some way a cafe.

A thousand?

It's absurd. We've been to what, 30 or 40? I don't know. We liked most of them.

Today, after a week rather full of administrative tasks and doctors and bank accounts we were released again into our accustomed freedom. We had not particularly planned to go to any cafes, but we went to three! 

One was in a large, beautiful sweet shop specializing in rather pricey but delicious fruit gels in the middle of the old city. In the back of the store, up some stairs was a lovely and empty balcony seating area (we are now at peak low season here). We had two hot chocolates and part of a raspberry fruit gel. Later, after buying a Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin album, we popped in to a small cafe in an interesting neighborhood we're fond of. This was a small, modern cafe and might have been the best coffee we've had here or close to it. On the way home, as night fell, we went to one of the grand old cafes on the main tram pedestrian street, primarily inspired by the tiresome weight of the shopping bags we were carrying (I had bought some french olive oil). There we had a prosecco and a Negroni.

So what then does this mean?

Will we be going to three cafes a day from now on?

What is our way of life here now?

I don't know.

But so far, it seems to be working out.

Sunset

 

Lately the best time of day in our city is around sunset. The cold loosens up enough to be more tolerable by then. And something becomes terribly clear about the ocean, like you could touch the horizon and it would be sharp enough to cut your finger. The buildings take the orange light well too, and the palm trees are all full of stars, which is very appealing.

We walked down to the Sea again today at the sunset, the second to last thing we did in a day full of shopping. My cheese habit is getting expensive. I like to buy one cheese each time I go that I know nothing about. Today it was a goat cheese covered in flowers. The cheesemonger asked if I knew what it was. She said it had a sweet rose gel in the center.

"Okay." I said.

It's six hours later now and there's just a little of it left.

At the beach, and once late during the shopping I took some pictures which I've tried to give a sunset flavor to, and maybe a little bit of the flavor of an old eighties song by the Go-Go's I had stuck in my head today.

This is my town now, roll the footage:

Movie theater

 

Maybe everyday is starting to feel a bit less like a vacation. 

Yesterday we went to open a bank account, a French bank account. These have a bit of a reputation for being difficult, but I feel it went pretty well, so far. We waited in line at the information desk and after a fair bit of back and forth with two people using varying bits of English with our savage French, we were told someone would get us an account. A woman came and took us to her office. 

It was a nice bank office, diffuser scented (mandarin pine?) like many places in Europe. We answered a bunch of questions, showed passports and our proof of residency, which is the very important here electricity bill. Unfortunately this bank account thing is pretty complicated, taking about an hour and a half, and since lunch was in an hour we were told we needed to make an appointment. An appointment was made with this person for two days hence. The documents we would need were described and we were given a couple of extra W-9 forms to fill out for the appointment.

It was a good start!

Working the theme of regular daily life we explored a few hair cutting places and then, for the coup de grace, in the evening, we went to see a movie, in a French movie theater. We certainly have never seen a movie in Europe before as it's not the sort of thing we'd do on vacation. The theater was really close to where the bank is, and where we live, but fairly speaking everything is pretty close to everything else here.

I was excited ahead of the time about the snack bar at the theater. I would think a French movie theater snack counter would be awesome, but it wasn't. It was like a small, neat version of an average U.S. one, with pricey popcorn and the usual packaged suspects. Not everything can be the French dream come true, can it? So no champagne and truffles in the theater. And indeed, to disappoint you perhaps, the whole movie experience was not one of those full of fascinating cultural differences. The small theater, done in red velvet, was in great condition and very clean, but the bathroom floor was sticky. We saw the Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson movie "Song Sung Blue" which is called here "Sur un Air de Bleus". It was the regular movie with French titles and subtitles. The pattern as I can tell, at least at this cineplex, is that the American movies if they're kids movies or matinees are usually dubbed, and the evening adult fare is in the original soundtrack. It was a nice bonus to be able to practice our French a bit with the subtitles below when we felt like it.

The movie was very good, and as we have purged tvs and movie watching at home, it was an especially transportive experience. There's nothing like a real movie in a movie theater for wandering into that kind of living daylight dream. And that just made the last part even stronger. Because the strangest and coolest part of the whole thing was that when we walked out of the bland but nice theater, having been immersed in a movie taking place in Wisconsin, we found ourselves, on the bustling streets of an amazing city, in France.

Sketches

 

Having got a tiny sketch notebook I am finding what I put in it not usually sufficient for the already experimental standards of clerkmanifesto. But sometimes they could be, and who knows what will happen going forward. I did try to teach an ai my pen sketching style with mixed results. I can't quite get it as rough and inarticulate as I want, but the general idea is there. Maybe it is enough to show you what my sketches from around town would be like if I had infinite time, a bit more skill, and a slightly more generic approach.

Hmm, that doesn't sound all that intriguing, but the die is cast!