A Parisian Tail (and Ear)

21 January 1977 - Friday

Leisurely waking up and eating breakfast today. I asked the manager (the older man) to reserve places on the Cityrama tour of Paris. He did and I paid him (as an agent for the operation).

We then walked to the Cluny Museum, which has almost all medieval and early renaissance stuff. Their specialty is tapestries, and their crowning possession, in a special room all its own, is the series of tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn. It was quite impressive.

We decided to eat lunch, and for Susanna’s sake, we went to MacDonald’s. It was mobbed but we managed to get some hamburgers. I figured out how to buy bus tickets (at the Metro Station, buy 10 tickets for 10 francs; use them on either the bus or the subway) and how to get on the bus if you go farther, you need to have two tickets perforated-- that’s all I understand so far). We got to the Louvre area and, in the short time we had before the 2:00 p.m. tour. We tried to find the right entrance to the Museum but decided not to try since it was too close to tour time.

Our double-decker bus took us over much of Paris, much also that we had already seen near our hotel. Susanna was most impressed with the Eiffel Tower and the gift-shop, tourist trap that the bus stopped at. (She liked the dolls).

Below is a rough outline of our tour:

After the tour we got on a bus to the St. Germain de Prés area (on the Left Bank), to look for a restaurant. We were a bit early, since most don’t seem to open until 7:00. We went through the market district, which was teeming with life: fish markets with shrimp, prawns, all kinds of seafood; meat markets with rabbits, pheasants, pigeons, everything; produce markets with fresh looking lettuce and avocados to name only two; A flower market with a cascade of fresh flowers out front. Even in January, everything was out in the open. There don’t even seem to be any provisions for closing up the fronts.

We finally settled on a place called “Le Muniche” for supper. The day’s special seemed to be reasonable enough, a choice of sausage, steak tartare (raw hamburger), or queues et oreilles de porc. Alice assumed the latter was an assortment of pork from front to back; I was suspicious. We ordered that and the sausage. When the dishes came, we were not really overjoyed to see a very recognizable tail and a very recognizable ear. I struggled through, putting mind over matter. Ice cream for dessert and ample wine helped get us through, but we are now wary of French cooking. This was our most expensive meal in Paris too.

We all had baths and got to bed early.

21 January 2022 - Friday

An atypical blanket of snow is covering my South Carolina neighborhood tonight. Snow is not something for which I have much affection, but for a South Dakota girl, it's always a bit nostalgic.

I spoke with Dad tonight. He read yesterday's blog and wanted to apologize for the Frommer-induced trauma. Even in 1977, $10 a day was pushing the limits of civilization. I assured him that while it does still seize the senses, it can be all chalked up to a life interestingly led.

What's not immediately obvious above, but what came up in our conversation, was that it was Mom who ordered the queues et oreilles de porc. For anyone who has only known my Mom in the last 32 years, you might have missed the absolute confidence with which she used to travel through life.

She felt (wrongly) that her adolescent summer spent in Quebec would prepare her for an easy go in Paris. I remember her having a similar confidence in 1988 --due to a similar study abroad in Mexico--when we were vacationing in Spain.

No, she ordered the ears and tail. When it arrived, she refused to eat it. As should be clear from my Dad's choice of lodging, he was not about to waste the money. A meal was a meal.