Visiting le Motte Picquet, 41

I am glad that there are still a few of the old traditional style Metro entrances in Paris. They seem to be on their way to vanishing.
When we left Paris in December of 2007, the Metro station by our doorway was being torn apart. It was just beginning to be renovated. The walls curved at the top making an arch into the ceiling. As they tore down layer after layer, new treasures were revealed. We saw one advertisement from a newspaper that was from the 1930s. When we set out to our destination at l'Ecole Militaire, I was wondering about the finished product.


We noticed as we traveled around the city that a lot of the Metro stations had clean white ceramic walls.


I am sure you will be surprised to learn that I could not remember the code to get into the building. We had to call Kelly in the apartment.

Please notice the new paint job on the walls. The apartment looked lovely. There was no bed in the dining room and there were lovely chandeliers hanging in several of the years. Kelly's wife had dreams of a remodeled kitchen. I wonder if she is ready to come do a semester in Paris again. And I wonder if her dreams will come true and there will be a better kitchen.

I did notice that the Pattersons spoke of their landlord often. Not once did they refer to Richard.

In and Around Paris

Jardin de Luxembourg

The Bourse - Stock Exchange
rues St. Denis and Strasbourg

Champs-Elysées

Arc de Triomphe

French Bread and French Pastry

We have discovered that Finns are not obsessed with dessert the way other cultures we are familiar with are. The bakeries in Helsinki have a limited display of pastries. So when we went to Paris I said I was going to eat pastry even if the price was ridicules. Here are just a few pictures from outside the patissier. This picture is so like something that all the students we have traveled with would do. I could not resist having the Professor take a picture of the two of us in the mirror.

Wonderful pastries to eat on rue St. Denis.
You will really have to concentrate to figure out what is going on in this picture. I didn't decide to take a picture until it was almost too late. I am actually standing inside of the boulangerie that we love on rue St. Dominique. The young man is putting loaves of bread on a conveyor belt that will take the white loaves on the left into the oven. This bakery is busy all day long and it is wonderful when you are there at the right moment to buy a loaf of traditional bread warm from the oven.
This bakery was within walking distance of our little studio apartment. It has received awards for being the best bakery in Paris. We bought some pastry that was delicious and flaky. But it is really true that I am not a conoisseur.

Then and Now

I was surprised to see Les Halles in ruins. Of course, I don't keep up with the latest in Paris and certainly not with this controversy. The shops at Les Halles are still open but the area around it is definitely rubble. Is it going to be a huge underground central station sending trains to all corners of Europe? A park? Shopping? I can't tell. But apparently in about 2015 the project is supposed to be finished.

In the mean time, the Professor is still lamenting that the open market is long gone. He remembers the days when they went shopping for the mission home and bought fruits and vegetables and chickens in this huge space.


Not as noticeable as Les Halles was the construction going on at the front of the American Church/Cathedral in Paris. I assume that it is just getting a face lift and some necessary maintenance done to it.

Posti

Dear Family
I just got back from doing an errand. I walked there to take care of something for Grandpa. Here are some pictures to give you a clue about where I went. What do you think I bought?





If you guessed that I went to the Post Office you are right. The sign on the door says Posti which is Finnish and Posten which is Swedish. Both languages are Official here in Finland. Most of the people in Helsinki speak Finnish. And I bought a stamp to go on a letter Grandpa is sending to France. If you look at the stamp you will see that it says Suomi. That is the name that the Finnish people call their country. And it is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled.
Su – o – me
Grandpa and I love you and miss you. We are looking forward to seeing you.
Love,
Grandma and Grandpa

News from Notaconnoisseur while the Professor is in Sweden

I enjoyed Dad's letter very much. He didn't mention in it that the plane to Paris was so small that the "first class" seats were the same as the economy ones. There was just a curtain between the classes. But he didn't have anyone in the seat next to him.

The Roberts came and picked me up and brought me home today. They are the CES couple here. She was telling me today how much time they have on their hands. They work with the young adults on Monday for FHE and then teach on Wednesday. They had a baptism last Saturday that they attended and two of their young people have been called on missions so they went to the temple with them. Other than that, I guess the weeks are feeling long. Sister Roberts told me that the senior sister missionary who works in the mission office works hard every work day from 8 to 6. She has volunteered to change missions with Sister Roberts any day she wants.

Today she told me a story about Elder Roberts. When the kids were grown up, their daughter and her husband came to live in their ward. There were some apartments where a lot of dental students lived and they also lived there while he was going to dental school. At the time Elder Roberts was busy in his calling in the church and was seldom there on Sundays. He did go to special activities for the ward however.

One day a member of the ward asked her son-in-law, "Is your father-in-law a non-member? I never see him at Church with Sister Roberts." Their son-in-law laughed really hard, but managed to say between moments of laughter, "My father-in-law is the stake president."

Two of the "young" people have been called to be missionaries. One of them is the young man who has sometimes translated for Dad in priesthood. He grew up in Spain and recently came to Finland to do his mandatory military service - 6 months. I don't remember if the bishop mentioned where he has been called to serve.

A missionary who has just returned from his mission in London South accompanied the high counsel representative today. He said he had been home 2 weeks and had not yet spoken in his home ward. He is in Helsinki 2, I think. He talked about what he had learned while on his mission. Obviously I should have taken notes because I don't remember anything but one story he told. He said he knew that our leaders are inspired by God. However, when a missionary from Fiji who spoke no English came to the mission, everyone wondered why he was there. How come no one had sent him to the MTC so he could learn English. He had only been in the mission for a short time when he received a call from some other missionaries. They told him that they had met a family who wanted to learn about the Church who were from Fiji. Could he help them? When he started to teach them at first by telephone, he learned that this was his uncle from Fiji who had left home and never stayed in contact with the family.

As a side bar to this, the returned missionary told us that there were so many different countries represented in the mission by both the residents and the missionaries. It was not at all unusual to have a family taught using Skype. Some times they had to contact another mission in Europe to find someone to help teach a family in Polish or Armenian or some other language.

Wow! I had never thought about Skype being a missionary tool.

I love all of you and miss you so much. MOM

Note from the Professor to the Family

Hi Family:

I am in Gothenburg, Sweden tonight. I have a lecture tomorrow at the University of Gothenburg and then I am back home in Helsinki with Mom (thankfully).

I was able to see some of the city today and yesterday. I really don't remember much about the city which I visited with Leanna many years ago.

A few reflections. I went to Church today and enjoyed the ward. It is out in the suburbs so I took the tram and then walked. The people were very kind and Sunday School and Sacrament meeting were translated for me. They have a small chapel and the membership is relatively young and composed mostly of professionals. The demographics are much like in our Helsinki ward, except Gothenburg has more teens. The Sacrament talks were devoted to the anniversary of Relief Society. The Bishop read excerpts from the First Presidency message sent out in English warning members not to submit the names of celebrities or Holocaust victims for temple work. I doubt if many understood why the message was sent out. In addition, a young member told me he was in NYC last week and walked past the theatre featuring the "Book of Mormon." He was told at the box office that he could purchase a ticket for the next day for $350. He didn't purchase the ticket and I told him that he was lucky to have missed the play. He knew absolutely nothing about the play, and in this case ignorance is bliss!


A few thoughts on "northern" Europe. I have now spent time in Helsinki, Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Zurich. Mom and I will travel to Munich and Innsbruck (and perhaps Salzburg and Prague) in a few weeks. I have also been to Warsaw and Mom and I have visited Vilnius, but they were once part of the Soviet empire or the Soviet Union and are different from "northern" Europe.

Northern European cities are very nice and very orderly. They also have many historical sites which differentiate them so much from U.S. cities. In-city transportation is very effective and is composed of trams, buses, and sometimes subways. Many cities have pedestrian malls and streets which forbid car and truck traffic. The people tend to be quite prosperous, and have thus far been insulated from the recessionary conditions brewing to their south, especially in the Mediterranean countries.

Of course, weather in northern Europe tends to be somewhat cold, icy, snowy, and dreary. If you are brought up in these conditions, they are normal. Plus, Professor Henriksson at the University of Helsinki always reminds me that if you have the proper clothing and equipment, weather is never a problem. On the other hand, for someone raised in California with plenty of sunshine and relatively warm temperatures, winters in northern Europe (and northern Utah) leave much to be desired.

In addition, I spent this past Thursday and part of Friday in Paris under ideal weather condlitions (about 70 degrees) and nowhere else in the world can match Paris.

I have really enjoyed my time in Europe. Mom has been a fantastic companion and both of us are looking forward to seeing each of you. Of course, Mom and I will always have fond memories of Paris (and Helsinki) !

Dad

The Garment District

We arrived in Paris when it was growing dark. In the morning we set out to find breakfast and to explore our neighborhood. One of the first unusual sights we saw was two men pushing a rack full of the same dress down the middle of the street. Of course, I did not have the camera ready. I also missed a choice picture of a person on the back of a motorcycle holding a huge package. The wrapping paper looked as if it must have a large framed picture inside.

It did not take us long to decide that we must be staying practically in the heart of the garment district in Paris. Shops selling nothing except buttons. Windows that were full of huge bolts of fabric. Small tailoring shops here and there.

And stores with signs saying that they were not open to the public. Windows with the same fabric cut or draped into several different garments. One shop sold nothing but collars and decorations to add to the neck of women's clothing. Of course, it would have been much better to have explored the neighborhood with one of my daughters. The Professor just walked fast and left me behind snapping a picture quickly. I was so excited but he was just a man going somewhere.