“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.” Steve Martin on his first trip to France

I was a little intimidated about France before we got here, I was afraid that my clothes weren’t dressy enough – and that will probably be the case in Paris, although I did bring a blue blazer – but, in Metz, my clothes fit right in (which makes my complete lack of French even more troublesome). Metz has a long history, more than 3,000 years – I read – and it was a regional center even before it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 52 BC. The center is free of cars so it is a great place to hang out and have a leisurely lunch. Strangely enough, the oldest parts of the city are not car free nor is the area next to the Cathedral which is the local big draw. The stained glass windows, especially a modern set done by Marc Chagall, get the most attention but I was drawn to the modern art that is spread around the interior of the building.  Across a busy street from the Cathedral is a food market comprised of small vendors where the food is displayed like works of art. The Metz area is known for its cheese and charcuterie; their displays were huge – the cheese case, below, is about 1/4 of what was available – but so were the seafood displays. The produce, while it looked good, was nowhere near as varied as our local Farmer’s Market.    So far everywhere we have eaten has been great, but not noticeably better than the Bay Area. The may be because we have not been to Paris, yet, and we have not eaten at any two or three-star restaurants, but I think it is also because the Bay Area is a world-class food area. On the other hand, the old buildings and public art beat the Bay Area, hands down. The old buildings were not a surprise but the public art is.  Speaking of public art, on the way out of town, we stopped at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. I was not knocked out by the architecture which, of course, was designed by an out of town architect, in this case, ‎Shigeru Ban, a Japanese architect. Inside, however, was a suburb show on early twentieth-century artist couples who influenced each other, such as Ray and Charles Eames, and Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Then it is on to Germany and The Cousins. 

We flew to into Paris via Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, rented a car and drove to Meaux, for the night, on the way to Germany and the cousins (saving the actual Paris for dessert). My first jetlagged impression, shock really, is that there are so many black people here – African-French? – way more than anywhere in the Bay Area, including Oakland. I think part of it, all of it, maybe, is that Meaux is an outer suburb of Paris and I remember reading, somewhere, sometime ago, that the outer suburbs of Paris are where a majority of immigrants live but, so far, not many women wearing Hajibs. 

We flew WOW to Europe with a 19-hour stop in Iceland. We left San Francisco about 8 pm, landed in Iceland about 10 am the next morning drove around a little, got a bite to eat, went to bed at about 9 pm, and got up at 3:30 to catch the flight to Paris. 

We are going to Europe tomorrow. Our excuse is that we are going to go to a reunion of Michele’s father’s extended family. Strangely, I think of Michele’s extended family as somehow American because I have only seen them here, here as at our house for dinner or at Tahoe, or Arkansas, or South Carolina. But, most of the cousins are European and while Michele has gone to Reunions in Ireland and The Czech Republic, this will be the first time I will see the family – the German Branch, anyway – in their native habitat.