The Iversons' Franco-American Blog: Winter into Spring

Thank goodness spring is here! Winter was long and tough—even if we didn't have several feet of snow like some people in our family stateside. We still were stuck inside a lot passing the time doing puzzles and the like.

We had several waves of bugs and flus came through the house, which had some of us laid up for quite a few days (dad was the only one spared this year). For several days Milo couldn'd do much more than hang out on the couch watching The Lion King, Winnie the Pooh and Dumbo...

But the budding trees finally started beckoning us outside, and in recent weeks we've been able to really start enjoying life outdoors in Paris again.

Milo was invited to his first real birthday party recently, that of Joah, his good friend and downstairs neighbor. Of course they both ate so much candy that they were each going bonkers by the time the cake arrived.

Neighbors Dan and Corinne with their over-sugared birthday boy.

It was good to see them outside in the sun, as the two of them had been holed up so much during the winter.

Also on Joah's birthday weekend, we had a visit from Perrine's sister Lucie and Frédérick, who were up from Toulouse for the Gayet family reunion.

As usual, Frédérick took some great photos while they were here:

Milo and his auntie (tata) Lulu

This Spring I had a chance to get away from Paris on a very fun work trip to write an article about a winery named Château La Coste, just north of Aix-en-Provence. The winery is unique in that the owner is a billionaire real-estate baron who happens to be passionate about both wine and art. He bought the estate several years ago, boosted wine quality by going organic and started asking artists to come hang out on the estate and create something if they felt so moved. This is the country which Cezanne and Picasso most celebrated, so not surprisingly a lot of seminal contemporary artists have been inspired here. The buildings on site are all by world-renowned architects as well, from Frank Gerhy to Jean Nouvel. You can visit the winery, go to the wine bar/restaurant, and take a walk around the vineyard to see all the in-situ works – a truly jaw-dropping site. Best of all, Perrine's cousin Manon, who lives just outside of Aix, was able to come join me at the end of the day along with another cousin who was in town for a visit, Lisa. I shared a great dinner that night with them and Manon's boyfriend Julien at their house.

Sean Scully's 2007 Wall of Light Cubed overlooking vineyard and buildings

Alexander Calder's Small Crinkley outside Tadao Ando's visitor centre

Crouching Spider 6695 by the late Louise Bourgeois

In the reflecting pool outside the visitors' centre, Hiroshi Sugimoto's Infinity (2010)

Tunga, Portal, 2011

Andy Goldsworthy's Oak Room (2009)

Inside Tadao Ando's pavilion for his work Four Cubes to Contemplate Our Environment (2008)

Tom Shannon’s 2009 sculpture Drop

Perrine's cousins Lisa and Manon

The tasting at Château La Coste was great, but in terms of a truly one of a kind experiences, that was my invitation to the press presentation of the new tasting menu at the Paris restaurant Les 110 Taillevent, featuring... American wine! Many of the (ridiculously expensive) heavyweight California wines like Opus One were on the menu, but so too were amazing wines from such world-renowned (not) wine regions as Long Island New York and Virginia (where my two favorite wines of the day came from).

The wines were matched with fine American cuisine... da burgeur, da onion rings (fantastic), da caesar salad, da crab cake, and of course, da cheese cake.

My favorites:

Another afternoon I was able to get away with father in law Jean-Guy to attend the Paris agricultural fair, where we viewed up close multiple breeds of cattle from the rare Brittany Pie Noir to the Saint Nectaire cheese producing Aubrac. (Oh, and we ate oysters and did wine tastings too.)

Aubrac

Yes, he is using hair spray on his bull.

Milo and his maman were also able to get away for some fun this Spring. Milo enjoyed a week with his Maminou in Brittany, which was topped off with a weekend at his great aunt Adeline's summer house near Saint Malo, where Perrine came to pick up Milo and stay for a couple days.

On vacation with Maminou in Brittany

Milo's path in Brittany crossed for a day with his cousin Julia, with whom he shared a farm visit

At aunt Adeline's summer house La Galienne

Milo hard at work

For most of March, though, we didn't have time to do much of anything except to organize the visits for potential buyers to our well-loved but not-quite-big-enough apartment which we put up for sale, and for the weeks that followed it was clean, buy flowers, welcome visitors, clean, buy flowers, welcome visitors etc (50 contacts in the first two weeks, no real-estate agent)...

In the midst of the craziness we got a much appreciated visit from grandpa! (Who was stopping off in Paris on his way back from another important trip to Africa with Global Health Ministries).

Dad got his royal welcome with Lobster dinner and all, but then we put him straight to work...

We found a new apartment a couple months ago, which we'll hopefully be signing for imminently, and plan to do a good amount of work on the place to get it into shape before we move in. We arranged for dad to come visit the place for an inspection and to get a feel for the neighborhood, and while he was there he took measurements to make us a proper floor plan:

bedroom looking into inner courtyard

living room

bedroom with view

view out of bedroom looking at communal garden below

view out of bedroom over city (that's the Eiffel Tower in the distance to the right!)

view out of bedroom over city

the building (333 rue des Pyrénées)

The Italian wine bar on the ground floor

The entrance to the communal garden next to the building

The produce market that takes place right in front of the building

The fish monger down the street

At the end of our work day, we went and picked our little clown up from daycare

Soon after Dad's visit, Perrine and I accepted an offer on our apartment from a young couple. We went out for lunch one day to celebrate the end (hopefully!) of 68 apartment visits with a lunch at the new restaurant in our neighborhood, Haï Kaï, which opened up on the canal a few months ago.

Perrine with her asparagus soup

My smoked herring starter

Perrine's whiting fillet

My big piece of ham, sooo good.

Panna cotta with hazelnut for dessert...

If all goes well with our apartment sale and purchase, we'll be moving a bit to the north east to the Menilmontant neighborhood in July or August. Menilmontant has a lot to offer, we think the apartment is going to be beautiful, and it promises to be a great new chapter for us. Still, we're trying to get out and enjoy our Canal Saint Martin neighborhood as much as we can in the meantime, because we sure are going to miss it...