A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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School Matters on Indiana Diploma Overhaul

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Steve Hinnefeld has a well-written post, explaining some of the twists and turns in the State’s plans to overhaul high school diploma requirements. I have not dug in on the subject and have been a little confused by some of the information I’ve seen. Steve does a good job of not losing me in the weeds. The plan would dump the existing CORE 40 and Academic Honors diploma, replacing them with “Graduate Prepared to Succeed” (GPS) and GPS Plus diplomas.

Read the School Matters post, but the even shorter version seems to be that the plan seems to discourage college readiness in favor of vocational training and job-based learning. But, as to the latter, the infrastructure is not in place to emulate “the Swiss model” of vocational training and internships. For example, Indiana doesn’t have a lot in the way of employer-funded internships or transportation enabling young people to get to and from jobs. Our current pool of counselors is likely inadequate to keep students on track and connect them with those opportunities that are available.

Educational attainment is a key factor in individual success and overhaul economic health of the state. This plan seems like it would exacerbate Indiana’s already comparatively low college enrollment rates. “The consensus seems to be that the GPS diploma will lower academic standards to where students may not be admitted to college while the GPS Plus option will be so demanding that very few students will pursue it.”

Indiana’s attempt to take short cuts on education is costing us.

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Ball State economist, Michael Hicks, has a column about Democratic run areas of the country getting richer while Republican run areas are getting poorer. He notes that the U.S. is seeing its best economic performance in the last half century but the benefits are not being distributed uniformly. He doesn’t lay the blame on one party or another because some of the underlying reasons were a long time in the making. But he does underscore the significance of educational attainment in the dynamic.

It is difficult to lay the blame for worsening economic conditions at the feet of one party or the other. For the past 50 years, there was considerable overlap in state policies, so conservative Democratic states behaved a lot like more progressive Republican states in tax, education and economic development policy.

However, today there is a growing understanding that differences in economic outcomes are mostly connected to differences in educational attainment between places. Other factors, like tax rates, tax structure, regulatory environment or economic development policy, are of declining importance.

I would go even farther in concluding that differences in tax policies explain almost none of the differences in affluence or growth. That is a major departure from the start of my career a quarter-century ago, when tax differences were important. Today, differences in economic conditions are almost exclusively caused by the level of education of residents.

…

The 15 states that have seen the biggest relative drop in educational attainment are all solidly Republican states—and poor. Indiana ranks 10th on this list. The top 15 states are all solidly Democratic—and affluent. This gap will worsen as states with a large share of well-educated adults are attracting more, while states with a shortage are losing them.

In light of the declining prosperity associated with declining educational attainment, it seems like an appropriate time to quote the father of Indiana’s system of public education, Caleb Mills: “There is but one way to secure good schools, and that is to pay for them.”
Indiana’s attempt to take a short cut through privatization has not worked. If you look at the most effective educational systems around the world, none of them do it with vouchers or charters. There’s no good reason – especially after experimenting here for 20+ years – to think it will work in Indiana.
The First Rule of Holes is that, when you find yourself in one, stop digging. And, as the man said, “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today.” It’s time for the State to stop trying to privatize schools and start investing in our public school system.

“The Trades,” Education, and Patriarchy

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Sorry about the title. This post isn’t going to live up to it. A friend of mine made an observation about education discourse that prompted a few thoughts I wanted to jot down. In recent years, there has been a fair amount of discourse talking up “the trades”* as a good alternative to college. The tone of the discourse often has at least the undercurrent of college being an inferior choice.

(*As I understand it, “the trades” refers to a job that requires some amount of skilled manual labor. But there’s probably an additional component because I’m not confident that all skilled manual labor is what people mean when they use the term. But, in any case, plumber, electrician, carpenter, and welder are examples.)

This isn’t an inherently bad take. College isn’t for everyone, it’s expensive, trade work can be lucrative, and it’s valuable work in its own right. On any number of occasions, I’ve mentioned the “No Time to Lose” report from the National Conference of State Legislatures on building a world class educational system. One of the features of such systems is a path for career and technical education. Singapore and Switzerland are cited as places with strong CTE programs.

But the Discourse isn’t really about that. With respect to one exchange where the opinion-haver said that we do a poor job of educating kids with “exceptional spatial abilities” and need programs for “those who think with their hands,” my friend observed that the solution for such kids was always focused on things like shop class and never art class or home economics.

Being a man and not especially well attuned to feminist thought, that blind spot had not stood out to me. But, now that she mentions it, of course this whole discussion has a strongly gendered component. It’s of a piece with what Real Men do and don’t do. “Real Men shower after work, not before.” Eggheads aren’t manly. Everything must be gendered and, it goes without saying, the masculine must be valued more than the feminine.

The people who say that all work has (or should have) dignity and the trades are valuable are, of course, correct. But, when the commentary goes beyond that and sneers at other kinds of work, something else is going on. Look at what kinds of work they are devaluing in the process to determine what the subtext is. And, as often as not, it seems as if there’s an effort to prioritize a certain kind of masculinity.

Carmel Clay wins “Dollar Law” case filed by Valor charter school

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The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of Carmel Clay Schools and against Valor charter schools (also known as “Indiana Classical Schools.”) As we’ve discussed before, the “dollar law” is a law that requires local public schools to give buildings away to state charter schools, even if local taxpayers (rather than taxpayers statewide) funded construction of the public school building.

This one is tough to read because the General Assembly has made such a rat’s nest out of the Dollar Law’s legislative history – amending it year after year. The Court dutifully went through all of the changes. But, basically, Carmel Clay never triggered the Dollar Law. In 2018, when it made the decision to close the elementary school in question, the school corporation nevertheless continued to use the facility for classroom purposes for the next couple of years. When the building stopped being used for classes, it continued to be used for other school purposes — storage and the like. However, by the time classes moved out, the statute had been amended such that using the building for classroom purposes was no longer required to avoid triggering the Dollar Law. At that time – 2019, I think – the statute had been amended such that the building had to be vacant or abandoned before it was subject to the Dollar Law. (Fair warning, I have no idea how it reads right now; and the Court advised that the opinion was not analyzing the statutes as amended in 2023 and 2024.)

The Court dropped a footnote questioning whether the charter school had a private right of action under the law. (In other words, it seemed to cast some doubt on whether Valor could even bring this kind of suit directly or if it would be up to the State of Indiana to bring any enforcement actions.) However, neither party seems to have briefed the issue and the trial court didn’t decide anything about that question; so the Court didn’t answer the question.

And, I continue to question whether the law is in violation of a violation of Art. 10, §1 of the Indiana Constitution which provides requires the General Assembly provide a “uniform and equal rate of property assessment and taxation.” The reason higher local tax rates are permitted under this section is because additional local taxes pay for local benefits. See City of Richmond v. Scott, 48 Ind. 568, 572-73 (Ind. 1874) (determining that unequal rates of municipal taxation do not violate Art. 10, §1 because taxes for corporate purposes cannot be equal. The wants and necessities of towns and cities cannot be equal. Some require a higher and some a lower rate of taxation.) If the state is taking a locally financed building and using it to benefit the state generally, that rationale for unequal taxation evaporates.

The Eclipse

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I’ve been thinking about one of my step-brothers a fair amount in the past couple of days. He passed away several years ago. I can’t say we were especially close; certainly not when we were older. Mostly, I think he’s a proxy for me to think about myself when I was a specific age – probably 7 or 8 years old. The first instance had to do with a question about the first radio song you remembered. For me, it wasn’t the first, but when I was eight, he lived in a small town in western Colorado. He got a transistor radio, and it seemed like that thing only picked up one music station. And that station had “Le Freak” by Chic and “My Life” by Billy Joel on heavy rotation.

My father and his second wife initially lived on a farm in rural Wayne County, Indiana  and then on a property with a fair amount of land in rural western Colorado. The second wife’s kids were of a similar age and genders: older girls and a youngest son. When my sisters and I would go visit my father, we’d pretty naturally split off by age and gender. Michael was a little more than a year older than me; and we would spend a lot of time together.  And at that age, all things space were very, very cool.

It was the mid-to-late 70s. The height of Space Age fever had passed, but it was still very much a thing. Out in the country, things in the sky loomed larger. We’d sleep out at night, and in 1978, there weren’t many satellites. We’d get excited seeing one blink against the sky. I’m sure we mislabeled more than a few airplanes. There was a meteor shower that looms large in my imagination. My guess is that this was the Perseid shower in the summer of 1979, but I couldn’t say for sure. In my memory, a huge meteor flashed overhead, traveling more or less directly over the lane leading to the house. (I have doubts about the quality of my memory – the orientation of the visual is a little too perfect for real life.) After that, the night sky had frequent meteor flashes. The night sky in western Colorado really has to be seen to be believed.

And, of course, there were the space shows. Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica were our favorites. We had Battlestar action figures: his was a cylon, mine was a “Colonial Warrior.” (I was jealous of his.) Which brings me to the eclipse. Yesterday, we went down to Bloomington for eclipse festivities at Memorial Stadium. William Shatner gave a spoken word performance. But that was only part of it – in general, space stuff brings out my inner eight year old. There’s a level of earnestness and wonder that tends to crust over with age. Cataracts of the soul or something.

Every so often, you can still be dazzled by the beauty of it all. A total eclipse is one of those moments. My wife and I went down to IU where our kids go to school. Cole is in the Marching Hundred which was playing in the event. Harper lives only a few blocks away, so she walked up and met us at the stadium.

Eclipse at Memorial Stadium

In addition to Shatner, astronaut and engineer, Mae Jemison spoke. One quote that stood out for me was her statement that “space exploration is based on the miraculous work of generations.” Shatner did a sort of spoken word thing, backed by an orchestra from the Jacobs School. In part, he used the eclipse to talk about our place in the cosmic scheme of things. For example, he referenced the creatures evolving over the earth’s millions of years experiencing eclipses from the shallow seas. Shatner sounded great for any age. For a man who is ninety-three years old, he sounded fantastic.

As for the moment of totality, if you didn’t experience it yourself, you’ve seen pictures that do the moment justice more than I can. Everyone experiences it differently. If nothing else, it’s something different that encourages you to take a minute or two and look around. For many, it’s much more. Maybe it’s spiritual. Maybe it’s a profound reminder that you are a very small part of a vast universe. Maybe totality is a moment of solidarity with the millions watching it with you or maybe with the generations over the millennia who have witnessed similar events with awe. At the very least, it’s not nothing. I reconnected a bit with my inner eight year old even while I was sharing a moment with my wife and kids that we’ll probably always remember.

On the way back to West Lafayette, there was some eclipse congestion. Normally, the trip takes a little less than two hours. Yesterday evening, it was more like three. Waze took us on county roads and state highways rather than the Interstates. At one point, we crossed over I-74 in a rural part of west-central Indiana, and westbound traffic was noticeably slow and backed up. Overall, not too bad for us though – an extra hour winding through the back roads was fairly pleasant on a sunny, dry Monday evening.

[Edited to add on 4/10/24]: This morning I came across a Shatner quote I’d seen before but found insightful and apropos to this post. It had to do with his experience going into space when he was 90:

Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.
I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.
I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.
This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable.


Paris Day Six and Seven: Louvre, Catacombs, Moulin Rouge, and Travel Home


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On our final full day in Paris, we started by navigating some home repair. Prior to our stay, there had been a leak in the roof. The owner gave us a discount if we didn’t mind letting the contractors in to fix the damage during our stay. We did not mind, but they showed up early, and I had to figure out how to tell them we’d be out by 9:30. I muddled through using Google Translate.


That morning, we had tickets to the Louvre. Amy had discovered the “secret” entrance. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t the main entrance and it was certainly less crowded. Unlike Versailles where I hadn’t particularly expected crowds, I had heard some horror stories about crowds at the Louvre.


Outside the Louvre


We must have caught the place on a good day because the crowds were not oppressive. Even the line to the Mona Lisa was manageable. As more than one person has observed, the level of attention given to the Mona Lisa probably does a disservice to many of the other attractions at the Louvre. In the same room, on the wall opposite the Mona Lisa, is a painting of the Wedding Feast of Cana by Paolo Veronese. Like I’ve said before, I don’t know art, but this thing is very big, there is a lot going on, and everyone in the room is looking the other way at the more famous painting. It’s the Jan to the Mona Lisa’s Marcia.


A very large painting


At one point, we were looking at a bust of Ptolemy. Harper asked, “like the mathematician?” I explained that Ptolemy had been one of Alexander’s generals and had ruled Egypt after his death. There had been a lot of historical figures with that name, but I couldn’t say whether the mathematician and the general were related somehow. Turns out that it wasn’t exactly an uncommon name, but I hadn’t appreciated that Cleopatra had been a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, though it makes perfect sense.


We put in several hours, but eventually we got tired. When we found ourselves trudging through a blur of paintings, pottery, and stone, we decided to call it good enough. We hadn’t properly scheduled lunch. Hungry and tired isn’t a great combination for decision making. So, we had difficulty picking a place to eat. Eventually, we went with a Spanish tapas restaurant called Les Pietons. It was o.k. but not great. I will say, the Estrella Galicia beer really hit the spot. I’m not sure if I had had that before.


After a bit of rest back at the apartment, we headed to our next destination – the Catacombs of Paris. This was obviously Harper’s choice, and it was a good time. While waiting in line, we met a family from Bloomington, Indiana. I was wearing my IU sweatshirt and one of the kids was very excited about seeing a fellow Hoosier in Paris.


Femurs & Skulls would make a good band name.


The Catacombs are repurposed limestone mines used to deal with Paris’ overflowing cemeteries.  In the late 18th century, it seems human remains from the cemeteries were spilling into adjacent basements. Ultimately, Wikipedia tells me, the Catacombs have received the remains of more than six million people. I’m not sure what I expected, but the bones are very neatly stacked. Mostly skulls and limbs. I don’t think I saw many rib cages, for example.


Across the street from the entrance was a café called “the Indiana.” So, of course we had to stop for a drink. I met a guy from Clarksville. Going with the theme, I had an “Indiana IPA.” The girls had a fruity drink they seemed to enjoy quite a bit. After our drinks, we headed up the street to I Grappoli for dinner where we split a pizza and some mozzarella sticks. For dessert, I had a strawberry sorbet. Amy and Harper had something like a chocolate lava cake.


Really getting into the theme.


The evening was still young, so we took the train to see the Moulin Rouge. We didn’t have any plans on going in, but it’s iconic. In retrospect, the train ride was a little long for what we did there. We saw the outside, took a few pictures, and then Amy and Harper went into the nearby Five Guys to use their bathroom. A staff member kind of gave them the stink eye for using the restroom without ordering any food but let them go. There were a lot of sex shops in the vicinity which weren’t very appealing for our family outing. So, after that brief interlude, we hopped on the train back to the apartment and called it a night.


Itchi gitchi ya ya here.


The next morning, we got a taxi to Charles DeGaulle airport much earlier than, as it turned out, we needed. Even though Harper and I got up early, Amy was up even earlier – catching the end of the IU/Penn State game in the Big Ten tournament. IU won, and she saw Cole!


We had heard horror stories about getting to the airport, but traffic was light. Security there seems to be more of a pod system – at least for our gate. The security area we passed through served only a limited number of gates, so it was empty when we arrived. Which was good because Amy’s bags got a proctology exam. Maybe the staff was bored, maybe the conditioner really was a big security threat. In any event, they spent some time with her bags but let us through with lots of time to spare.


The flight to Copenhagen was uneventful. At the airport, the lounge available to (the inaptly named) Priority Pass members was closed because they prioritized other people who used the lounge. We thought about waiting for it to open to us, but ultimately just decided to head to the gate. There really weren’t many food options in that area of the airport. I picked up some snacks from a 7/11.


Greenland is not aptly named.


The flight to Chicago was about 9 hours. Harper and I were in a 2 seat section of the row. Amy was the odd man out. Her seatmate Jack was very chatty. He was a Vanderbilt student who had been in London for business school of some sort. Customs was a breeze. We used the mobile passport line and we went through it in less than 10 minutes. On the way home, Amy streamed IU’s second round of the Big Ten tournament for us to listen to. Nebraska just had our number this year and the game got away from Hoosiers. Took us about 3 hours from landing in O’Hare to get home, which is awfully fast. It was 21 hours door-to-door. The dogs were happy to see us!


Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.


I like to time these things.


Paris Day Five: Stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.


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If you enjoy tales of climbing up and down stairs and hills, this installment is for you. Paris is not Lisbon, but it turns out that there are some hills.


We started the day by going to the Montmartre area of Paris. The exit from train station had an elevator where we noticed more people than usual standing. We took the stairs and, not knowing the area, were surprised at how far up we had to go to reach street level. Our mistake, after all, “Mont” is right there in the name!


This was our day, basically.


For breakfast we went with croissants and expressos at a place called Boris Lume Boulangerie. This was Harper’s choice. It apparently features prominently in a show called the Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. The proprietor scolded us gently for not ordering our coffees at one time. This would have made the order somewhat easier to fill, apparently. Properly chastened, we enjoyed our breakfast.


Ladybug lives here, I’m told.


From there, we continued climbing up the hill to the Sacre Coeur. The problem we ran into there was that I had wanted to see the stairs featured in the fourth John Wick movie where Wick has to fight his way up a comically long flight of stairs against innumerable gunmen, only to be knocked down and have to climb up again. We had come up from the wrong direction. The route from the Montmartre station to Sacre Coeur actually didn’t involve too many stairs. We went through a small commercial district and then came out on, I believe, the west side.


With views like this, who needs 5 for 1 trinkets?


Assuming I’m correct that it faces the south, I walked down the south stairs so I could go around the side and find the Wick stairs. Harper went with me. Amy recognized that this was silly and just waited up top for us. On the way down, a vendor was putting on the hard sell for trinkets. He said I could get “5 for 1” to give to my daughter. I was heartless and didn’t buy even one! Harper and I got to the bottom, walked a quarter of the way around, and then climbed the stairs. Except they were the wrong set of stairs. So, lots of climbing for not very much! But it was fun to walk a little further with Harper.


Not the John Wick stairs.


Once we were back up with Amy, we kept going, climbing to the top of the basilica. Amy didn’t have any particular problems with the heights in this configuration. The views were good. The spiral staircase was dizzying. I was a little surprised to learn how recently the Sacre Coeur was built. It was constructed between 1875 – 1919; apparently in response to the French losing the war to the Prussians in the 1870s. They’d lost the favor of God and all of that. Being a conservative initiative from the right, I gather that it’s not a beloved monument among the socialists and godless communists.


This is fine. Everything is fine.


After taking in the sights in and around the basilica, we headed back down through the commercial district we had passed through initially, picked up some macarons, and headed back to the Airbnb for a rest.


In the mid-afternoon, we left for our food tour which was in the Marais area of Paris. These food tours have become some of my favorite activities in our European trips. For this one, our guide was Camila. Unlike Berlin, there were no New York Yankees in our group. We did, however, get to hang out with Ann, Annie, and Karen. They all went to a school for learning French. Two were from the U.S. and one was from England. (One of Ann or Annie was the spitting image of Ana Gasteyer playing one of the NPR hosts in a couple of sketches.)


Camila was from Argentina. Interestingly, these food tours have all involved guides who weren’t from the country we were touring. In any case, Camila was a good history teacher. She had maps and everything. Marais apparently means “the swamp.” It was a swampy area of Paris that was drained and eventually housed some rich Parisians. But then the wealthy were apparently coerced to leave when Louis XIV built Versailles and moved the court there. It became a factory area and Jewish quarter and has become trendy since the 1970s.


Our first stop was L’Escurial where we had wine and escargot. I guess I’ve had escargot enough at this point, that I don’t regard it as weird or all that exotic. But Camila made a point to be reassuring about the food and at least one in the group was a little nervous about it. Ultimately, to me, snails aren’t much different than oysters. They end up being a vehicle for whatever sauce you want to put on them.


Attempting to extract the snail.


What was different for me was pulling them out of the shell. When I’ve had them at restaurants, they were already out of their shells. Harper had a “defective” one. She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t pull the meat out of that particular shell. Others at our table gave it a go with no success. Camila deployed a tooth pick to try to get it out. Still no luck. Eventually, the solution was to smash the shell and pick out the shards.


Our next stop was Miznon, and it was just fantastic. Apparently the chef is Israeli and the menu is an Israeli-French fusion idea. My favorite food of the trip was the beef bourguignon in a pita. It was a little messy, but so, so good. The Dijon mustard added the final touch that made it next level.


Beef bourguignon in a pita. So good.


After Miznon, we had falafel at Chez Hanna which, if I’m honest, was not my favorite. I suspect this has more to do with my not being a huge fan of falafel than with the quality. Next we had desserts – Belgian chocolate at Elisabeth Chocolatier and kouignettes at Maison George Larnicol. At the latter, we learned about the title “Meilleur de Ouvrier de France.” It’s an award given out as part of a competition every four years. Per Wikipedia, “This award for special abilities is unique in the world. Created in 1924, initially between the best workers of the era aged 23 and over, this contest was given the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman of France).”


We stopped briefly in front of the apartment where Jim Morrison allegedly died in 1971, before finishing the tour at Vins de Pyrenees for cheese and wine. Overall, I’d rate the places we ate at the tour as decent and the guide as outstanding.


Fun fact: Jim Morrison isn’t dead. He’s working a 7/11 in Topeka.


By the end of our food tour, it had been several hours since we had climbed any stairs of note; so we went to the Arc de Triomphe. As arches go, it is very triumphant! I’ve seen it in pictures a hundred times, but hadn’t really appreciated the scale of the monument. It’s really big!


The Internet tells me the Arc de Triomphe is 164 feet tall which amounts to something like a twelve story building. Going up to the top involved a lot more stairs, but the view at the top was very much worth it. It sits at the intersection of twelve radiating avenues and offers a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower. Even better, the tower “sparkles” on the hour at night, so at 8 p.m., we were able to see it all lit up from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. If she had to pick a favorite part of the trip, I believe this would have been Amy’s.


Most triumphant!


Then we headed back home. According to my watch, we’d climbed the equivalent of 87 flights of stairs and walked 19,000 steps.


Americans in Paris




Paris Day Four: Versailles, Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, Le P’tit Cafe


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None of us had a good night’s sleep for our second night in Paris. One of our neighbors was talking loudly and endlessly. It sounded like he was on the telephone. I ended up moving from the bedroom in the back of the apartment (where we could all hear him) to the couch in the front which was less comfortable but, ironically given its proximity to the street, quieter.


That morning it was raining lightly but steadily. We had early reservations for the Palace of Versailles which was about an hour train ride. It makes sense that it is some distance away. One of the reasons Louis XIV built the place was to force the nobility away from their homes where they would be more dependent on him.


Rainy Days and Mondays* (*Not a Monday).


We navigated to Versailles without much trouble, but the palace was insanely crowded. Even by the standards of the very touristy places we chose for our trip. It was difficult to take in much information or spend much time appreciating the sights. At one point, we got separated from Amy and, looking for her, went into an area that was an incredible bottle neck: narrow and packed with people, all heading in one direction. When I tried to go in the opposite direction to look for her, the powers that be wouldn’t allow me to go that direction.


I had to activate data on my phone for the day so we could text. (She’s worth the ten dollars!) Eventually, we reconnected in the Hall of Mirrors. It’s where the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I was signed. Given the historical significance of the Hall, that was the one place I wanted to see.  So, I’m glad we went. After we left the main palace, we walked the grounds a bit, but there was a steady rain, so our outside time didn’t last long.


Reunited in the Hall of Mirrors.


We made our way back into town and found a pizza place called the Pizzeria Cesar for lunch. It was convenient to the train station, had reasonable prices, and the food was decent. Also, it was out of the rain. I think all of us dozed on the way back to the city. The next stop was the Musee d’Orsay to see some Impressionists. The line for the museum was fairly long, possibly because of the rain. But Amy was able to cut some time off our wait by buying tickets online while we were waiting.


My knowledge of art is somewhere between poor and bad. For some time, I had periodically referenced Monet or Manet when vaguely talking to the kids about a French painter who had gone to live in the South Pacific. (My knowledge of this painter was a product of my reading about this history of the Pacific Islands, not any kind of artistic appreciation.) Turns out, I had it all wrong and was talking about Gaugin. Who knows how much bad information I’ve given the kids over the years. I take comfort that I’m surely not the first parent to be a vector of misinformation!


Van Gogh: Roses and Anemones. And Harper! 


Having Harper around to explain art to me was a lot of fun. We had a good conversation about the Impressionists being a reaction to some of the overproduced, overwrought stuff like what we’d seen in Versailles. (Reminded me in my simple way of punk being a reaction to disco and some of the overproduced music of the 70s.) On the other hand, maybe those artists are a step down in a sense from the likes of Michelangelo trying to find a connection between the human and the divine. One of the plaques talked about a critic of Degas depicting women going about their ablutions characterizing the work as “little more than animals grooming themselves.”


After the Impressionists and the Neo-Impressionists, we lost steam and called it a day on the museum. We walked along the Seine and saw Notre Dame. It is under construction after the massive roof fire in 2019, so we only saw the outside. I offered up some more tenuously sourced information about Vikings taking over the Ile de la Cite where Notre Dame is positioned in the Seine and how the bridges over the Seine served as fortifications that were sometimes successful in preventing the Vikings from raiding further inland. I think I was wrong about Viking occupation. (In a sense, the Ile de la Cite was Paris back in the 9th century. If the Vikings had occupied it, I’m not sure there would have been much city left over.) But the Franks did use the bridges on the Seine as fortifications to hinder Viking raids further inland.


No hunchbacks or fighting Irish detected.


Not far from Notre Dame is a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company. Walking through it didn’t take long, even with the line to get in.  It’s famous for being a center of the literary community in 1950s and 1960s Paris including, prominently, members of the Beat Generation like Allen Ginsberg. The two book stores really are not very similar, but for some reason, it reminded me of the Livraria Lello in Porto. Probably nothing more than that they’re both historic, well-regarded book stores I visited in Europe.


In line for Shakespeare and Company


By the time we were finished browsing at the bookstore, we were all pretty beat and ready to take a break. This threw off our plans for dinner which involved a restaurant near Shakespeare and Company. But, we are adaptable! A place called Le P’tit Bistro had good reviews and was close.


If I had to pick, this was my favorite meal of the trip. I got the impression that the person serving us was the owner. He was super friendly. We were seated in an upstairs room with several tables. The only other people in there at the time was a group of 8 or 10 which I took to be college students. They were having a good time. I had steak tartar, Harper had pasta with salmon, and Amy had something with goat cheese.


Dinner time!


When we came home, a guy was in the street out front shouting. He seemed more or less harmless, but loud. He kept it up for several hours; but fortunately, that was outside the front of the apartment, and the bedrooms were in the back. The guy on the phone the night before was quiet and I think we all got a good night’s sleep.


Paris Day Three: Michelin Star Restaurant, Eiffel Tower, Steak & Frites


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After our first day in Paris, we all slept really well – to the extent we were commenting about it. I guess travel and a lot of activity will do that to you. After sleeping in until 9, lazing about with some coffee, and getting ready, we started making our way to lunch.


Paris 2024


The closest metro stop to our Airbnb was at the Hotel De Ville which has the Paris 2024 Olympic rings on display. After making a slight detour to see those, we picked up metro cards with 10 rides, and started getting ourselves familiar with the Paris metro system. In other places, we had generally obtained some kind of weekly pass that provided unlimited rides and benefits like museum discounts. For Paris, Amy did the math and that kind of card just didn’t add up for us.


The train was easy. We had more trouble with a bus ride after the train. The problem ended up being that the bus stop we wanted was closed due to some Olympic-related construction. The next closest bus stop was far enough away that we probably just should have walked in the first place.


Lunch was courtesy of our recent Netflix habits. After watching the Bear, we got it into our heads that we wanted to eat at a Michelin star restaurant. Turns out, that’s easier to do in Paris than West Lafayette. Not wanting to break the bank, we settled with one star and doing it over lunch. Also, we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower later that day.


Lunch at a fancy restaurant.


That brought us to Le Violon d’Ingres. (The name, I just learned, is a reference to a famous picture with a nude model who has two “f-holes” painted on her waist to make her torso resemble a violin. That photograph’s name, in turn, is based on a French expression that refers to a hobby because of a French artist who used to play the violin when he wasn’t painting.)


The food was very good as was the service and the presentation, but ultimately, I can’t say that the experience was over and above the average restaurant in a way that was commensurate with the price. A fair amount of the price was our own fault – they offered champagne as an aperitif which we agreed to without looking at the menu or the prices, adding 75 euro to the bill. Lesson learned! Still, I’m glad we checked that off our bucket list.


Pictures of some of our fancy food.


 


More pictures of our fancy food.


I neglected to take a picture of the menu or record exactly what I had. But it was a spinach salad to start. (If my spinach tasted like that, I’d eat it every day!). Next up was scallops. The main course was aile de raie which, I believe, is some kind of fish from the ray family. And for dessert was a mille-feuille which is a puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Harper and I made the same choices. Amy had the duck for her main course and ouefs a la neige for dessert.


Like I said, very good. I don’t need to go back. While we were eating, I was wondering about the guys who looked like a casual lunch crowd. What kind of job has you drinking booze and going to a Michelin star restaurant for lunch? They looked vaguely professional – guys in their 40s to 60s, I would guess. Meanwhile, my normal work lunch is Subway at my desk.


After lunch, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. In a lot of ways, we were doing this trip as paint-by-the-numbers tourists. I know some travelers want to live like locals; but if you’re only going to be in a place once for a few days, I don’t think that works very well.


For some reason, I thought the Eiffel Tower was less brown.


Only one pillar of the tower had lifts running. The others were under construction, being fitted with more efficient hydraulics, I believe.  We took the lift up to the second level. Amy thought her anxiety over heights would be manageable, but as we were in line for the elevator that would take us to the top level, she reconsidered.


Harper and I went on up. It was probably a good choice for Amy. The top is well-confined so there is no real chance of falling. But it is very high, and there isn’t anything else near your level. To top it off, it was very windy. The view was great, of course. But, the thing about being on top of the Eiffel Tower is that there, unlike most places in Paris, you can’t look for the it as a landmark.


Amy and Harper on Level 2.


After returning to the second level, we reconnected with Amy where we took advantage of a gift shop and a mail slot to send some post cards. When I was visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the Berlin post card on the refrigerator. So, don’t underestimate your ability to brighten someone’s day by sending a little post card from far off places. We took the stairs back down. Even though we were going down, it was still a bit of a hike getting to the ground!


Harper and I at the top.


It was a bit rainy outside, so we went back to the Airbnb and crashed for a little while. Eventually we roused ourselves to head out for dinner. On the calendar was Le Relais de l’Entrecote. They only serve one thing: steak and frites. And the restaurant is incredibly popular. It’s one of those places that’s popular because it’s popular. It creates its own momentum.


After the big lunch, I don’t think we were very hungry when we started the trip to the restaurant. We ended up in line for 2.5 hours! So, if we weren’t hungry when we got in line, we were sure hungry by the time we got into the restaurant. The line took us past a big window that let us see some of the diners. We had fun joking about holding up Google Translate on a phone saying stuff like, “Hungry. So, very hungry. Please leave.” We were punchy. It was a long wait, but we had a good time. Some other folks were buying drinks from a nearby grocery and having them in line.


Harper and I either in line for Steak and Frites or posing for our metal band cover.


There was a young American woman behind us who had a dog that looked less like a pet and more like an accessory. We were all pretty sure we’d dislike her if we got to know her. The restaurant gave us a lot of steak and frites. Possibly more than we wanted. Besides drinks, the only real decision to make is whether you want your steak rare, medium, or well done. They pile on the fries and aren’t shy with more helpings of meat either. We ate our fill and then headed home. We had an early morning the next day.


The line stretching out behind us.


 


The presentation at dinner was not quite as elegant as what we had for lunch.


Paris Day Two: Copenhagen to Paris; Centre Pompidou


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From the Comfort Hotel in Copenhagen, it was a short walk to the airport. All indoors. As we knew from last year’s trip, the Carlsberg Aviator’s lounge is quality. Carlsberg on tap, good coffee, bread, and cheese, among other things. So, we ate there. Harper and I recreated the breakfast beer picture Cole and I took last year.


Breakfast beers at the Aviator Lounge.


The flight to Paris was short and uneventful. Charles De Gaulle Airport has some crazy, avante garde walkways. They kind of snake up and down where you’d expect either escalators or maybe just a flat surface. It was fun, but a bit of an adventure with roller bags.


Upon exiting the secured section of the airport, there was a crowded scrum of drivers picking up passengers and what I suspect were unlicensed drivers looking for fares. There was good signage pointing to the official taxi pick-up location. Once we cleared the scrum, the crowds abated somewhat and, by the time we got to the taxi stand, there were very few people around. We hopped right into a taxi.


Our Airbnb was in the center of the city (just a couple of blocks north of Notre Dame Cathedral). On the way in from the airport, there was a long stretch where the sidewalks were crowded with just about nothing but men. It was at least 10:1 men to women in this area. At around noon on a Sunday. And there were a lot of people. This was not a small sample size. Amy noticed the same thing and remarked that “if there are no women, there’s a reason for that.” I don’t think I want to walk those particular streets.


By the time we got to our place on Rue St. Martin, the demographics had equalized and the neighborhood was energetic. The road actually didn’t get all the way up to our door – or at least not at that time of day – there was some vehicular traffic early in the morning, but it was all pedestrians and tables and merchandise when we arrived.


Centre Pompidou


We had to walk about half a block from where the taxi dropped us off to get to our apartment. It had two bedrooms, a very small kitchen, and a decent sized living/dining room. The bedroom Harper took was very narrow and, oddly, had a window into the hallway with curtains over it.


After unpacking our stuff, Amy and I headed out for groceries. There was a decent grocery store maybe two blocks away where we were able to grab essentials like coffee, bread, beer, wine, and cheese to have in the apartment for snacks and breakfast. This has become something of a ritual, and it cracks me up how much easier this has been for us in Paris, Berlin, and Lisbon than it was in Rome.


Our first encounter during that Rome trip was with a very elderly Italian shopkeeper who didn’t speak a lick of English with our Italian being comically inadequate and him insisting on getting items for us off a shelf. These other shopping trips have not required much in the way of direct communication. Grab the stuff, go to the counter, say “bonjour,” ring it up, pay by credit card, “merci.”


We rounded up Harper and headed out to the Centre Pompidou which was maybe a tenth of a mile away. The primary attraction was the Modern Art Museum. Candidly, I’m not a huge art person. And a lot of modern art is just beyond me. Still, this was worth the visit. It helps having my daughter able to explain some of it to me.


Painting at the Modern Art Museum


One of the things she mentioned is that some of the modern artistic efforts are a response to photography. With cameras able to reproduce the world so easily, artists are looking for other ways to capture the essence of things. So you get styles like Expressionism and Cubism.


Harper observed that a lot of modern art is divided between, on the one hand, pushing the limits and concepts of what it means to be “art,” and – on the other hand – simply saying “screw you” to rich people. Maybe they’ll buy it. The “readymade” exhibits (e.g. hanging up a shovel or laying down a toilet from a hardware store and calling it “art”) strike me as an example of the latter.


View of the Sacre Coeur


Dinner that night was crepes at the nearby Creperie Beauborg. I had never had savory crepes. They were pretty good. I had one with ham, cheese, and egg. Harper had the better idea with the Norwegian crepe, featuring salmon and cream cheese. While we were looking at the menu, what I took to be an English-speaking spring break school trip arrived with a bunch of students. The staff had its hands full for a bit. For dessert, we got crepes with chocolate which hit the spot.


Crepes for Dinner


Through the magic of VPNs and subscription services, we were able to wrap up the night by watching the Indiana / Michigan State basketball game. The broadcast had several nice shots of the band, and we were able to see Cole a few times. While it would have been more fun (for us) to have him in Paris with us, seeing him on TV was at least some consolation.


Eiffel Tower at Sunset.