10 Massimo

Anne-Marie is Italian and was 30 years old when this picture was taken in Italy. She has always loved the Creator and reads the Bible daily, so recently agreed to a study. In her senior years, she moved to France to be near her daughter and is living in a retirement home at St.Ouen where Marisa has the privilege of visiting her weekly to examine the Scriptures. Because of her deep appreciation, Anne Marie reads over ahead of time all the study articles and paragraphs concerning the topic, researching every scripture. She said the worn pages of her Bible is like gold.

Anne Marie is 90 years old

Much of the preaching work for this community is done in the streets; Marisa does not hesitate to ask someone who accepts a brochure or pamphlet for their name and address, phone number, setting up a definite time to call at their home. They find it rather bold but comply, setting appointments even a month later if convenient. Most people live in closed buildings where residents can only be reached through intercoms, so precise information is important. This area is very mixed, not only culturally but religiously. Recently, all the friends here received the recommendation to also preach to Muslims.

Old fireplace in porcelain from Holland at the Flea Market

That evening, Marisa's son Massimo picked us up and took us first to his home for an 'aperitif'. We met his wife Sylvie and his son and daughter. After, we ate at a Chinese restaurant...

Back at Massimo's, the chatter was happy and loud; Nicolas and Manuel played music..classical guitars...we had a very pleasant evening...I'll upload the videos later on when I figure how to operate the program. Sorry.

09 Sophie

Marisa's daughter Sophie came up from Marseille to visit and it was a full house.Thomas is the grandson on the left and Nicolas is the tall guy on the right; Manuel and Sophie have been together 25 years. I had Sunday and Monday off since the site was closed, so we walked over to the Flea Market.

Because of the holiday, many of the stores were closed. Anyhow, the Flea Market is only open on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

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We had the best crepe I've ever tasted, it was huge!

I decided to come back another day. Meanwhile, we went back home where it was nice and warm.

Fixed a little dinner and made plans for the next day. There was a type of expo in Paris I really wanted to see and Sophie knew all about it; but first, we thought we'd go to the Modern Art Museum near the Eiffel tower to catch a special art exhibition by Basquiat but the queue went out the door and around the block so we decided to find another expo. Took the metro to the Musee d'Orsay but ditto, the queue was so long that we got discouraged, so we walked over to the Museum Les Arts Decoratifs. It was awesome! 

We aren't allowed to take photographs inside but I managed to steal one...this is a hi-fi, radio, tv console in Furniture section...an era where catalog sales started to take off. Gotta see it. 

         

Every floor specialized in textures such as ceramic, glass and textile then in various themes popular during that era. The textile expo showed catwalk film of 1960-90's fashion creations, with also full size mannequins displaying outrageous styles that inspired the Pret a Porter fashion industry, shoes, purses, hats...very exciting.

Musee d'Orsay

Walking toward the bridge and the Seine River was furious...it is rising over the banks and this car is in for a ride! Crossing the bridge, you see a token of Parisian love...locks bound together forever.

 

  

Looking towards Place de la Concorde

Garden of the Tuilleries is the park near all the royal buildings including the Louvre. Though the ground is 50% frozen ice, people are still out wandering around.

The one seated on the horse is Jeanne d'Arc

Taken through Museum window, evening is here

08 Villiers Le Bel

Ingrid from the St.Ouen congregation met me at the bus stop near Marisa's to show me the way to the building site at Villiers le Bel. After a short bus ride to the train station, we took the rapid transit to Villiers le Bel and got there about 6:30 a.m. to find brothers and sisters doing street preaching work at the train station. Ingrid had to leave for her secular job but the friends told me there may be another sister somewhere in the station that morning, and she probably would be taking take the bus to the building site. We looked around but not having located her, I decided to take the bus anyway so I wouldn't be late for morning worship. Finally got to my stop 'Esperance'...and there were only two people getting off the bus. We looked at each other and smiled, and I asked if she knew the way to the Kingdom Hall? She said she was going there herself!  

After registering, getting my shoes and hat, I was assigned to help put up drywall board.

Here David is putting up 'placo' to soundproof the foreign language group room. Groups are Hindi and English, then the French congregation share the hall with the Portuguese congregation.

That morning, it hadn't started snowing yet and there was concrete work to be done. So they removed the pile of snow from the day before and got a team going with jack hammers and shovels.

Later, it did start to snow but the sisters and brothers kept on working. The temp is about -4°C...that's a minus 4! Very cold, folks. 

The siding on two sides of the Hall had to be reinforced and the scaffolding arrived while it snowed, but that didn't discourage the friends from getting it done.

Lunch time with a short 10 minute encouraging talk, and food was served to us at the tables like a restaurant. A typical French meal consists of an appetizer, such as a cold salad, then the main hot meal, followed by a slice of regional cheese or yogurt, fruit and maybe a small dessert, then cafe. Many in this area are from the Antilles or Martinique and we'd have the most wonderful ethnic dishes, full of spices and aromas.

Then back to work; they put me with the painters. On this project, the drywall mud, taping and finishing, was directed by the paint department because it kept the sequence of jobs going smoother. This way, the drywall hangers could come days in advance and get it up and ready for the next trade. 

The brother with the green shirt is Daniel, a master painter. He really knew how to to patiently teach us what we needed to learn. Daniel is part of the CCR North. Sevrine, in the middle, is a local volunteer who kindly took me to the train station at the day's end.   

The Hall seats about 200 people including the space alloted for the language groups and second school. The congregation voted on the choice of decoration and colors. The French love wall paper and the textures were really nicely done.

The Welcome wagon

This is the train station at Villiers le Bel, direction Paris-St.Ouen. We arrive when it's dark and leave when it's dark. Eh...its winter!

07 St. Ouen

There are still a few days left until I check in at the CCR building site. Marisa has meeting for service at her home so we decided to spruce up the room in her apartment. We walked over to the local hardware store to pick up ceiling supplies and thought some of the displays were very French...these are rags...in fashionable assorted colors...

Thought these acrylic stackable chairs were so cool...looked like glass...for 40 Euros each.

Anyhow, Marisa's grandson Alexis was visiting and he gave a helping hand. The goal is to paint the room and put up new ceiling tiles. Marisa was happy with the outcome.

Meanwhile, Marisa is making pasta...from scratch. She brings tomatoes back from Italy. 

Then after an Italian feast, we went to the Kingdom Hall for some spiritual food...it used to be a Post Office until project Paris 2005 transformed it into a beautiful meeting place. Trudy and I had the privilege of working on this Hall and made many friends...

Ananis & Bernard

Marisa & Betty

Chantal & Eddie with their girls

Might have been cold outside, but warm and toasty in here!

   

 

06 El Norte...to Paris

The next morning, I had to go to Aix en Provence to catch a train north to Paris but didn't expect the snow storm  that swept most of France. We had a 100 km drive downhill winding roads before reaching the autoroute. This is what the road looked like...

Some villages had snow plows, others didn't

Gotta admit, after a little spinning encounter with some black ice, and a mountain cliff impact that stopped us, I was becoming a little stressed.

By now I'm not liking white

Frozen ice 

Ubaye River is almost 83km long sourced from a little lake 

Lake

Thought for sure I'd miss the train 

The Colonel and his wife got me to the station on time

TGV was a smooth ride north

It started out a wet taxi ride from the Gare de Lyon 

The snow came fast

The taxi driver said I'd be his last fare for the evening, Parisians are not equipped for this kind of weather. I am now in Saint Ouen at Marisa's and this is the city view from my window the next morning...

This incinerator stack is steam vapor transformed from burning garbage and piping the hot steam to heat up all the city owned building radiators (including the one Marisa is living in) - impressive concept.

Saint Ouen used to be the northern industrial area of Paris with the Citroen auto factories, until new city boundaries (the circular expressway) put it over on the other side, in a county called Seine Saint Denis. St. Ouen became an interesting social development. The brick building in the lower right corner of the photo used to be the Banque de France but it was purchased by the French communist party and transformed into a Socio-cultural building for the poor, to make a point no doubt. The famous Flea Market is just around the corner. Since St.Ouen is one of the important axis through which traveler's into the capital city came, the poor and the homeless would sit by the road and sell whatever they could to the people.