A Flowery, French Saturday

About six weeks ago, NPR informed me that the New York Botanical Garden had rebuilt Giverny inside the conservatory! Needless to say, I was thrilled to hear this. I've never been to that part of France (or to the Botanical Garden), and the exhibition was supposed to be great. It opened in late spring and was supposed to go until October, so there was tons of time to get there. On Saturday, Ed and I finally made it. 

The gardens are way out in the Bronx, near the zoo, so it took us ages to get there. I'd done a 15-mile run that morning and Ed had done a shorter, faster 9, so we were both a little weary. The weather was searingly hot, and the subway was crammed with exuberant fans in Yankees gear heading to the game, so it was a relief to finally arrive. Upon entering the garden, I felt myself relax almost immediately. It is huge and green and beautiful. We made a beeline for the conservatory. This would have been my first choice anyway, as I've always been a fan of greenhouses. This one dates back from the Victorian era and is made of glass and iron instead of steel. It's graceful and lovely. 

I was rather hoping that the $20 ticket into the garden would save Ed and me the time and expense required to visit the real Giverny. I would not recommend the exhibition for that purpose. Still, it was very beautiful and well thought out. For one thing, the flowerbeds were punctuated with quotations taken from letters and diary entries Monet wrote about gardening. He was an avid gardener, and he planned his landscape the way he'd plan a painting as far as composition and color scheme. There were also placards with tidbits of information about Monet's life at Giverny. The theme spread beyond the conservatory. In the garden's museum, which we did not have time to visit, there were apparently lots of photographs of and more information about the Giverny house and garden, and there were large signs printed with poems about water lilies and the like planted along the walkways leading up to to the conservatory.

I thought the exhibition itself was beautiful, though it was smaller than I'd expected. There was a walkway surrounded by the flowers that Monet would have planted in his own garden with a replica of part of his house applied to the back wall. The walkway led to a small pond containing as many lilypads as could be crammed into the small space. A green bridge, like the one in many of his most famous paintings, curved gracefully over it, though it was much shorter in both length and height than the one I've seen painted so many times.

Real house and garden

Replica

Painting of bridge

Replica of bridge. (This is pretty much the whole thing.)

Still, it was all very pretty. Ed and I wandered through the rest of the conservatory, where we saw some lovely orchids, some less lovely carnivorous plants, and water lilies and lotuses growing in outdoor ponds, complete with koi paddling lazily just below the surface. I loved the rainforest room, were we followed a curving path through lush, drooping foliage that we often had to duck under. I did not like the desert room, less because of its contents - which were mostly really cool cacti - and more because of the heat. It felt like an oven.

Ed finally dragged me out of the conservatory and we took a free tram around the perimeter of the park while listening to an informational recording about all the different attractions. This was a great way to get an overview of what was there and catch glimpses of lovely vistas like the rose garden and the azalea garden. We visited the gift shop, a Must Do when visiting any museum or garden as far as I'm concerned, but then had to leave so we'd be in time for the second part of the day's agenda. I look forward to going back in fall and spring, when I expect it will be a different place altogether.

Our friend Dennis has a French girlfriend named Marine who lives with him in White Plains. Dennis also has a British friend named Dave who lives in Brooklyn near a spot called the Dekalb Market. The market is an assortment of shops and food and drink vendors operating out of storage containers in a lot that takes up a city block. Since July 14th was Bastille Day, there was a special celebration going on at the market. Dave saw this last year on Bastille Day from his apartment, which overlooks the Dekalb Market, and so some combination of Dave's reports and Marine's nationality convinced Dennis that we should all go this year. It was a very international group: Dennis, Ed, and I were the nationals, while Marine and Dave were joined by another foreigner, Sarah, a former neighbor to the north who now lives in White Plains, too. We met at a Mexican restaurant before heading to the festival for fear that the lines would be very long at the vendors, and after dispatching some watery margaritas and fairly decent fare, walked over to the market. 

My first impression upon entering the grounds was that it didn't look very French. There were a few red, white and blue streamers here and there, and a photographer was set up to take pictures of people who lined up to pose with French props like plastic boater hats, wispy scarves, and false mustaches, but that was about it. The place was simply crawling with hipsters. Most of the food vendors were open, but they were still selling the same thing they'd sell any day of the week. The hamburger stand still had hamburgers, the mac 'n' cheese place still had mac 'n' cheese, etc. No snails or delicious cheeses in sight. Ed and I foraged around the perimeter, as he was still a little hungry. (He's been a bottomless pit since he started training for all these triathlons.) We discovered that the place that advertised milkshakes was out of vanilla, and chocolate seemed rather heavy for such a hot day. We tried the frozen yogurt place which had only "original" and strawberry-banana to choose from. The doughnut place had an Open sign displayed but was most certainly closed. Ed commented that he felt he'd been taken in by the hipsters. We managed to catch the one and only performance by the Love Show Burlesque, which consisted of three heavily made-up girls in frilly, feathery costumes doing high kicks for three minutes. Then they left the stage and we never saw them again. The Hot Sardines, however, a jazz band who sounded like they'd walked out of 1930, were not only talented but long-lasting. We could hear them from our table, which wasn't quite as far from the Port-a-potties as would have been ideal but which we were lucky to get as the place filled up. We did not see the baguette eating contest, though we heard the French emcee commentating. Ed decided to fill up on beer instead of food, and he, Dennis, and Dave took turns waiting in an absurdly long line for $7 beers.

The Hot Sardines

I had a really nice time hanging out with the crew, but I certainly wouldn't recommend this Bastille Day celebration to anyone. We should have put the $12 towards more beer somewhere else instead of toward admissions to this place. Still, it was a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday.