Paris - Day 3 - Monday – Le Louvre & Cuban fare

Monday morning, I headed out on my own for my first big day in the city shortly after Shawn left for work After having a bit of trouble locating a metro station that had a counter manned with someone to sell you a weekly pass (my rotten sense of direction landed me at Pere Lachaise station instead of Ménilmontant!), I arrived at the Louvre around 10:30 AM. I saw the famous inverted glass pyramid in the lobby of where you enter from the metro. Everything you hear about how huge this place is is true – even with a map, very hard to get around, it is set up in a big square – the middle of the bldg is hollow, so you cannot cut through anywhere, so once you are in an exhibit, you have to go all the way through it to the end. Not a problem when you are in one you want to see, but if you have to cross through one that you had not planned on taking the time to look at, or one you’ve already been through, you are stuck maneuvering through it & all of the people in it!

I started at the beginning and saw the ancient ruins that the museum was built around – you are underground & everything is dimly lit. I then wanted to start out with the Egyptian exhibit, but ended up in the Objet’s d’art, which was so interesting (& long!) that I took the time to look at everything. Lots of stuff behind glass – beautiful & intricate glassware, silver, jewelry and also tapestries & furniture. I had to keep reminding myself to look up, as there are so many paintings on the ceilings too! The Louis XV’s apartments were breathtaking! I ended up in a section with lots of marble statues at one point & then accidentally stumbled along where they keep Venus de Milot, which was swarmed with tourists taking pictures, I managed to get one clear shot. I finally located the Egyptian exhibit and went through most of it, by the end I was getting really hungry & tired, as it was almost 2pm!

I had visions of lunching on one of the terrasses of the Louvre that I had heard about, so I located the one on the 2nd floor near Objets d’art – the lineup seemed pretty long, & after looking at the prices on the menu (I think cheapest meal was over 12EUR, and was a salad or something!), I got discouraged & looked elsewhere. Found another café with a terrace with less of a line, but it was still taking too long for my taste (I didn’t want to waste precious time waiting in line, then waiting for food, then bill) & I figured prices would be similar to the last place I saw), I went to check out the cafeteria. The hot meals didn’t look very appetizing (looked & smelled burned!), so I finally settled on getting a sandwich at a stand in one of the hallways (for 5EUR80 – it broke my heart!) – these were just packaged sandwiches (canteen-style) but at least they had interesting fillings like grilled veggies & feta. I was still hungry after & was in need of reviving, so I found a coffee stand & ordered a café au lait & a white chocolate chunk cookie at reasonable prices – both were delicious & satisfying.

I made my way back to the Egyptian exhibit so I could continue the 2nd half of it on one floor higher. It was more of the same & was getting a little tedious, so I located one of the paintings wings & followed signs to the Mona Lisa (even though I had planned to wait to see it with Shawn on Wed.nite!). Just from the swarms, you know you’ve found it. It is highly overrated, and even though I expected it to be small & not very visible, it was still a further disappointment! You end up being so focused on just getting through the crowd to snap a few pics (it is hung so low on the wall & it totally behind glass), that you don’t really get to savour the moment or the beauty of the work. I had been planning on leaving around 6:00 pm to meet Shawn back at his apt. for 6:30, but by a bit after 5pm, I really had had enough, so I went up the escalator to the street level entrance & admired the pyramid & all of the huge exhibit wings from the outside, sat by the fountain & read my book until it was time to go.

We got a late start to heading out for dinner, by the time we downloaded & looked at my museum pics, changed & decided where to go. We headed back to the Bastille area & after looking at all of our options, we settled on a reasonably priced Cuban resto called Havanita. Really nice décor & atmosphere. We hurried to order drinks before happy hour (7-9pm) was over as it was 8:50 – Shawn ordered a beer & I had to have a mojito since we were in a Cuban place with so much rum available! I ordered a daurade (red snapper) en papillote & Shawn ordered some type of cajun chicken dish served with fried bananas. The waitress had me open the foil when I got my fish to check it for doneness & it looked perfect – there were tons of caramelized onions & sliced carrots at the bottom of it & the sauce was delicious! What was weird was the woman next to me ordered the same thing & she sent it back three times saying it wasn’t done enough! Shawn & I splurged & shared a rum cake for dessert, it was sooo soaked in rum, it was almost too strong & we expected to feel buzzed afterwards! We ended up being charged full price for the drinks, the waitress claiming that the computer automatically charges appropriately & that the order must have gone in after 9pm. We couldn’t really argue so we just accepted & paid.

Checking my spreadsheet of the week's activities!

Paris Day 2 - Sunday – le Marais & Tapas

I heard Shawn get up sometime around 9am on Sunday, I drifted off back to sleep, woke up sometime later in the morning, then Shawn came to wake me around noonish. I have to admit, I did feel refreshed & much more well-rested than the previous day. We slowly got up & got ready to head out to le Marais district (4e arrondissement) – the place to be on a Sunday, where all shops are open (most close up on rest day Sunday in Paris) in this primarily Jewish quarter. As we entered the area, we heard loud, beautiful young voices singing in Hebrew and as we approached the sounds, we expected to see some sort of demonstration or parade, but we realized it was about a dozen kids in their young teens, just singing & playing clapping hand games. I wondered if this scene resembled how it is in Israel.

Our main goal that day was to eat the world famous falafel at L’As du Falafel on des Rosiers (touted the ‘best in the world’ by stars like none other than Lenny Kravitz). There are a few other falafel places around here, but none with this resto’s rep. The place on the corner across the street from L’As has a guy shouting out ‘falafel! Shwarma!’ to passerbys to try to get sales, but L’As has a long lineup, no advertising required. They take your order while in line, so when you get up to the window, it’s made fresh to order right in front of you. The 4EUR50 each is so worth it – truly the best falafel we ever had – the pita is stuffed with about 6-7 falafel balls, and the shredded marinated purple cabbage and grilled eggplant makes this hearty sandwich special (too big to bite into, 1st ½ is fork only!). Apparently, it costs about 4EUR extra to sit down inside, so everyone enjoys their sandwich while slowly walking along des Rosiers. Right outside of the stand, we got asked by a British photographer to be photographed eating our sandwiches in front of another store front for some travel guide, so we happily obliged (& were quite flattered!).

After a lot of window shopping (& Shawn checking out the Boss store!), our strolling that day took us to a couple of nice little parks, Place des Vosges and a stop at a sorbet stand for some tart/sweet grapefruit sorbet that Shawn had raved about. We enjoyed strolling rue Saint-Paul, one of the oldest streets in Paris harbouring a labyrinth of back streets brimming with antique shops. We also checked out a little garage sale & thought of Richard when we took these pix :

We (well, I!) had one destination in particular in this district that we had to check out that I read about on the Net, which is a store called Les Trois Étoiles. It is tucked away on rue Rivoli, their address is 21 bis, which is like 21 A, I guess, but the thing is, 21 bis is not right next to 21, so we had to keep walking & found it recessed in further on the street. They have all kinds of oils, vinegars, liqueurs & eaux de vie in bulk – you get to smell & taste them & choose the bottle you want from 0,1 l to 1 l formats . We went crazy in there, trying to decide what to get who as souvenirs and also what to buy for ourselves! The girl was perfectly bilingual & served us in English & wrapped up all of our purchases for us in bubble wrap & strong tape for transport back to Canada.

For dinner, Shawn had planned an outing to a tapas restaurant in the Bastille district (Metro Arts et Metiers) called Les Piétons that he & Howie had enjoyed a couple of weeks ago during Howie’s visit. Our waiter seemed to be more Spanish than French, so Shawn managed to communicate our order to him, but since he had not brought us our 2 glasses of sangria we had ordered on arrival, we asked for them again. We chose a calamari and also a roasted red pepper tapas and each ordered a ‘plancha’ –toast & a topping served on a little wood board (we had one with tuna & one with smoked salmon, which Shawn loved so much – best he ever had he said, I found it very good!). We shared everything & everything was good, the calamari turned out to be sautéed & cooked in a sauce which was great for dipping baguette in (which we had to ask for!). We had some English speaking Europeans beside us (a group of people in their 20’s) so we had fun eavesdropping on their conversations! We wanted to order dessert, but by the time we finished eating & got dessert menus, it was getting late. Then, our waiter never came back to take our order – we saw him running back & forth from the front to the bar & finally when we got his attention, he indicated his shift was over! So, it was another long wait for our bill from another waiter, & of course, they double-charged us for drinks & we had to get our original waiter involved to straighten out the bill (he didn’t remember not bringing us our sangrias the 1st time we asked!). On our way out, we saw him eating dinner at the front of the restaurant with a table of chicks, trying to communicate in French with them!

Paris - Arrival Day - Jet lag, great pub food & l’Arc de triomphe

Boarding my Air France flight was a mess – couldn’t believe how many people try to pre-board before pre-boarding is called! No orderly line up & a hodge podge of people in a rush to get on the plane. Boarding was delayed 10 minutes, take off delayed at least ½ hr due to tech difficulties with the meal heating equipment. Impressive jet, comfortable, own personal tv with free headphones, choice of 12 movies, some tv shows, games, music, etc. Best airline food I ever had – choice of 2 main dishes, free wine, 2 desserts, delicious camembert cheese & baguette. Couldn’t sleep a wink on the plane, as I never sleep before midnight anyways, which is when I arrived in Paris our time (6 am their time) – we arrived on time despite delayed departure, so fatigue only hit me when landing. Plus I had a kid right in front of me who coughed nonstop the whole flight! Crew members bustling about the whole time, very active flight. Didn’t feel turbulence since we were at such a high altitude. I watched “Love & Other Disasters” (sucked!) & “Bridge to Taribithia” (I bawled!). We were fed a second meal about an hour before landing (‘breakfast’!) so it felt like we were always eating or being disturbed.

Shawn told me to expect him around 9-9:30 only as he was going to travel to the airport by metro, which only starts running at around 7:30 am on wkends, and he lives about 2 hrs away from CDG airport. But, since my plane ended up landing in another terminal (way at the other end of the airport from where I was supposed to land!) & I couldn’t communicate that to him, & no one told him that at the airport when he asked at first, he ended up finding me only at 10AM, just about when I was getting sufficiently worried! Our reunion was actually a little bit awkward, it was surreal seeing my husband face to face after being apart from him in for 6 weeks! We soon readjusted to each other on the train & metro ride back to his place on Republique in the 11e arrondissement (district).

After struggling up the many, many flights of stairs to Shawn’s appt for the first time (top pic is view from his balcony!), I marveled how cute Shawn’s apartment is, and how cute he is with the way he has his place set up. He explained how his clothes washer turned out to be a combo dryer as well, and I later found out that his stove/oven has a tiny 1-rack dishwasher attached to the bottom of it! After hazily learning how to use the shower (heated by gas, so you have to get the knob positioned just right, or you either burn or freeze!) and freshening up the best I could, we headed out to get a late lunch, since we were both starving. We settled on a nearby place called Café Charbon & each chose a really tasty dish consisting of chicken breast chunks in a fragrant sauce with pine nuts & jasmine rice, and a mellow-bodied house red wine.

We then went to l’arc de Triomphe & climbed the 284 stairs (don’t forget, after over a day of no sleep for me!) & took many photos of the gorgeous view of the city & the Eiffel Tower. The experience was kind of a joyful blur for me, due to the jetlag & the excitement of being there, I guess!



We then walked the Champs d’Elysees (until the end!) and I was running out of steam fast. We decided on a local Thai restaurant Shawn has had a few meals at called Phu Ket for dinner & we ordered a combo menu for 2. The starter dish was supposed to be a cold calamari salad, but the calamari looked suspiciously like beef strips. We didn’t have the heart to complain & it was good so we ate it anyway. Our meal also consisted of a duck in sauce dish & chicken skewers – all in all, delicious! We headed home, downloaded our pix of the day & I managed to hit the sack somewhere around 11pm (longer than I had expected to stay up on my 1st day! But, I had to follow Shawn’s jet lag elimination/reduction regimen that he swears by – stay up as long as u can on arrival day, drink lots of water, then sleep 12 hrs). Which I did!

Paris Blog Starts here!

Helllllo Everyone (all 3 readers of my blog!) - yes, I know, long time no post, but you know how it is....as most people who know me already know, I've had to spend the summer apart from my hubby Shawn, as he left on June 10th for a 4 month mandate in Paris, France. After being apart for 6 wks, I thankfully had the opportunity to fly out there to be with him for 9 days. I had to take unpaid time off as my vacation time at work had already been used up (bummer), but my flight was paid by Shawn's employer.

I will post a blog entry summarizing each day that I spent there, & include a few pics of each day. We took over 1,000 pics during my stay there, so it has taken me awhile to sift through them and narrow down the amount I plan to share with everyone (about 550) - the shutterfly link should be sent out shortly by email (early this wk).

So, read from this entry up, so you can follow along the trip chronologically. Enjoy!