Paris Trip #2 - Day 2 - Thursday - Last Official Museum Sprint, Tasty Thai & Canal St-Martin

Since I only had 2 days on my own this time, I decided to make Thursday Museum Day and Friday Shopping Day. There were a couple of museums that I didn't get to fit in last time, and I decided to start the day with Le Petit Palais (free admission) and then head over to Musée du Quai Branly. I was a little disoriented when I got out of the Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau metro - I really was not sure which way in the big circle of intersections to take - coincidentally, there was a tourist office booth set up across the street & I was able to enquire there & get my bearings.

The facade of the building is beautiful & the lobby and high painted ceilings in the hallway near the entrance were very impressive. This musuem had been described online as a mini 'scaled-down' Louvre - which I guess is accurate - but really scaled down! There were some nice objets d'art, including this work that I just loved, called La Femme au singe (1908) :

There were some marble sculptures, paintings of course (only 1 Monet), and Renaissance furniture. Nice stuff in general, but nothing super spectacular. I guess that nothing can really compare once you see the Louvre (which I saw 1st on my 1st trip!). The railings on the staircases in the buidling were of wrought-iron with elaborate designs of vines & flowers. On the lower floor, there was a piece called a ''meuble-rotonde à dôme'', created by Léon Alessandri, who patented a machine to flaten ivory and got a medal for this invention. He employed major specialists to complete this work - including Carrier-Belleuse to design the 4 relief sculptures in ivory (l'Architecture, la Sculpture, le Commerce, le Travail).

I was anxious to get out and see the circular courtyard/gardens in back of the building. Since it was in between seasons and a grey, cool day, it wasn't as bright as I had hoped it would look. A lot of my pictures didn't turn out so well, I tried out manually setting the aperature but ended up acheiving mostly slightly overexposed shots. Here's my best one :

I got asked to get down off of the little step leading up to an empty pool by security during my photo taking session, which was a little unnerving! There were a few people sitting on a terrace enjoying cafés.

I had my packed lunch on a bench in front of the palais and admired the vast gardens. I took quite a few flower closeups & was very happy with how some of them turned out (I'm getting almost as good as Shawn at this!)

I set off to the Musée Quai Branly - I already had an idea of where it was, as I had been in the quais area before & I knew that Quai Branly was right across from Quai d'Orsay. The outside of the grounds was really interesting to look at - many glass panels with writing on them and past that, gorgeous gardens and lots to look at (including a closeup view of the nearby Eiffel Tower). This museum is known for it's African, Asian and Native American art. It was a little difficult to figure out where to line up, quite a few other people were as unsure as I was - it turned out you could only line up to get in once you'd purchased a ticket at one of the wickets, but most were lining up in the ticketholders line without tickets. A woman security guard finally realized the confusion going on & closed off the lines properly so that we were all where we were supposed to be.

Walking into the exhibits, you must walk up these white ramps which have colored lights projecting words & images onto the floors & walls. When I walked in, I was told that picture taking was forbidden inside. I was quite surprised - this was the 1st museum that I was told this! After quite a long walk, you end up in a dim exhibit hall with wood carved totem pole-type structures as well as tools and weapons. Everything else was behind glass. There were head dresses, costumes, tools, weapons, masks, art....it seemed to go on forever. After only a few minutes, I was almost regretting coming here & felt like my 8 EUR I just spent on my admission may be wasted. I felt like this was all stuff I had seen previously, in some form or another. There were some interesting exhibits like booths were you could listen to natives speaking in tongues and little movie screens showing different aspects of different tribes & cultures, but all in all, with the dim lighting and the not so exiting exhibits, I was getting bored and sleepy. And with the remnants of jet lag hanging on in the late afternoon, I kept having to sit down on the built in benches along the walls to rest. I noticed I wasn't the only one doing this. I was decidedly officially tired of museums!

I decided to locate the café and get something to revive me a little. It was a sitdown restaurant & I chose to sit inside and ordered a café crème. The waiter suggested many desserts to me which were all pretty pricey so I ordered the least expensive item : a 'cake' au bananes. It arrived on a pool of raspberry coulis and a little dollop of whipped cream. Both the cake & the coffee were fresh & delicious. I took my time and read a lot more of my Harry Potter book.

I headed out to look for a phone to call Shawn at work, as we had not established where we were meeting that night or what we were doing. I had been a little bit worried about using payphones in Paris, as I had not been successful in making a call when I arrived at the airport on my 1st trip - the phone wouldn't take my credit card & I couldn't get change anywhere - and the change bureau had told me that the phones don't take change. After trying my Visa card in several phones that afternoon, I figured out that the pay phones only take prepaid phone cards. After asking different newspaper stands and then the woman at the metro counter, I found out that you can only buy these cards at tabagies and post offices. Now, to find a tabagie aound there....cheapest card you could buy was 7 EUR (I think), so I had no choice but to buy it (I still have it in my purse, with money left on it, if I ever go back!).... it was a relief to finally get Shawn on the phone after all of that running around! He said he'd like to go the 10th arrondissement as there are a lot of restaurants to choose from and it is near the Canal St-Martin.

After meeting, we pretty much stopped at the 1st restaurant we came across, a small Thai place with the food choices displayed in window cases at the front of the restaurant, similar to a deli counter. The menu looked really good and the food looked really fresh. The woman behind the counter talked to us about what she had on hand, and we decided on a basil chicken (for Shawny) and a lemon grass chicken (for me), both with Thai rice that had tiny bits of sauteed veggies in it. Shawn chose a Thai beer to drink and I chose a small carafon of rosé wine. Everything was delicious, and once again, we had the restaurant to ourself - no other diners were there and only a couple of regulars who ordered take-out were served as we ate. We found out that the woman, who was the owner, had just returned from spending the summer in Thailand and was just reopening shop that week. The bill was pleasantly low in the end as well!

We walked around the Canal and Shawn took some absolutely beautiful shots of it and the surrounding areas (the ones of us didn't turn out, unfortunately!). Here are some of the best ones :

Paris Trip #2 - Arrival Day - Wednesday - Settling back into Paris life....

After Shawn's long anticipated, whirlwind 5-day visit back home (Aug. 28-Sep.5), which included hosting a bbq at our home for 16 people on the Saturday, a fun wedding that we had a blast at on Sunday (with Shawn being jetlagged a couple of those days) and a relaxing Labour Day to recoup, we were off again to Paris on Tuesday evening (I had to work that day). I had hyped up Air France to Shawn (as he had only flown Corsair there & back so far), but much to our dismay, we flew on a 2-tiered older jet without personal screens at our disposition! We got stuck with a woman beside us who was flying through Paris to Beyrouth & the whole time, she aggravated the stewardesses & all the passengers around us (including us!) by asking questions...the communication breakdown was horrible, as speaking French or English to her was useless - she was concerned about finding her connecting flight in CDG, but no amount of explaining the airport map to her could calm her down. There were not one, but two screaming babies on our flight (a few rows ahead of us!) but we were smart this time & used the earplugs provided & they actually did block out most of the sound & we both slept for nearly a couple of hrs.

After spending way too much time trying to locate where to buy the RER tickets to get on the train out of the aiport, we finally made it back to the apartment around noon. It was deja vu for me, as this was the time I had arrived last time! We were anxious to have lunch & decided on a restaurant called Norbulinga that we had had on our 'to try' list we had created earlier in the summer (on rue Amelot - Metro Filles du calvaire). It was described online as a Tibetan restaurant with many vegetarian options. We were suprised to arrive at a nearly empty restaurant. There was only one other woman dining there & she seemed to be working through her lunch on her cell phone with a bunch of paperwork on her table. We took quite awhile to go over the very extensive menu and decided against any of the lunch table d'hôte deals, cuz they were a little pricey & way too much food. Shawny finally decided on dumplings with beef in them & I chose a vegetarian dish on rice. The food was really great, I had enough for 2 plates but I sort of wished I had ordered something with protein in it, because the stir fried veggies & rice, although tasty, were not very filling. We both agreed that although the Tibetan chant music playing in the restaurant was interesting & different, it is not something that we could listen to for very long periods of time!

We set off to Monoprix to do the weekly grocery, as we wanted to avoid running errands on the weekend & wasting our Saturday like we did last time. I picked up 4 more bottles of wine to bring home - a Pouilly Fumé that I had my eye on since last visit, another rosé, & 2 reds - a Merlot & a Cabernet Sauvignon. We then headed back to the apartment to unpack & rest. As Shawn had recently joined facebook while he was back home, he spent a considerable amount of time online that afternoon - I actually had to beg him to use his laptop at one point so I could check my account! We took a walk over to Shawn's favourite Kosher supermarket close by to stock up on pita, hummus & eggplant in the late afternoon.

We decided to check out another restaurant on our list for an early dinner called Café du Marché on rue Cler (Metro Ecole Militaire). I had read about a raspberry codfish dish with egg fritatta at this place that I really wanted to try, but when we got there, it wasn't on the menu, so I am guessing that it was a daily special, as the special of the day that day was a white fish on a bed of lentils, which we both chose to order. It was absolutely delicious, with a slightly creamy red pepper sauce, and was quite light. We still had quite a bit of room for dessert & had a sweet tooth that night, so Shawn went for his favourite Parisian dessert - a 'mi-cuit au chocolat' which is a small chocolate cake with a melty chocolate sauce in the middle, served with real vanilla ice cream complete with tiny bits of vanilla beans in it. He had had it in a few restaurants during our last visit, but this time was definately the best. I chose the tarte tatin, it was made with pears & served with a pool of chocolate sauce (on the side - thankfully!). I normally cannot eat chocolate and cheat only on occaison when I am feeling ok & this sauce was heaven, it was similar to the sauce in Shawn's dessert & almost had a mild fruity taste to it. A young couple was seated next to us as we were ordering our desserts & we overhead them speaking English. I guessed that they had to be Canadian, as they had no trace of accent. I decided to ask where they were from & I was right - Torontonians! They were both really good looking & very nice & friendly - we found out that they had been travelling through Europe for the past few days & had been in Germany before arriving in Paris. They mentioned that they were starting back to school the following week, so they must have been in their very early 20's.

We turned in early to catch up on rest, satisfied with everything we did on our first day back.

A few of my fave Paris pix Shawn took before my 1st visit

Shawn really got into photography during his 4-month stay in Paris - it is currently his new obsession/hobby. We already had a pretty good camera that we bought for our honeymoon last year, that took a very long time to learn how to use (well for him, I still barely know how to use it!) - it's a Panasonic DMC-FZ50 bridge DSLR - it has all of the features of a DSLR except for the detachable lense. I call it the 'big' camera. Then he bought a Fuji Film Finepix F-31FD in Paris for a surprisingly good price, as we really needed a compact camera - I was glad he got it just in time for my 1st visit, because I didn't want to have to cart around a big bulky camera all of the time & look like a tourist (this of course became the 'small' camera!). This has automatic settings on it, but you can almost fully control it manually as well. I experimented using the Museum setting during my 1st trip but most of the pix turned out really grainy & shadowy, unfortunately (as you may have seen in my Louvre & other previous museum posts) .

I wanted to post a few of my fave shots Shawny took before my visit when his friend Howie visited him in July for Bastille Day on the 14th, so here you go...he was still learning how to use the 'big' camera, but I think he did a great job capturing the Eiffel Tower (above), l'Arc de Triomphe (below) :

and the Bastille Day fireworks on July 14th:



His work evolves from this point on and improves over the course of his stay there - he has sooo many shots that we are kind of overwhelmed with the sheer volume of good ones there are to chose from....we have no idea how we are going to share them all with everyone....I love the idea of doing a photo book of all the best ones - but to choose the best of so many....it will be a work in progress for quite awhile (judging by how slow we both are when it comes to completing photo projects!)...stay tuned & I'll post a few more of my faves of his.

Next posts will be Paris Trip #2 & most of the shots I'll post are mine that I took (I improved too, especially with my nature closeups!)...come back soon to see & read more!

Uh oh - a New Jenn Show!

As most of you know, when I was single & living alone, I was a self-admitted TV addict, into all of the 'teeny bopper' shows (as my sis & Dad would call them!), but over the past few yrs being with Shawn, I've been able to wean myself off of them, and off of TV in general....I am a lot better than I used to be, put it that way! There are a few shows that Shawn & I follow together as a couple (most of them popular reality shows such as BB, American Idol, Hell's Kitchen, ANTM, The Apprentice). I kept just a couple of my shows that I'd usually tape & catch up on, and there are really only a limited amount of shows you can do this with, without falling behind by weeks & weeks & running out of tapes (yes, tapes, I still use an old-fashioned VHS VCR in my bedroom, where I hole myself to watch the shows that Shawn doesn't even like to have on in the background on the (his) upstairs TV!).

So, with the death of The OC last season, I was pretty much down to just One Tree Hill, which was kind of getting ridiculous last season with the murder of Keith draggging on 4-ever! Plus, I heard that Kevin Federline got a recurring role on it this season, which makes me wonder if I'll be able to watch it at all, without getting annoyed or nauseous! At the beginning of the summer, I caught a few episodes of a really interesting teen soap called Hidden Palms - it was pretty out there in terms of a plot (murder mystery) but any show with beautiful people always does it for me! The murderer's identity was uncovered, then the show disappeared, so not sure if it's coming back on the CW or not....


Anyway, all of this to say that I was pretty happy about not having too many shows to follow, since Heroes was starting up again soon (Shawn & I's fave show), ANTM started, & BB just ended. Things were good. I was quite satisfied with my tv watching level. I didn't think any of the new Fall shows were even going to interest me in the least. Until 3 Wednesdays ago. I was just about to go to bed (it was 11pm), and my head nearly swiveled right around as a show that was just starting caught my attention. I had heard of a show called Gossip Girl starting but figured it would some crappy show not even worth checking out. Wrong. This show's got it all to qualify as a true "Jenn Show" - young & beautiful boys & girls (rich, of course!), a love triangle between 2 best friends & a guy, a new guy & girl in town trying to fit in, ultra current pop music opening & closing scenes & playing cleverly in the background....I was drooling! The narrator is Gossip Girl and we don't know who she is (I have my suspiscions that it's the new girl, but not sure yet)....she updates everyone via Internet & text on the beautiful people of this town, and the season starts off with the popular blonde girl Serena returning from suddenly disappearing to boarding school. We learn that she is estranged from her best friend as she slept with her boyfriend right before she high-tailed it out of there. Of course the actors all look way to old to be in high school, but they're all so good looking that a true fan of the genre overlooks that pretty damned quickly! And of course, the parents of these 'teens' are really young looking too and have their own sordid past and secrets that slowly get revealed. I decided to tape the last half hour cuz I hate going to bed at midnight, I end up more exhausted than usual the next day!


Serena

I didn't want to admit to myself that I was hooked, despite the fact that I set my VCR to tape it every Wednesday night before going to bed! For some reason, I ended up screwing up the program & it didn't tape last week, so Shawn downloaded it for me & I watched it last night & taped last night's episode. Can't wait to see what happens on it next. Yummmm. Juicy stuff.

The show closes off with "You know you love me. XOXO, Gossip Girl."

LOVE IT!!!!