Queens Day, Paris w/ Julie's parents (guest entry)
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2003
1
42
69
Trip End
Ongoing
Paris,
France
Thursday, May 6, 2004
Over the last few days Julie and I have been relaxing a bit. This gave Julie a chance to finish knitting a hat (see Pic 1) - cute huh? The excitement in town right now is that they have started filming Oceans Twelve. We got a notice in our mailbox that said something in Dutch so it either said "do not park on the street during these days" or "Jennifer Aniston requests your presence while her husband 'works' on a really shitty sequel"...I'm still not sure what it says. But it'll be cool to see this movie since we'll know a lot of the landmarks, kinda like when movies are filmed in Chicago.
The past few weeks were filled with a few funny stories. First, I was taking the tram home from work one evening. Since entering the tram is often difficult to do since all the Dutch love to crowd the entrance of the tram despite the fact that the rest of the tram is wide open, I plowed my way onboard and found a seat. About 2 stops from home, someone got on the tram and began to yell something in Dutch. This happens often as it seems like at any moment in time, someone in A'dam is having a bad acid flashback so I thought nothing of it. Then I was approached and asked for my tram ticket. It was the tram police. In my haste to get through the mass of people guarding the tram door, I had forgotten to stamp my ticket. I know some of you are thinking that I was trying to pull a fast one but that is not the case. The bank pays for my tram fares (yes, another perk of expat life) and I had plenty of space on my ticket.
01. Julie knitted this cool hat
I honestly had forgotten. So I explained my situation to the tram God and he said "that's what everyone says" and refused to budge. So in the end, I had to pay him EUR 30 right there on the spot. Unfortunately, this is not reimbursable by the bank so basically, I paid EUR 30 to provide you guys with a good laugh at my expense. Seems like I got the short end of that deal.A second problem occurred on my commute to work as I was riding my bike and I hit a bump. My tire exploded. I was pissed but I took it to the bike shop to be repaired - I'm not that Dutch yet where I repair my own bike. It cost me EUR 30. Shit! Another EUR 30 down the drain.
Next, we go to an outdoor market nearly every Saturday. There is a pasta vendor who we buy ravioli from and a wonderful pesto sauce. We recently discovered that the amount of ravioli we buy is referred to as 'ravioli for 4'. What a bunch of fat-asses we are!
Also, last week was another Royal wedding. The Queen's 2nd son, Friso, married a woman named Mabel. There was a lot of talk surrounding this wedding as Mabel appears to be a real tramp. She had many strange sexual relationships over her life however, that was not the big issue. The issue that caused the most commotion was the fact that she lied about it. Here's the deal, since Friso is 2nd in line to the Dutch throne, his marriage has to be approved by Parliament. During some 'interviews' with Parliament, Mabel denied having a relationship with the county's largest known drug dealer.
02. Queens Night dinner w. Sonia, Bertil, Michel
She lied. Remember, this is a country that is very lenient towards drugs and sex. But lying? Because she lied, Parliament refused to approve the wedding so Friso had to choose between Mabel, the lying whore with a checkered past he had fallen in love with, and his slim chance of the throne. He chose the chick. Maybe it's a bit romantic but really, it just shows that you should be honest in the beginning and then you can have everything.In more marital news, a Dutch woman who also appears to have a somewhat spotty sexual past has come out and said that she had an affair with soccer stud and husband to Posh Spice, David Beckham. This is big news. Beckham has denied it but it seems to be true. I'm not quite sure why this is so huge but it is. I feel like the Dutch are almost proud that one of theirs is getting world attention. Like if the woman were Spanish, nobody here would care but since she's Dutch, this is big. It's weird.
The last funny story for now involves our inability to speak Dutch. Julie's parents are a bit obsessed with their dog, Chloe. They sent a stuffed animal to Julie that looks like Chloe - they have some problems...they also think she's still 6 years old. Anyways, things that are small in Dutch get the suffix 'tje'. This is like 'ito' in Spanish. So Julie decided that she would name her new stuffed animal Chlotje. Julie's father told his assistant about this since she is Dutch. She always lost it. She explained to Julie's dad that the word 'choltje' is a derogatory word meaning 'man with one testicle'.
03. Julie w. Sonia and Bertil
We told this story to Bertil and he immediately began to smirk. Once we told him that we knew what it meant, he started to laugh too and said he wasn't sure if he should tell us what 'chlotje' means. Pretty funny!That's about it from here. On the travel front, I think we have put our South Africa safari on hold for a few years. We started to price it and realized that we would probably have to choose between that one trip or a full year's worth of European travel. We decided to stick to the 'less expensive' trips we can do within Europe. Oh well, I'm sure we'll make it to South Africa sometime. But by passing up on South Africa, we will have the time and money to do a lot more. So we are starting to look into 10 days in Moscow and Saint Petersburg for September. But next up for us is our 10-day trip of Tuscany and Umbria at the end of the month! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE FOOD!
That's it for now. Below is a short account of Queen's Day, my 2nd and Julie's 1st. Also, here is our trip to Paris with Julie's parents. Since Julie's parents don't want to know every detail of our t-pods, they think nobody wants to...brevity is a virtue...which I definitely don't have! So for those who want the Cliff Notes version of our Paris trip, here is Julie's parent's t-pod. But for those of you who want to read about EVERY detail, I have also added 'a few' of our observations following theirs...
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QUEENS DAY
Friday was Queen's Day. That means Thursday was also a crazy day as the Dutch celebrate Queen's Night as well.
04. w. Meeghan, Ange, Sylvia at Queens Night bar
We went out to dinner with Bertil and his girlfriend who was visiting from Mexico, Sonia, and another friend from the bank who is moving to NY soon, Michel (see Pics 2 and 3). After dinner, we met the Aussie/Columbians out at a bar along the Prinsengracht canal (see Pics 4-9). We even bumped into Chris and Melanie by coincidence (see Pic 10) and also saw some more of our Dutch buddies (see Pics 11 and 12). Because the weather was perfect and every Dutchie was craving a few beers to celebrate the Queen's b-day, the whole street was packed. For entertainment, we would all watch as every so often a car would try to drive through the crowd. It was also funny to watch some Dutchies carry their bike over their heads through the crowd. Even Bruce and Ange had bike trouble as they decided to leave their bikes at the bar since they parked them on a bridge which was a good spot when they got to the bar but as the night wore on, became an impossible place to access. It was a fun night and set us up for a long day the next day.On Friday, Queen's Day, we woke up somewhat early, especially considering we didn't go to bed until 2:30 the night before, and walked around looking for some bargains as the whole country uses Queen's Day as it's garage sale. We had been told about many people who have found real great bargains but all we saw was crap! The only thing we bought were 3 3-CD sets for EUR 15 ('Guitar Gods' with Clapton, Santana, BB King, Buddy Guy, Hendrix, etc., 1 of 70's music, and 1 of Ella Fitzegerald and Louis Armstrong).
05. Alfonso and Tom
The streets seriously did look like a giant orange garage sale. The strange thing is, selling all your crap doesn't really seem like a way to honor the Queen's b-day?!?!?From here, we walked to Vondel Park which is a kid's only zone. The park is filled with tons of kids who do just about anything they can to make a few EURs. There were kids who were doing dance routines and others set up small games that are reminiscent of something you might find at the temple Purim festival. Many kids sell their old toys in hopes of earning enough money to buy 'new' old toys (see Pic 13). My colleague Ricardo went with his wife and 6 year old daughter. She sold banana cake and made EUR 20. We didn't see them but Vondel Park was fun.
After wandering around a bit more, we made our way to a boat which we were invited on with the Aussies/Columbians. On the way, we experienced a typical Dutch thing. I had not looked at a map beforehand to find where exactly we needed to meet the boat. And Julie, as always, didn't think to do it because she was planning on following me...I'm kinda like her permanent guide through Europe. Anyways, I knew the general area so we headed there. Once we got close, I went into a magazine shop and asked the man behind the counter if he knew where XXX Street was. He simply said "no". I then asked "do you have a map?" He did and proceeded to show me where we needed to go. Now I wonder, if I hadn't have asked him for a map, would he have figured out that he could indeed help me.
06. Maria, Nico, Ange
Strange strange people!Anyways, we made it to the boat and the weather was perfect. It was a wonderful day, full of sun, beer, and orange (see Pics 14-31)! Julie and I eventually wandered home, spending time walking around looking at the masses of people, watching cheap Dutchies rummage through garbage looking for things to take home (see Pic 32), listening to the loud music, and dodging the disgusting trash-filled street (see Pics 33 and 34). We made it home with a pizza in hand and at 9:30, crashed.
It was a really fun day. I read there were over 500,000 people in A'dam alone. Surprisingly, I don't think it was as nuts this year as it was last year but I'm sure part of that was because I knew what to expect this year while last year was totally uncharted territory. In addition, this year I had Julie with me so I had to behave myself =) If you're interested in reading a bit more about Queen's Day, take a look this article on Expatica.com...
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=98
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JULIE'S PARENT'S PARIS T-POD
Our Second Trip to Amsterdam
By Marty and Lynn
See Pics 35-97
On Sunday, April 4, 2004 at 9 a.m. we landed for a second time at Schipol Airport outside of Amsterdam. We had been to visit last July. We were tired, but excited, because not only were we going to visit Julie and Stephen, whom we hadn't seen since December, but we were planning a trip to Paris as well in just a few days.
Julie and Stephen met us at the airport to escort us by train into the city.
07. Maria, Julie, Meeghan
We had told them that we knew how to get there by ourselves, but they think we're old and senile and thought we'd get lost. But, we were very happy to see them. Stephen's height and dirty Wisconsin cap makes him a good landmark in a crowded space to enable us to find Julie. So, we were glad they were there to greet us. Stephen pulls our luggage too, so he's real handy. Stephen and Julie graciously gave up their bedroom for three nights so we were able to stay with them instead of at a hotel. On our first night, Julie made a spectacular Passover dinner for us all. Magnifique!On Sunday afternoon we wondered around Amsterdam, visiting a very old Portuguese synagogue. We ate at an Indonesian restaurant that we had eaten at last summer and enjoyed. On Monday, while Stephen went to work, Lynn, Julie and I took the train and bus to the Keukenhof Gardens, a beautiful park with wonderful flowers, especially millions of tulips growing in the surrounding fields. On Tuesday, we took a train to Utrecht, a city, similar to Amsterdam, about 30 minutes away. It was cold and rainy, so we ended up most of the time in a mall (which Julie liked), but had a nice lunch.
On Wednesday, the four of us took a train to Paris, a four-hour ride through southern Holland, Belgium and northern France. The countryside reminded us of rolling, rich Wisconsin farmland. We arrived in Paris at the Gare du Nord and from there took a subway to a stop about two blocks from our hotel. This was our first trip to Paris. Stephen and Julie had been twice before which was helpful.
08. Ange, Sylvia, Alfonso
We stayed at a lovely small neighborhood hotel, The Regents, at 44 Rue Madame, near the Luxembourg Gardens. Lynn and I were leaving on Sunday, so we essentially had 3 & 1/2 days to see everything in Paris, and we did! We started at Notre Dame , then the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Ellysees, the Arches d' Triumph, a boat ride on the Seine, Sacre-Coeur, and many other spots. We had great food, especially the petite dejuenes. Although we walked 10 miles each day, I'm sure we gained weight on this trip. A general impression is that despite political turmoil, rumors of the French disliking Americans and Jews, etc., we found everyone friendly and helpful with the language barrier. We had fun trying our limited French phrases (mostly Bonjour, and Merci), which the French seemed to appreciate. Paris is a beautiful city that we would very much like to return to.
On Easter Sunday morning, April 11th, Lynn and I departed to Charles de Galle airport to head home (we arrived at mid-night in Madison). Julie and Stephen stayed an extra day and visited Versailles Palace.
We had a wonderful experience and lots of fun with Julie and Stephen.
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STEPHEN'S PARIS T-POD
VIEW OUR PARIS PICS
Photo Album 'Paris 1' (Pics 1-100)...go to http://www.fujifilm.net/share/guest_enter.asp?id=155465 and enter the email address 'Kantors_Abroad@yahoo.com'.
Photo Album 'Paris 2' (Pics 101-192)...go to http://www.fujifilm.net/share/guest_enter.asp?id=155474 and enter the email address 'Kantors_Abroad@yahoo.com'.
DAY 1 - See Pics 1-28
*** The train was pretty comfy.
09. Nico and Alejandro
Since Julie and I bought roundtrip tix but Julie's parents only needed 1-way since they were flying home from Paris, we weren't able to sit together. I'm not sure why that would affect where our seats are but it does. We tried 'the old switcheroo' but at the first stop, someone kicked us out. So I sat with Julie while Julie's parents were together. The ride was very nice. It was pretty slow through the Netherlands and Belgium, but once we hit the French boarder, we were flying. The train made a few stops throughout the 4-hour ride. We ate a few things we brought with us - as it was Passover, I was not happy to be reduced to PB&J on matza.*** Immediately upon arriving in Paris at the train station, Julie and I were amazed at how friendly the Parisians were. And our inability to speak French was not a problem at all this time. When we were in Paris as students, this was definitely not the case! I know the Parisians were hit hard by the lack of American tourists and the 'boycott' in general. I guess they must've read that Americans no longer want to travel all the way to Paris to be treated like a bunch of assholes and provided with poor customer service...we can go to NY for that! The French must really need the US dollar because they're English is very good...now.
*** It took some time to get our bearings but we made it to the hotel via the Metro subway very easily. The train was pretty crowded but it worked. Once we exited, it took about 3 minutes to walk to our hotel, Hotel Regents on Rue Madame near Luxembourg Gardens.
10. Bertil, Sonia, Melanie, Chris
I felt bad for Julie's dad though...he had been practicing the word '77' in French for a few days only to realize when we started walking up Rue Madame that the hotel was at 44 Rue Madame. Doh!*** We bought a 5-day Museum Card for EUR 48. It allowed us entry to almost all the museums we wanted to go to. In fact, the only museums we went to that were not included in the Museum Card was the Eiffel Tower and the Jacquemart-Andre Museum, a lavish house willed to the city of Paris when the wealthy, art-loving, and childless 19th-century Parisian couple passed away. In general, the Museum Card was not worth it from a cost-savings perspective, however, with the card we did not have to wait in line. So we probably saved 2 hours in lines at the Orsay and another 3 hours at Versailles, which might have been worth the cost of the card alone.
*** The Paris flowers and trees were in full bloom. It was amazing. The flowers around Notre Dame were spectacular. There is almost no more beautiful sight than Notre Dame above the Seine River with pink Cherry Blossoms bursting in the foreground.
*** Julie's mom was kind enough to laugh at me when I made my obligatory imitation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame on the way to the church. However, she was stumped by my humming of the Notre Dame (University) fight song.
*** We also went to the Louvre for a few hours. The place was packed!!! Julie and I had been when we were in Paris in '97 and the place was empty...maybe being there in February had something to do with that.
11. w. Aarnt, Bertil, Michel
I have a million pics of us goofing off in the place, posing and imitating statues and things like that. This time however, it was ridiculous. We made the mandatory pilgrimage to the Mona Lisa. The Louvre apparently knows about the paintings popularity because there are signs all of the place that point you in the right direct. But once you get there, the painting is behind 5 inches of glass and the place is full of pushy tourist all elbowing their way to the front. I actually found it more enjoyable to watch the mass than to look at the painting. I figure, if I want to look at the painting, I'll buy a postcard. But I also couldn't help but find some real irony as I watched everyone jockey for space. The room with the painting has other paintings in it too. Imagine for a moment the excitement experienced when you finally get a call from the Louvre that your's or oyur loved one's painting will be going into the museum. Now imagine your disappointment when you are told your masterpiece will be placed next to the Mona Lisa. Talk about being overshadowed.*** On our first night in town, we wandered around the St. Germain neighborhood looking for some dinner. Most of the restaurants looked empty since it was only about 6:30. But since we hadn't eaten anything since our train arrived at 1:00, we were starving. So we wandered and wandered, looking for a nice restaurant when we finally found one we all agreed on. Since the door was open, we peaked our heads in and asked the woman at the bar if we could sit down.
12. Aarnt, Sonia, Bertil, Michel
It was at this point that she pointed out that she didn't open for another 10 minutes. We asked if we could sit and wait. She told us no. We couldn't believe it. But because of that, she lost out on 4 diners...and we're real big tippers too =) We ended up at a place across the street with amazing French onion soup (which according to Rick Steves, is the only truly Parisian contribution to the French kitchen).DAY 2 - See Pics 29-72
*** We had breakfast at the hotel. The non-Passover-keepers had what looked like AMAZING croissants and fresh-baked rolls with jam. I had eggs and really good hot chocolate. The Parisian have wonderful hot chocolate, which I had often throughout our stay in town. Probably the best was the cinnamon hot chocolate at the café in Montmartre. I wish I could've experienced the croissants because they looked wonderful but...Paris was not a great place to be over Passover. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a Salad Nicoise but over these 6 days, I think I had about 30 of them! The best of which was at the Orsay. The only time I slipped with the Passover thing was on our walk home from the Eiffel Tower. We stopped into a wonderful chocolate shop. We bought a brownie with a chocolate cream filling. It was so good.
*** We walked around the Luxembourg Gardens. These gardens were nice but just another 'city garden' if you ask me.
*** The Orsay was awesome. We took the 'Masterpieces' tour. This was a great tour however, it was a bit misrepresented because we spent about as much time talking about the building and bottom floor paintings as we did in the upper floor where the Van Goghs, Monets, Manets, Renoirs, Degas, Cezannes, and Gauguins are.
13. Kids selling things, Vondel Park on Queens Day
I hadn't been to the museum before but Julie went on a 2nd trip with a bunch of girls during our time in London. The museum is in an old train station, which really adds ambience to the paintings. There is a cool clock watching over the artwork that is left over from the building's former days. We happened to have been at the museum during a rare time when they allow painters to set up easels to copy the artwork. The only stipulation is that the copy cannot be the exact same size as the original. This was kinda cool to see.*** We waited in line for the Eiffel Tower for about an hour to get to the 2nd level and then another 20 minutes to get to the top. And after all that waiting, Julie and her parents were "too cold" to go outside to see the view. I couldn't believe it. How do you go all the way to Paris, up the Eiffel Tower, and then not go outside and experience it? And they were cold? Aren't they from Wisconsin? I don't know. We walked down (about 10 minutes) from the 2nd landing. It was pretty cool and gave us another vantagepoint of this amazing landmark.
*** We had been told before leaving for Paris that the restaurants are either really good or really bad. Well, either we have great luck or don't have a very sophisticated pallet. I'd like to think it's the former because everyplace we went to was perfect. I think the best place was at a small restaurant near our hotel that has been around since the 1700s. The lady who served us was really good. She recommended the house speciality, duck, but also knew enough to tell Julie when she ordered it to be cooked 'medium' that what the French consider 'medium' is just about rare.
14. Ange, Maria, Sylvia, Julie, Astrid on boat
She also let Julie's mom know that fillet mignon is not steak like in the US but pork. She obviously knows the US tourist.DAY 3 - See Pics 73-106
*** We started the day with a stroll down the Champs Elysees, from the Louvre and Tuileries Garden to the Arc de Triomphe. The garden was very pretty, as was the Champs. We stopped for breakfast at a very elaborate and classic 19th-century tea salon/restaurant/patisserie. We had a really nice snack. Next we hit the stores. Everyone knows about the wonderful stores offered along the Champs. And which one did Julie go to? The Gap! I couldn't help but laugh. I'm not a shopper at all but I suppose if you also could only buy your clothes at crappy Euro-trash shops for a full year and you finally saw a Gap, you would run there first too. We also stopped into the biggest perfume store you could ever imagine - Sephora's flagship store. It was pretty remarkable.
*** There is a small museum inside the Arc de Triomphe which discusses some French wars and shows pics of the Arc during those wars. Surprisingly, there were no pics of when the German tanks rolled down the Champs Elysees...the French are such cowards!
*** Taking Sjoerd's suggestion, we went to see 2 department stores from the 1800s, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. Both of these stores were beautiful and I'm not referring to the merchandise! They have awesome interiors with gorgeous stained-glass window rotundas. It even made shopping somewhat enjoyable for me.
15. Richard, Stephen, Bruce, Alfonso, Nico, Nico
We had lunch at the Printemps café under the stained-glass dome. The dome is such a treasure, it was removed the night before the WWII air raids and wasn't returned until 1973. The dome is 16 meters high and 24 meters across.*** We went to the aforementioned Jacquemart-Andre Museum. The couple was introduced on the audio tour as "upper middle-class". I am positive that they were not "upper middle-class". They had 'souvenirs' from all over the world that they had collected on their trips. And these were not nutcrackers and gnomes, these were Italian paintings and precious ceramic from China.
*** As we exited the Jacquemart-Andre Museum, we saw a mom pull her son's pants down to his ankles right there in the middle of the sidewalk, and watched him piss. This is the middle of Paris for God's sake!
*** We walked along the Ile St. Louis, a really cool area of town which is the first places inhabited in Paris. The island has 1 street that runs the long-way, filled with tons of cute little stores. We bought some mustard and jam at a shop. We found a nice restaurant which was typical to where we had been eating our whole time in town. It was clearly old, had wooden beams, and tons of character. The food was nice and the waiter was very helpful. After dinner we found a place to get some gelato and enjoyed the night-time views of the Notre Dame along the river quay.
Day 4 - See Pics 107-139
*** We wandered around Montmartre and spent some time looking at the views of Paris from the Sacre-Coeur.
16. Julie, Astrid, Ange on boat
The church has a really beautiful exterior. It almost looks like something from Disneyland. And at night-time, the church is even more spectacular. The neighborhood of Montmartre is really interesting. I think it used to be more bohemian than it is now...now it's very touristy and filled with lots of nudey bars. The Moulin Rouge is there. I stopped by to take a pic while Julie's parents were overly fascinated by some graffiti across the street that bared the name of their dog, Chloe. They are a bit obsessive over their dog...instead of seeing a Paris landmark, they'd rather check out 'Chloe' graffiti.*** We went to see the Montmartre Cemetery. There were a few famous people buried there, although I am not cultured enough to know who any of them were. I was kinda hoping to go to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery instead to see the Jim Morrison gravesite but that's OK. The Montmartre Cemetery was really cool. The headstones were huge and very elaborate. I was slightly surprised to see a few Jewish stones. They were usually a bit more basic and one even had a Yortzeit candle. There was one other Jewish stone which I found very interesting - it was dedicated to an entire family of children who died in the Holocaust. Kinda sad. Some of the tombstones were so old that they had trees growing right through the center of them. The cemetery had stray cats running around too...it was a very peaceful place.
*** We went to one of Julie and my favorite places from our prior trip, the Place de Voges.
17. Queens Day boat
It is a huge square with mansions, including Victor Hugo's. In the center of the square is a huge park and surrounding the square is a covered walkway. We listened to a instrumental string performance under the covered walkway for a little bit. It was really beautiful. The violins, cellos, etc. used the acoustics of the ceilings perfectly. We also stopped for a quick bite to eat at a sidewalk café. Before leaving the café I visited the toilet where I was absolutely disgusted - some of the toilets in France are no more than a hole in the ground. It was gross! Luckily it was just a Number 1! And they think they're so damn sophisticated. Pa-lease!*** We walked around the neighborhood of Marais. It is another really great neighborhood...it seems like in Paris EVERY neighborhood is a really great neighborhood! This one, strangely, is predominantly gay and religious Jew. So you have very trendy shops mixed in with traditional Jewish shops. Julie did a bit of shopping but didn't really find anything she liked...or anything within our budget that is. I was pretty surprised to see a few kosher restaurants open on Saturday - Shomer Fucking Shabbas! Anyways, I picked up some pastrami and pepperoni sticks. They were so good, we even went back a few days later to get a few more for the train ride back to A'dam. And there was even a falafel stand that had a line wrapping around the corner. I was too into the pepperoni sticks to give the falafel a try but it did look really good.
*** We finished the day with dinner and a night-time boat ride along the Seine.
18. Stephen and Julie with crowded bridge
Paris is truly a beautiful city but at night, it is really special. It is no wonder the city is known as "The City of Lights".*** I finished another great day in Paris with a pepperoni stick. YUM!
DAY 5 - See Pics 140-184
*** After breakfast Julie's parents left for the US. This is when Paris got really expensive =) It was sad to see them leave as this was a wonderful trip. The good news was we were certain to see a lot more of Paris now...for some reason they pee like every 15 seconds.
*** We took the train to Versailles (about an hour). Julie had been before but I hadn't. The palace was nice but was so crowded, even worse than Mona Lisa. The rooms were so packed, all you could do was move through the rooms with the person in front of you. It was like the whole room moved together. It was beautiful but not as impressive as Germany's Castle Neuschwanstein. The Hall of Mirrors was cool but because it was so crowded and the room was being restored, it was not as amazing as I had expected it to be.
*** The grounds of Versailles are amazing though. It goes on forever. There are beautifully manicured gardens mixed in with fountains and cafes. We walked for about 5 straight hours, all over the palace grounds. Luckily, we were there during one of those rare days when the fountains are on and classical music fills the gardens. We found a spot to sit down, grabbed some ice cream , and enjoyed the beautiful scene.
*** My LA upbringing seemed to have come out at Versailles.
19. Julie relaxing in the sun on Queens Day boat
I could not believe that all of this was authentic. We went to see a part of the grounds developed by Marie Antoinette. She didn't like to be in the main palace so she created an area called the Summer House. It had a farm and a petting zoo. The buildings had thatched roofs and simply, looked like something created for Hollywood. I kept insisting that they were new but we finally found a sign that indicated that they were not. Julie thought that was pretty funny. But I swear, it looked so fake!*** Prior to dinner, we found a café to enjoy the weather, views of Notre Dame, and some more hot chocolate. It was perfect. Next we went for Raclette. Raclette is a French cheese that is placed on a metal plate which is heated by a candle underneath. Once the cheese begins to melt, you tilt the plate so that the cheese pours onto your plate full of potatoes. It was pretty good, especially for a cheese-lover like me. But after eating about 1/3 of the meal, I was stuffed. I stopped eating before I made a real mess of the place. It was good though. The funniest thing happened at the restaurant though...employing our anti-smoking tactic that I'd written about before, I lifted a cheek and hit the table next to us with an SBD. The problem was it was not very S. Julie looked at me and fell into hysterics. It was so loud, I rattled the windows. It was pretty funny.
*** We finished the day with night-time views of Paris from the Sacre-Coeur. We went into the church this time though. It was kinda weird.
20. Canal crowded with Queens Day boats
The church was packed. It was Easter Sunday but I was surprised to see it so crowded at night. I suppose there were a lot of tourist who had blown off the holiday to do some sightseeing and now they were asking for forgiveness. After Sacre-Coeur, we walked down to the Moulin Rouge to see it at night and Julie had a crepe...damn this Passover! And damn these glasses (a reference to The Jerk).DAY 6 - See Pics 185-192
*** We went to a huge antique market. We would really have liked to get something special but we have no clue what we are looking for or at and know we would've gotten ripped off. Not to mention that we can't afford anything! But just walking around was really cool. They had beautiful silver, woodwork, jewelry, etc. This was also the only time when we were treated poorly by the French. I saw a booth that was selling glasses. One of the wine glasses had the Hebrew blessing over wine inscribed into it. I thought the glass was awesome so I entered the store, said hello, and began to ask the lady about the glass. The glass had a sticker on it that said "115". I asked her if "115" was the price or whether it was some way of indicating the glass I was referring to. The woman said to me with a lot of attitude that it is for a set. I was unsure if she was telling me that the number was the price 'for a set' or if the sticker identifies 'the set' I was referring to. I asked a few questions but she just gave me attitude. I said to her "it's just a question" to which she replied "it's a bad question".
21. Queens Day boat on crowded canal
Ms Yamata, my 3rd-grade teacher, taught me there is no such thing as a bad question so I don't know what she's talking about. Finally, completely frustrated, I said "how much is the Jewish wine glass?" to which she said "it is not for drinking, it is for collectors". Thanks bitch! It ended up being like EUR 300, which was way out of my price range! For EUR 125 I would consider it cause it was so cool but EUR 300? I wanted to take it and smash it, especially since one of her relatives probably stole it from a Jewish house as the Jews were being raped and tortured by her anti-semetic parents. Fucking bitch. I chose to take the highroad as I left the store...I laid on the sarcasm as I said "thank you very much for the help" and walked out.*** We finished up our time in Paris with a kosher meal in the Marais. As it was still Passover, almost all the restaurants were closed. The only restaurant which was kosher for Passover was an eastern European restaurant. It was good but not exactly what I was craving. Julie had Russian meatballs and I had lamb kebabs. If it had not been the first meat I had eaten in a long time, I would've been very upset. Anyways, we picked up a few more pepperoni sticks for the train. We also grabbed some Paris macaroons, these wonderful cookies with flavored crème - nothing like or having to do with the Passover snack, just called the same thing by coincidence. I also grabbed a couple croissants for the next day as Passover would finally be finished and I could experience what I had been missing.
*** At the train station, for some reason Julie could not figure out how to use the water vending machine. She put about EUR 5 into 2 separate machines and never ended up with a bottle of water. Why didn't she just buy it from a person at a snack bar? It was 20 cents cheaper from the machine. But in the end, it was a whole lot more expensive this way. The funny thing is this is something that would happen to me...she is turning into me!
*** So craving a water once we were on the train, I went to the bar car. The problem was I had to walk through the smoking car to get to the bar car. It was gross! I felt like I needed a shower just from that walk.
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Well, those are our observations and additions to Julie's parent's t-pod. In short, Paris was awesome! I don't remember loving Paris like I did this time. We never had any problem (except for that bitch at the antique market). We ate at wonderful restaurants. We saw beautiful museums, landmarks, and churches. We wandering exciting neighborhoods. We looked at interesting stores. And one of the more enjoyable things to do in Paris was to just find a nice café to sit at and people-watch. It was great. And after 6 days in Paris, I can easily think of about another 6 days worth of things I'd still like to do on our next trip to Paris! What a great trip. I'm sure we'll be back again soon.
Hope all is well wherever you are.
-Stephen
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