Tamalyn:
Our flight to Paris went quickly since we both slept the entire way. Talk about being bagged. Thankfully, we found our hotel without too much hassle. Once we made it up 3 flights on the spiral staircase we opened the door to our new "home" for the next 4 days. Home sweet room! It is the size of an average bedroom in a home in Canada, clean, has a sink and possibly a bidet (?missing the hose), a simple wardrobe (strangely enough just the size of a narrow coffin). Is this one of those Paris flea market finds? Our bed is what I'd call the width of a super-single and is apparently made for your average French person (our feet and ankles hang over the edge) (sorry to all of our French loved ones who are vertically challenged, oh yeah and you too, Lynn). What else? A couple of simple and non-matching tables to complete the ensemble. Oh yes, how could I forget? There was that beautiful aroma that made me feel lonely for Bermuda. Shall we call it Eau de Moisie (translation: Stinks like mildew). All in all, it is CHARMING! No really, it is. Not to mention that it is a steal at 40 Euros ($60) a night.
We headed out to the local Monoprix (grocery store) to check out stuff for dinner. First to the wine section. Where else? We decided that since we are on quite a tight budget this trip, that we should go cheap. We purchased the cheapest bottle of wine we could find: 1,95 Euro ($3). That with our take out Pizza Hut (hey, nothing else was open) was simply divine.
Day 1: We returned to our Monoprix and bought stuff for breakfast: OJ, buns with what we thought were raisins (turned out to be olives) (yum), and water for the day. All totaled, 4 Euro ($6). We ate it next to a mini Arc de Triomphe sitting on the little cement posts.
Off to Notre Dame. The subway proved simple and user-friendly. We arrived in the Latin Quarter (medevil Paris). We were anxious to get to Notre Dame, so we decided to return another day. A long line to enter almost turned us away from going into Notre Dame, but it moved quickly. What a beautiful church. It really reminded us of the church at the Prague Castle and also of Notre Dame, Montreal. It is truly massive and the stained glass is simply amazing. After having lit a candle, we strolled back into the daylight.
We walked along Ile de la Cite, along the famous Seine and crossed over to the Left Bank. Our destination was the Eiffel Tower, but of course! This walk was really neat. Along the wall of the street, looking down on the Seine, are little wooden boxes that open to be little street venders. You could buy used books and of course the usual tourist trap crap. (Almost picked up all of our Christmas presents for everyone there). Just joking!
A quick bus ride and subway ride brought us the rest of the way to the grand tower. It is really as beautiful as in pictures. After about a half-hour wait in line, we paid to walk up to the 2nd story. Can you imagine that we paid about $10 to climb up 700 stairs ourselves? Crazy? Bien sur! Both the 1st and 2nd story viewing areas proved to be awesome. It gave us a lot of perspective on the city. We continued to the top by elevator. I think it was just a perfect day to be up there. Sunny blue skies and just a bit of wind. The bridges along the Seine were spectacular. A quick ride back down to the 2nd story and then a longer walk back down the 700 steps brought us back to solid ground. Why is it that even though gravity is on our side, going down is much more difficult. By the end, our calves were trembling so much that it was work just trying to stand up.
After a short rest on the Champs de Mars (a beautiful grassy area), we headed off to explore the neighborhood to find our dinner. We returned to the same grassy spot to enjoy a truly French pique-nique: A crunchy and moist baguette, a triangle of Brie, some Dijon Mustard (that cleared out our sinus cavities with ¼ teaspoon), and the ever important bottle of wine. We stuck to our rule: the cheapest bottle and found one that was 1,40 Euro ($2.10). Our plein-air feast was yummy. I love France, drinking wine in a public place! Vive la France.
I was about to say that our trip back to our room was uneventful, however I forgot that Gerald didn't plan ahead and use the same bathroom as me at the Eiffel Tower. About 5 minutes of walking gave him the urge. Then we had to walk down a street to find a French Portapotty. Would this be called a Port-a-piss? Sorry a little crude, I know. We even had to ask two lovely French women walking by to make change for our 50 cent piece so that we could have the exact change for the 40 cent "toilette" in order for the door to open. Too funny. Had to take a picture.
Day 2: We slept through the night, yes! Much better than waking up at 4am for a couple of hours like last night. Along with sleeping through the night also came sleeping through the alarm. Oh well, another 2 hours of sleep felt great. This made us anxious to get to the Louvre quickly. Our grocery store is closed on Sundays and instead of having breakfast at an outdoor café near our hotel we thought it would be better to get closer to the Louvre. Mistake. Breakfasts are double the price there. Guduh! So, being the cheapies that we are, we walked to find where the people with bags were coming from. Did we ask? But why? We walked for quite a while and when it looked hopeless, we finally asked a lady walking with her groceries. Turns out we were going in the right direction. We stumbled upon a wonderful little pedestrian street that is what I would call typically Parisian. Bakeries, fish stall, fruit stores, butchers with roasting chickens...oh la la! We picked up fresh croissants, OJ and water and ate while walking in the rain back to the Louvre.
The Louvre is massive, massive, massive. We spent over 2 hours and saw parts of 2 collections and Napoleans apartments. Of course, we headed straight for the Mona Lisa (just us and about 400 other visitors), and next to the Venus de Milo. Then we browsed around for another hour and a half. It could take a year of Sundays to see it all and another 5 years of Sundays to read it all.
We headed out to the Pyramid to walk through the Garden of Tuileries (named for the ground that was once used for "tuiles" (tiles) for rooftops. This is a little oasis within Paris, it was very tranquil and enjoyable despite the rain. We took some time to rest around a little sailboat pool. Little children try to gauge where the sailboats will hit against the edge and run to that spot. When the sailboat gets to them, they push it back out with long sticks. Simple to me, completely entertaining to them. It was fun to sit back and listen to the squeals of laughter and joy. We took this chance to eat our fruit, bought at the fruit store. Gerald's 70 cent ($1) orange and my €3,10 ($5) mango. That is a story within itself. A simple misunderstanding in a noisy store had me keeping the mango instead of putting it back when we saw that price. Anyways, I'm happy to report that it probably was the best mango I've ever had. Thankfully!
We continued through the garden to the Place de Concorde. This is where the king used to behead prisoners. The guillotine is no longer there, but I'm sure if you listened hard enough, you may hear some cheers of the days gone by. Continuing past this brought us to the Champs Elysses (Times Square meets 5th Avenue). We strolled along the Champs Elysses (can one do anything but "stoll" on the Champs Elysses) until we arrived at the Arc de Triomphe.
The Arc de Triomphe. Remember when I said that we ate breakfast at a mini one? Okay, that was an understatement. It is staggeringly tall. What is even more surprising is that there are 14 roads that meet to form one huge traffic circle (that is: roundabout for our BDA friends). There are no lines whatsoever. Think about it...14 roads converging (some are even 3 and four lanes wide), no lines, no lights, no man in a bird-cage, just cars. It was fun to watch them all maneuver through without even a close call.
For supper, we headed off from our hotel thinking we'd just find something somewhere. We followed our instincts and came across a busy street, the Hard Rock Café, and finally the area known as Opera. We were quite pleased with ourselves. Too fun. We returned to have the usual beer at Hard Rock (for the glass, of course) and then headed back down the street to find a street vendor selling crepes. Et voila! One just appeared in front of us. We had a yummy ham and cheese crepe for supper and a scrumptious Nutella and banana crepe for dessert. Let me tell you, walking along the Paris "rue" eating crepes was like dining in a 5 star restaurant. (Except I think Gerald would've been more embarassed about my Nutella-lined lips in a restaurant.)
Home again, home again, jiggidy jig. Time to fill in our journal and "fais dodo" nice and early. Tomorrow is going to be fun. We're getting the hang of this "explore" thing. Not too bad for 2 A-Type personalities!
Day 3: And we thought the jetlag was over with. Not so fast! 1:30 am rolls around and Gerald, who fell asleep like a rock at 9:00 pm, decides to wake up. Toss and turn. Turn and toss. Play a couple of games of FreeCell. Read for an hour. The last time he remembers seeing on his watch was 4:10 am. Oh well. It makes for another late morning start. Breakfast at 11:30 am isn't that bad after all, is it?
A ride up to Montmartre to visit the Sacre Coeur Basilica is followed by the requisite walk to the Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately, neither Ewan McGregor nor Nicole Kidman were around to sign autographs. Maybe tomorrow? From there we took the Metro to the Latin Quarter. We had our first (and probably our last!) café in Paris. One Cappuccino, one Café au Lait (what? No Pumpkin Spiced Latte's?) and two small baguettes ran us 13 Euros (about $19 Canadian). Oh how I long for my large cup of coffee at Rock Island with Joe, Iain & Kirsten! On our way back to the Metro station we happened upon a procession marking a celebration of Mary the blessed virgin. It had begun at Notre
Dame. Hundreds of people followed the arch bishop and many priests from Notre Dame to the St. Michel Fountain. Once arrived, the rosary was recited in both French and German. It was quite the site to see. We couldn't help but think how much Memere and Pepere would have loved it.
After much riding around the Metro, we decided to see Paris from above ground. So from Saint Michel, we decided to hop a bus to Gare de Lyon. We were amazed at the trains at the Gare de Lyons. They look so much more sleek then the Via trains that we see in Canada. They must also go quite a bit faster, you think?
The return bus ride to the Eiffel Tower was a private ride on the bus for most of the way, with no one else on the bus except the driver. The bus then followed the Seine on the West Bank seeing a new view of Notre Dame (for us anyway!). Luckily, he didn't hear Tamalyn when she said, "Let's go James, dinner awaits". Upon arrival at the Eiffel Tower, the search was on for another grocery store to pick up dinner - a baguette, a small block of Brie, some salami, a bottle of water, and of course, a cheap bottle of red wine. We ate watching the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. We almost wished that we had picked up two bottles of red wine, but then it might have been a tough time finding our way back to the hotel on the Metro.
Ta-ta for now. Until next time.....
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