Saturday I did nothing!
I had a cold. I was up much of
Friday night coughing so Saturday was a day of rest. Unfortunately, we had to cancel plans to meet
our Australian friend (and her husband who came to town later in the week) for
beer and food since I felt so lousy.
Maxine, on the other hand, was out and about. Recall that
last week she talked about the food market on Avenue Wilson and said she
planned to do a good portion of her food shopping there? So far she’s true to the commitment. While I slept, she bought 4 mini quiches, some
roquefort & rocamadour cheese, lemon tarts for me and an almond tart for
her, some beef bourguignon, and fresh fruit.
We had dinner at home!
Maxine went to the pharmacy and got some good cough
syrup, which helped me sleep Saturday night.
Sunday, having gotten much more rest, we made plans to visit the Paris
equivalent of what Angelenos would call the west side, in this case, the 6th
arrondissement. There was a free pipe
organ concert at the church around the corner from the apartment we rented 8
years ago, the Eglise San Sulpice.
Turns out that neither Maxine nor I are very much into
pipe organ music. We left after 3
“songs” to meet our Australian friends for a stand up dinner of wine and finger
foods at L’Avant Comptoir. We had a
great visit with them, tried several good red wines and ordered small plates of
interesting food from a “menu” of items hung like banners from the
ceiling. Among the 4 of us, we had raw scallops,
foie gras, chanterelle mushrooms with a poached egg, a beef “sandwich” with
horseradish foam, cheese croquettes.
Very interesting food and lots of fun visiting together.
We also did some more wandering around the area, looking
in store windows at sometimes interesting and, very often expensive, clothing. We did find one curious place – it sold used
clothing “by the pound”, or at least that’s what the sign said. We also found a place that sold candy by the
kilo. That we did take advantage of.
Finally, not wanting to go home yet since the weather was
so amazing, I convinced Maxine that we should get off the Metro early to wander
the Champs Elysees Christmas market.
I’ll have a more complete blog and pictures from it at a later point.
Monday started out rainy.
See my earlier post about the apparent inability here to forecast
rain! It cleared by mid morning and we
decided to check out a restaurant we’d both been curious about, Le Verre Vole.
We took a bus over, which, when the routes make sense, I
actually prefer to the Metro. You’re
above ground and can watch the city pass by, it’s easier to get a seat, and
it’s never as hot as the metro cars.
This routing went through Pigalle, so we got a completely different view
of the city. It’s a bit seedy, but in a
French way. I’ll leave that to your
imagination… We also drove down a street
that seemed to be dedicated to outfitting people for weddings with many dress
and tuxedo stores.
We arrived at Le Verre Vole which is a tiny (!) wine bar
in the area by the Canal St. Martin – the area we visited with Emmy nearly a
month ago. It’s hard for us to believe
that we’ve been here a month!
Unfortunately for me, their menu was largely seafood. So I skipped having an appetizer and had
chicken for lunch. The wines were good. A crisp white Vouvray to start and then a red
from Cahors with the chicken. Maxine
tried abalone for the first time and liked it.
Abalone is endangered in California so you don’t see it on restaurant
menus.
As Le Verre Vole was the organizing principle for today’s
excursion, it was a jumping off point to explore this neighborhood, the 10th
arrondissement. Truly, some of the most
interesting things in Paris seem to be going on in these more fringe, Northeast
neighborhoods. It was quite a contrast
versus window shopping in the 6th arrondissement the day
before. We also stopped for dessert at
Du Pain and Des Idees, a bakery that we’d read services one of the city’s great
restaurants, Pierre Gagniere (where Maxine celebrated her birthday on our last
trip).
We’re spending the evening catching up on things. For me, first a couple hours writing these
journals of our week. And after that
some planning for our upcoming trip.
We’re going to Toulouse for Thanksgiving with my college roommate and
his family. But, since Thanksgiving
isn’t really a holiday here in France (think about it…), he’s having it on
Saturday. That gives us some time to
take a less direct route south, stopping in Burgundy for 2 nights. We’ve rented a car and now Emmy gets her
first big excursion. We hope she plays
well with Bill’s family dog, Helene.
No comments:
Post a Comment