Monday Dec 8 – Friday Dec 12

Monday.  Did nothing.  Caught up.  Again, the catch up did not include blogging…  Emmy and I did see our first French Rolls Royce when we were out for the evening walk.  Maxine went to Galeries Lafayette for a fashion show.  She chronicles this in a separate blog post with photos.

Tuesday, Maxine and I did separate things.  I started over in the 5^th arrondissement.  I wanted to go to the Pantheon, even though the dome is currently shrink wrapped to protect it while they renovate.  Coming up to the Pantheon is like walking along a street, turning the corner, and coming face to face with the US Capitol Building.  The domes are of comparable size.  But, before I bought a ticket and went inside…

Thirty years ago this month I took my first trip to Europe.  I was dating someone in LA and I convinced her to come back to NJ to celebrate Xmas with my family.  She agreed and then also suggested that, since we were on the East Coast, we should go to Europe for New Years.  So we planned a trip of 3 days in London followed by 3 in Paris.  Probably not the best time of year for a first trip to Paris, and especially not since we ended up in a hotel near the Pantheon (you see where this is going…).  We were there during the date of my father’s birthday and had to ask the hotel to put an international call through (that’s certainly changed!!!)  We didn’t know about busses and the metro was a fairly long walk away.  It’s the student area and the students were on winter break.  The city looked pretty desolate.  And, relative to now, there was much less emphasis on Christmas.  Yet, we went.  And our hotel looked out at the Pantheon – there’s a picture in another blog entry.

Turned out that girlfriend was the right one and we’re still together (married now).  This trip to Paris is also a marker in that we were here 30 years ago, for New Years Eve.  Not sure yet what we’re going to do that night, this time around, but it is very pleasant for me to look back to that first trip, all those years ago, and recognize how incredibly fortunate I’ve been in very, very, very many ways…

OK… After the Pantheon, which is a majestic building, I walked by the Sorbonne and then over to Le Jacobine for lunch.  I read that their hot chocolate is the equivalent of Angelina (see last post), but it really isn’t.  Close though.  The chocolate was thick enough that, after the mug cooled, I was able to scrape the hardened chocolate off the sides.  Had a hearty Auvergne salad for lunch with warm potatoes, cheese melted on bread, and other non-dietetic things for a salad, but excusable given the temperatures.

Maxine spent the afternoon in the 3^rd arrondissement starting at the Musee d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme (Jewish Museum).  She saw a photo exhibit by the photographer, Roman Vishniac, showing pre-war World War II Eastern Europe.  She followed the cultural experience with shopping at very interesting shops in the area and then went to a Parler Paris expat get-together.  There was a presentation by officers from the French Foreign Legion and some interesting people to talk to.  See pictures in Maxine’s separate blog post.

 Tuesday night we went to a champagne tasting at the American Library.  There’s a lesson learned – avoid activities oriented towards tourists, they’re expensive relative to their value.

Wednesday Maxine and I walked the islands in the center of Paris, the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St. Louis.  The 2 touristic highlights are Notre Dame, which is an extraordinary cathedral, and St. Chapelle, a smaller cathedral but no slouch given they’ve got the best stained glass windows I’ve ever seen.  We walked around the islands, both to see the Seine and also to look at the small shops.  Then the rain started so we ran to the restaurant where we planned to eat.  Really small.  A single person (woman) who greets you, takes your order, makes the food, and serves you.  Nice meal, but on the expensive side.  (See my point from the prior paragraph).

After lunch we went over to the old Jewish quarter, the Marais district, to get Chanukah candles.  They’re in our menorah right now, waiting to be lit tonight, December 16^th.

Thursday, more catching up.  In the evening went to Shakespeare & Co. for Christmas carols.  It was a fun, “small” event for expats.  I’ve already written about what affection I hold for Shakespeare & Co and its now deceased founder, George Whitman…  His daughter is running the place now and she, along with 40-50 people, gathered outside the store to sing carols together.  They had 2 people with guitars and another couple lead singers, but it was a homespun event.  They had hot mulled wine and mince pies (I tried one and it turns out they’re fruit pies, not chopped meat) for everyone.  They also asked for contributions for the “soup kitchen” that one of the girls volunteers at.  The charity serves 900 meals each night.  …  This is one of the things I’m having a hard time with on this trip to Paris.  There’s just SO MUCH visible poverty.  People sleeping on outdoor heating grates.  Barefoot men with their hands holding out crumbled paper coffee cups with a few coins in them.  Abject bowing, face down, humbly and silently looking for donations.  Guys living on the streets with their dogs, even puppies.  And tonight a couple with their small children tucked under a blanket.  The cynic in me questions this a bit, but, even if some of the people are faking it, this isn’t a way for people to have to live.  Especially on cold winter nights.  Real food for thought for me.

Maxine’s main activity on Thursday was a foie gras cooking class.  In her pictures post she has photos from the class.  It was a lot of fun and we now have 2 torchons of foie gras in our refrigerator to enjoy in the next few weeks.

Friday was another meal with Maxine humoring me.  I wanted to make a return trip to one of my 2 favorite craft beer bars, La Fine Mousse.  We got there and their taps were largely occupied by a recent tap takeover by Del Decato, an Italian craft brewer.  So, I had Del Decato’s Luna Mora, a sour.  Maxine had Hintacho’s (Japanese brewer) Expresso Stout.  But, I wasn’t there for Italian and  Japanese beers (there was only one French beer on tap).  Maxine graciously agreed to take the walk over to Trois 8, my other favorite.  It’s less than 10 minutes away from La Fine Mousse and we finished out the evening there.  I had Brasserie de la Goute D’or’s Triple with coffee (a Parisian brewer) and Maxine had some fabulous organic red wine from Languedoc.  I also got a beer t-shirt for my collection.  We had fun talking to the bartender who I mistook for English since he was nearly as tall as I am and spoke English to us with an English (Scottish as it turned out) accent.  Surprisingly, he was French and, when Maxine praised the wine at this beer place, told us they spent a lot of time and effort sourcing wines as good as the beers they pour. 

Our bartender groused about how one of his co-workers at another bar was Scottish and he could only understand “40% of what he said, and we were speaking English”.  And complained about how the city name Edinburgh is pronounced, which struck us as reasonable.  I bring this up to mention something else about languages.  At Bill’s house, I complained about how many French words that either sound or look the same (or are nearly so) actually have different meanings.  One of the other guests, French, pointed out the challenge to the English language word “spring”, which has 4 meanings that we can think of.

A couple more random notes:

1.      The incongruity of hearing a street musician, on the metro playing La Bamba.

2.      The difficulty in figuring people out in a foreign world with limited cues.  On a metro ride I sat across from someone who I wouldn’t have guessed had any money, but was wearing Sennheiser headphones.

3.      The ToiletFinder app is useful if you’re out for a long day.

4.      As I mentioned in a prior blog, Paris retail seems to be changing.  We’ve seen factory outlet stores (Sympa) and Clothing by the Kilo stores.  New concepts for this city it seems to us.

5.      I continue to marvel at the basic level of politeness in seeing younger people give up their seats on the metros and busses for older people.  Does that happen in New York?

Finally, a request to anyone reading this.  Occasionally we get emails from people who are reading the blog.  It’s really great to hear from you and to realize that our friends are following our adventure.  Sometimes surprising.  So, a request…  If you’re reading this and we don’t know it, could you please email one of us?  It really helps to motivate us (and reduces delays in writing).  Thanks!

Thursday Dec 4 – Sunday Dec 7

We’re SO behind on blogging!!!!!

But, first, a request to anyone reading this.  Over the past week we’ve gotten emails from 3 different people who are reading the blog.  It’s really great to hear from you and to realize that our friends are following our adventure.  So, a request…  If you’re reading this and we don’t know it, could you please email one of us?  It really helps to motivate us (and reduces delays in writing).  Thanks!

So, first, LAST Thursday…  Christmas is decidedly in full swing here in Paris.  We read about a “crafts” Xmas sale in the exhibit space adjacent to the Louvre and decided to go there.  We saw some very interesting stuff, actually unique items (unlike what we’ve been seeing at the Christmas markets on the Champs Elysees and elsewhere in the city).  One section had regional crafts and Maxine bought a nice red scarf from the weaver.  So, while neither of us has been to the Louvre Museum yet during this trip, we’ve now been to the shopping mall attached to it.

After that, Maxine and I went in different directions.  My organizing principles, what I was looking to do given the area of Paris that I was starting in, for the rest of the day, were these.  First, Angelina, then the Laguiole store, than the craft beer store.  All three are sort of in a line parallel to (and extending well beyond) the Louvre.  First stop, morning hot chocolate at Angelina.  Two words: Worth it…  It’s incredibly touristic.  Apparently sometimes there are lines out the door to sit there and drink a cup of hot chocolate.  And it costs $10 for a cup of hot chocolate!  But, grudgingly… it’s worth it.

From there, walked towards one of those “sights” I had from our last trip, but didn’t make it to then, the Laguiole knife store.  Got to the address after walking past a number of American brand stores including Levi, Frey Willie (also in Santa Monica!), and Carrhart.  Got to the address and circled around for 15 minutes, trying to find the store, but it wasn’t there.  Note that this is something that historically (meaning any time up till 10 years or so ago) would have been odd in Paris, a store closing down.  But, it had.  We are seeing many signs of France acting more and more like America in that sense, less stable to retail, empty store fronts, sale signs.  Odd for France, but what we’re all certainly used to in the US.

Last stop was La Cave Au Boulles, a beer bottle store.  Really a great experience.  I walked in and stumbled through some French to say that while I do speak some of the language, I don’t really have the vocabulary for beer.  The owner replied in English, “That’s OK, I try to help people in whatever language they do speak, if I can.”  The store was, well, it was something of a candy store for me.  Noting that I had to carry home whatever I bought -- on a 20 minute stand up metro ride along with 10-15 minutes of walking and those final 65 stairs back to the apartment – I limited myself to 4-12 oz beers.  They were: Brasserie Correzenne’s Dordogne Valley IPA (good IPA), Brasserie Bendorf’s Cycle Ephemere 9/Stout a la framboise (not much detectable fruit flavor), Brasserie de la Pigeonnelle’s Pigeonoel (haven’t tried yet), and Brasserie An Alarc’h’s Kerzu Imperial Stout (haven’t tried yet, and it should be noted that at 7% ABV it’s something of a “lite” imperial stout).  All together I spend 13E, which in the craft beer scheme of things, is pretty reasonable.

From Maxine:  After the craft fair, I did some window shopping in the area and had lunch at Le Garde Robe, a wine bar/restaurant.  Even though it’s in a pretty touristic area, it was filled with regulars who greeted each other enthusiastically.  The restaurant had both light and  heavier menus of the day (can’t remember their clever names).  I asked if I could have one item from each for my lunch and they were happy to accommodate.  I really liked the roasted endive with ham appetizer (from the heavier menu) and the marinated salmon with berries, apples and radishes (from the lighter one).  We’ve found that the casual wine bars have some of the most interesting food we’re eating here in Paris.

For dinner, Maxine really humored me!  A beer place, Brewberry.  We even got there early to make sure we could get a table.  Unfortunately, the entire place was closing at 7:30 for a private party.  So, we had a couple beers and had to leave/find another place for dinner.  Which we did.  I had an American Strong Ale collaboration between Brewberry&Tool, Siren Brewing’s Ticklemonster IPA, and Against the Grain Brewing’s Moleram figeram.  Maxine had Destruise’s Blackness Imperial Stout and Naparbier’s Farmer’s Choice.  After that we left, we wandered down rue Mouffetard and decided to have a burrito served by a Peruvian guy in a Mexican restaurant in Paris.  Talk about cognitive dissonance!

Friday involved some catching up (unfortunately not getting to blogs which is why I’m writing about December 5^th on December 15^th).  We did have a great dinner at a place Maxine really wanted to try, Verjus.  From what Maxine read, the people running Verjus previously had a “hidden” restaurant, one of those small dining things in someone’s apartment.  But, with success, they now have a permanent restaurant. And it was the best meal we’ve had in 2 months.  Maxine’s got more commentary on Verjus along with her pictures from our meal.

Saturday we went to the flea market (Marche aux Puces).  It was much more fun than that phrase, “flea market”, sounds.  We were in search of the stand for a guy selling antique French posters.  Previously he had a store in the 7^th arrondissement (see above about stores closing down…) and Maxine bought 2 posters from him in 2001.  Unfortunately he’s no longer operating a stand at the flea market either.  BUT, we did have a great time.  Without cataloging everything we saw, let’s just say we found plenty of things to consider buying but, this trip, we bought nothing other than lunch.

We decided to go to the flea market on the PC3 bus, which travels a route along the Paris peripherique.  What you should know about Paris, what this means, is that we were seeing a very different side of Paris.  In Paris, the expensive stuff is at the center of the city.  And, generally speaking, the poor are pushed to the peripherique, or outskirts, of the city.  It’s a different view of Paris…

“Dinner” amounted to snacking on the Pont des Arts bridge.  Actually quite a fun thing despite the cold weather.  When we were here 8 years ago I heard about these “full moon picnics” on the Pont des Arts bridge, but timing didn’t work for us to attend one.  This time around we did.  Another meetup, with 20-30 people drinking wine (and some schnapps provided by a friend just back from Thanksgiving in Germany), bread, homemade tapenade, and other starches.  We watched the moon come up and talked to people who’ve lived in Paris for years as well as visitors like us.  Then we walked over to a café with our friend Wendy and had a drink with her to continue the evening.

Sunday was the first Sunday of the month and our second chance to visit museums for free.  On Maxine’s recommendation, I started with a walk up the Arc du Triomphe which had me sweating despite the near freezing weather.  Then Maxine and I met up at the Pompidou Center Modern Art Museum.  Maxine’s note:  The permanent exhibit at the Pompidou traces the progression of 20^th century art and was very interesting.  I understand it’s been redone recently and it’s a definite improvement and worth seeing.

Then, despite us both walking miles and miles, we ended the day with dinner at a “salon”, in this case a Storytelling Evening organized by Bernadette Martin.  Met a completely different group of people than we’d seen in any of our other excursions, and listened to a talk about finding angel sculptures throughout the city of Paris.  It was a very enjoyable evening and made us see Paris differently.

Maxine's Pictures December 1-7

We took Emmy out for a drink with us.  Yes, it was a cold night.

On Thursday, I walked by the Hotel de Ville (Paris City Hall) and saw them setting up the ice skating rink in front.

The rue Mouffetard area all decorated for Christmas.

Dinner at Verjus.  Absolutely the best meal we've eaten so far in France!  The pictures (taken without flash so that we didn't disturb other diners) really don't do the meal justice.  Here is what I ate:

Sea scallops from Morlaix with clementines, smoked squash, chili oil and grilled lemon.

Razor clams from Brittany with housemade garganelli pasta, wild arugula, hazelnuts, buttermilk and bay leaf oil

Squid from St. Jean de Luz, squid ink gnocchi, salsify, garlic butter, and piment d'espelette.

Missing pictures (darn--food was too good and I got distracted):
Duck breast with smoked celery root, orange and sauerkraut
Wild boar confit with beetroot chutney, marinated beets and mustard greens

This is a partially eaten picture of aged comte cheese with apple comte bread, tarragon gastrique and apple butter.

Roasted pumpkin cake with egg nog ice cream and bourbon caramel.  Again my photos don't do the meal justice.  They were also very accommodating to Tom's dislike for all things from water.  For every seafood course, they gave him a vegetarian alternative that he raved about.  Unfortunately, I don't have that menu written down.  We're definitely going back to Verjus again while we're in Paris, maybe for New Year's Eve.

Full moon picnic on the Pont des Arts 

Pompidou Center

Tom's Pictures December 8-12

A million years ago my girlfriend came to NJ to spend Xmas with me and my family.  She suggested that from there it was relatively easy to fly on to Paris, so we did that for New Years.  This is the hotel we stayed at all those years ago on my first trip to Europe.  As to the girlfriend, you've seen pictures of her throughout this blog...

The hotel is adjacent to the Pantheon, which looks pretty.  BUT, there's not that much to do in the immediate neighborhood because it's also the area of the Sorbonne and back then school was out for the holidays so the area was desolate.

This picture is from the steps of the Pantheon and looking towards the Eiffel Tower (behind the Xmas trees)

Only France -- "Writers who died for the country"...  (Next few pictures are from inside the Pantheon)

Entrance to the Sorbonne.

Some miscellaneous scenes here in Paris.

The stained glass windows at St. Chapelle.  Most amazing stained glass I've ever seen in my life!

We walked the Ile St. Louis (where Notre Dame is located).

Christmas carol singing outside Shakespeare & Co!!!

Tom's Pictures Dec 1-7

OK, way too long without posting!  Here are the ton of pictures I've accumulated in the past week.  But, they don't even document (unfortunately) half of what we've done in the last week.  Yes, Paris is getting VERY cold.  But, it's still gorgeous and there are many many things to do.

This picture was taken from the mall (yes, that kind of mall) that was built as part of the Louvre expansion in the 80's/90's.  The same expansion that gave the place the pyramid, which is what you see at the far end of this photo (along with Christmas decorations)

Yes, the Da Vinci Code Pyramid.  Here it is up close.

I've mentioned in other blog entries that Adam Gopnik talked about his difficulties in finding a health club in Paris.  They're here now, plenty of them.  Saw this one while out walking and liked the name.

American company in Paris :(  I've blogged before about this -- the internationalization of retail that we've seen...

This next series of pictures is from the Chatelet Metro station.  It's worth repeating -- it's really really fun to be hurriedly making your way through the metro tunnels and, in the distance, to hear classical music.  And then the absolute delight of coming upon this group of musicians playing.  Chatelet is the largest metro stop and listening to this for a few minutes makes changing trains there worth while. 

Place Vendome.  Ritz Hotel is just out of the picture to the right.

Me, bundled up for the weather...

Some pictures from Rue Faubuorg St. Honore, the designer clothing street. lit up for the holidays.

First Sunday of the month the museums and national monuments are free.  Last month Maxine took the climb to the top (!) of the Arc du Triomphe.  Recall that it's very near to our apartment....  This month Maxine persuaded me to make the same climb.  This is the stairwell some of the 380 steps to the top.  The next several pictures are view from the top of the Arc.

Our apartment is somewhere in the center of this photo!

Champs Elysee, with the Grand Palais in the upper right.

On free museum day, I also spend 4 hours at the Pompidou Center, the national Modern Art museum.  It's a mix of classical modern art and more experimental works.  Overall, a very good museum and worth going to, even if you have to pay!